Restaurant guide Harden's says there are a growing number of £200-plus per head restaurants in London.
The respected restaurant guide is releasing the 30th edition of Harden’s London Restaurants –its 2022 publication – next week. Its accompanying analysis found London restaurants have suffered their weakest growth in the last 30 years, and perhaps been in a period of contraction due to record closures in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The guide found 149 new eateries opened each year over the last two years with closures at a rate of 125 per year over same time. The pandemic prevented the publication of Harden's 2021 edition, so it is using two years of averaged data.
It found the price of eating out in London continues to rise above the rate of inflation, with the increase most marked amongst expensive restaurants (over £100 per head). In this category, the price of a meal grew by nearly 9% on an annualised basis. "There has also been a marked change in restaurants for which the guide’s formula price is over £200 per head," it said. There are now seven restaurants that fall in this super luxury category: Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, The Araki, Endo at Rotunda, Ikoyi, Kitchen Table, Mãos and Sketch (Lecture Room), up from just one restaurant, The Araki, in its 2020 edition. The number of restaurants with a price over £150 per head has also more than doubled from nine to 24.
Harden's calculates the per head price of a restaurant by assuming a bottle of house wine shared between two people, and if only a tasting menu is available, then it uses the cheapest of those.
