Pont St, in upmarket Belgravia, bills itself as the "ultimate all-day dining experience" – you can start things off with a pancake breakfast, nip in for a business lunch, or go all out in the evening with the à la carte menu. Food is modern European – not tethered to one style, but all fresh and seasonal – and it's decent value, too (the set menu's £30 for three courses) – a rarity for this part of town.
With the success of Jason Atherton's restaurant group showing absolutely no signs of slowing down, it comes as no surprise that Berner's Tavern – located at the beautiful London EDITION Hotel in Fitzrovia – is talked about as one of the best hotel restaurants in the city. The menu's contemporary British, the room is stunning, and it's gained a killer new brunch menu, too.
Any new restaurant at the Lanesborough hotel has high standards to uphold, and here, there's the sense that French hospitality in a resolutely British setting, as per Céleste, is the perfect fit. Food is served with a typically French flourish, staff lifting the cloches in sync – and if you can stretch to £120 for the tasting menu with wines, it's worth it.
"Michel who?" said no one, ever. That's right – after enjoying massive success with Roux at the Landau (as well as keeping some restaurant or other in Mayfair ticking along), Michel Roux Jr has brought his brand of utterly equisite French/British cooking to the Langham with the relaunch of Palm Court. Expect the kind of food that made the man famous, executed by head chef Chris King.
Bethnal Green's Town Hall Hotel is blessed with not one, but two fantastic restaurants. Lee Westcott's Typing Room took over from Nuno Mendes's Viajante, and evidently the competition's no bad thing: chef John Christie has an inventive and sensitive way with seasonal British ingredients, with winter menu items like squirrel terrine, and fillet of red deer with maple-smoked pear.
The Ace Hotel has been quietly building an excellent-if-slightly-hipsterish hotel empire. The Manhattan outpost houses the excellent Breslin, and if you wade through the beards and MacBooks that line the lobby in the Ace Hotel Shoreditch, you'll find the equally superb Hoi Polloi, a modern British brasserie that serves artful, colourful, vibrant plates and cocktails alongside the inevitable brunch.
