The standard advice is to book early for everything. The standard advice is wrong. Here is the actual list of which restaurants require advance booking and which do not
By Fiona MacLeod. Reported with help from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The standard travel-guide advice about London restaurants is to book early for everything. The standard advice is, on the basis of fourteen years of actually trying to feed visitors in this city, wrong. The advice produces, in operational terms, substantial unnecessary stress for visitors planning trips, substantial wasted time on apps and email exchanges, and substantial missed opportunities to discover restaurants that are excellent and that do not, in fact, require booking three months in advance.
The actual situation is that London restaurants exist on a four-tier booking spectrum. Each tier has different practical implications for visitors. This article explains the tiers, gives specific examples for each, and tells you when each tier requires which kind of planning.
Tier One: Genuinely Three Months Ahead
Tier one is the small group of restaurants that genuinely require booking three months in advance, sometimes longer. The tier includes, principally, the small number of London restaurants whose chef-led tasting menus have achieved sustained international reputation. The list, currently, includes The Ledbury, Ikoyi, Story, Da Terra, and a small number of others. The tier also includes the principal Sunday lunch services at a small number of restaurants whose roasts have achieved sustained international reputation, including the Sunday lunch at St John Smithfield.
For these restaurants, the advice to book three months ahead is correct. The reservations open at the relevant lead time and fill substantially within the first 24 hours of opening. If you have not booked at three months ahead, you will not, in operational practice, get a table on your dates. There are exceptions, principally on weeknights and during specific quieter calendar periods. The exceptions are exceptions.
The total number of tier-one restaurants in London is, on careful counting, approximately 14. The list shifts gradually over time as restaurants achieve and lose tier-one status. The current list is reasonably stable.
For ongoing coverage of London restaurants, see Time Out London.
Tier Two: Two To Six Weeks Ahead
Tier two is the substantially larger group of restaurants that require booking between two and six weeks in advance. The tier includes, principally, the well-reviewed mid-tier restaurants whose tables fill in advance but whose lead time is not the extreme of tier one. The tier includes a substantial fraction of the restaurants that the standard travel guides recommend, including most of the well-known gastropubs, most of the modern British and European restaurants in central and inner London, and most of the better-known restaurants in food-destination neighbourhoods like Borough Market, Shoreditch, and Marylebone.
Specific examples include Bouchon Racine, Brawn, The Quality Chop House, Lyle’s, Andrew Edmunds, Bocca di Lupo, and approximately 47 others I could list without difficulty. For these restaurants, two to six weeks of lead time is genuinely necessary for the times of your visit. For some of these restaurants, particularly the more popular ones, six weeks is closer to the actual lead time required.
Tier two restaurants are also where most of the cancellation availability happens. If you are flexible and are willing to check booking apps regularly during your trip, you can often get tables at tier-two restaurants on relatively short notice. The cancellation availability is real. The availability is, however, not reliable for specific dates and times.
Tier Three: A Few Days Ahead
Tier three is the substantially larger group of restaurants that require booking a few days in advance for prime times but that have walk-in availability for off-peak times. The tier includes, principally, the well-regarded but less internationally-famous restaurants in inner London, the well-regarded ethnic-cuisine restaurants outside the principal restaurant districts, and most of the better neighbourhood restaurants in residential areas.
For tier three restaurants, the practical advice is to book two to four days in advance for Friday and Saturday dinners, and to walk in for lunches and weekday dinners. The practical advice produces, in operational terms, substantial restaurant access for visitors without requiring the heavy advance planning that tier one and tier two require.
Specific examples of tier three include most of the better restaurants in Stoke Newington, most of the better restaurants in Peckham and East Dulwich, most of the better restaurants in West Hampstead, and substantial fractions of the better restaurants in Greenwich, Walthamstow, and the various inner-suburban areas that the central London tourist circuits do not typically reach.
Tier Four: Walk-In
Tier four is the very large group of restaurants that operate substantially on walk-in availability. The tier includes, principally, the great majority of London restaurants that are not in the upper three tiers. The tier includes most of the area’s casual dining establishments, most of the area’s ethnic-cuisine restaurants, most of the pubs serving food, and most of the area’s lunch-focused operations.
For tier four restaurants, advance booking is, in nearly every case, unnecessary. The operations are calibrated for walk-in trade. The walk-in approach often produces better tables, better staff attention, and substantially less stress than the booking-app approach. The walk-in approach also allows for spontaneity, which is, in some honest accounting, one of the principal pleasures of travel that the over-booking approach systematically eliminates.
What This Means For Trip Planning
What this means for trip planning is that you should, in operational terms, identify the small number of tier-one restaurants you genuinely want to visit and book those three months ahead. You should identify the larger number of tier-two restaurants you would like to visit and book those two to six weeks ahead. You should identify a few tier-three restaurants you would like to visit and book those a few days ahead, ideally during the trip itself. You should leave substantial room in your itinerary for tier-four walk-ins.
The tier-four walk-ins will, in many cases, be the best meals of your trip. The tier-one and tier-two meals will be the most memorable in their specific way, but the tier-four discoveries will, in nearly every case, produce the kind of London restaurant experiences that you will remember most fondly five years later. Plan for both. Do not plan only for the upper tiers.
An ongoing analysis at The London Standard has covered the broader London restaurant landscape.
The Specific Apps To Use
The specific apps to use for the upper-tier bookings are the restaurants’ own booking systems for tier one, OpenTable or Resy for most of tier two, SevenRooms for some of tier two, and the restaurants’ own websites or phone numbers for tier three. The apps differ in which restaurants they cover. Most tier-two and many tier-three restaurants accept reservations through multiple apps simultaneously. Use whichever app you find easiest to navigate.
The specific apps not to use are the aggregator apps that promise instant booking across substantial restaurant inventories. These apps frequently show availability that does not, in operational practice, exist. Confirm any reservation through the restaurant’s own channels before treating it as confirmed.
The Final Practical Note
The final practical note is that the booking landscape in London changes substantially across calendar periods. The peak tourist seasons of June through August and the December holiday period have substantially tighter availability across all tiers. The post-Christmas period through approximately mid-February has substantially better availability. The shoulder seasons of March through May and September through November are intermediate. Plan your booking lead times relative to the calendar period of your visit.
If your visit is during the peak season, add approximately one tier of advance planning to the recommendations above. If your visit is during the post-Christmas quiet period, you can substantially reduce the advance planning. The variance is real. Plan accordingly. More from Fiona MacLeod.
Related at Reductress.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/london-restaurants-when-to-book/
