Restaurants with the best Tasting Menus in London
Strap yourself in and prepare to taste
This is it... this is the mother-load, the end of the rainbow, this is a restaurant's chef show-boating and laying before you the very best their kitchen can produce. But it's more than just one, great stand-alone dish: it's an entire journey. It's a meticulously-planned tour through tastes, textures, smells, temperature, design and technique.
Tasting menus can include anything up to 11 or 12 courses (and can take 3 or 4 hours to demolish), but don't think that you'll be bloated; this is all part of the skill: balancing richness and freshness to keep your satiety on the edge of its seat for the next course.
Even with such an abundance of skill and volume of produce a tasting menu doesn't necessarily have to break the bank, our list of London's Best Tasting Menus below, includes something for every wallet.
Dabbous
39 Whitfield Street W1T 2SF
It’s easy to run out of superlatives when describing the food at Ollie Dabbous’ first restaurant. The best way to experience it is with the well-priced tasting menu, which is £59 per person.
Tucked behind the champagne and hotdogs concept Bubbledogs, Kitchen Table offers a menu of 12-14 courses that varies each day according to what catch or produce is available. Dishes are described by one word - ‘goat’, ‘scallop’, and ‘rhubarb’ may appear on the menu, leaving you guessing as to what’s been cooked up.
Maze
10-13 Grosvenor Square W1K 6JP
The tasting menu at Maze offers five courses of Japanese-inspired food, plus a choice of very English desserts. Priced at £70 for a menu that includes sushi, sea bass with truffle oil and lobster dumpling, it’s very good value for a Gordon Ramsay restaurant.
HKK
88 Worship Street EC2A 2BE
Part of the Hakkasan stable, HKK offers 15 courses of Cantonese delicacies prepared by Tong Chee Hwee, himself formerly of Hakkasan. Dishes include Jasmine tea-smoked Wagyu beef and monk fish noodles with truffle sauce.
Pierre Gagnaire’stasting menus focus on textures and smells as much as on flavour. The 7 course selection is £95, with a separate option for vegetarians.
Choose from the fish, the Scandinavian or the standard tasting menus (although the latter is anything but standard), and sample Icelandic-inspired dishes such as lightly salted cod with avocado, brandade, chorizo and squid.
