There’s been a great deal of chatter around earlier restaurant reservations lately, with data from the online bookings service OpenTable highlighting an 11 per cent rise in 6pm tables across London. Gen Z’s healthier lifestyles – less booze, earlier nights, sunrise gym sessions – has been blamed by some, so too our post-pandemic world. With more people working from home and skipping long commutes, how people socialise has changed.
It’s a trend echoed around the UK. The hospitality tech group Zonal reported the new national average dining time is 6.12pm and chefs and restaurateurs have reacted, adapted. One, Joe Laker from Counter 71 in Old Street, recently introduced a £50 early evening set menu. It’s true that pre-theatre options have long been par for the course in busy cities but night owls might be worrying — will there be anywhere left for them to perch with such an emphasis on the early birds?
They needn’t fret. Plenty of chefs and restaurateurs are going the other way, instead looking to attract those who wish to dine late and then head to one of London’s numerous late-night bars rather than go home at 9pm, put on a face mask and ready themselves for yoga.
One is Rita’s in Soho, newly embellished with a “10 for 10” deal: diners who book after 10pm will qualify for £10 cocktails (margaritas are a popular choice); it’s a happy hour for the dedicated. Another is Michelin-starred Mountain, which has pushed its latest reservation slot back to 10.30pm.
Its chef-founder Tomos Parry tells the Standard: “We noticed a lot of people coming in post-theatre, or after art shows, a lot later. They want somewhere to go. It doesn’t necessarily mean our staff get home later than planned because we stagger shifts and we keep that balance.
“We always wanted to open later. We’re a restaurant in Soho. It’s like New York. [We want to be] somewhere to go later on, hang out with friends, have something to eat and a drink. It’s great.”
Beyond Soho and there are countless other restaurants operating more expansive hours. Decimo, the chef Peter Sanchez-Iglesias’ restaurant on the 10th floor of the Standard hotel in King’s Cross, introduced a post-11pm menu to cater for the “one more glass of Champagne” crowd. It’s the same story at the Dover in Mayfair, where Bono might pass by Margot Robbie at the bar before Ed Sheeran swings by for a 1am martini (best enjoyed with a mini hotdog).
“London has always been an amazing city for late-night drinking and dining,” owner Martin Kuczmarski tells the Standard. “I think after the pandemic, two groups of people got lazy – customers, who started staying home and watching Netflix, and operators, who became used to closing early.
“There were always a few people who wanted to go out, but they had nowhere to go. And so they stopped too. Which meant operators who were intent on staying open late ended up closing earlier, thinking there was no demand.
“When I opened the Dover, I was determined to bring back late-night dining. Early in the week, you can eat until 11pm, and on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, until midnight or 1am. I think London is coming back – it just takes people who want to drive that change. And people want it. We’re always busy later on, there’s an international, old school crowd. A bit naughty.”
Another harbinger of this old school enthusiasm is hospitality stalwart Jeremy King, who, after a brief hiatus, returned to the scene with Arlington and The Park in 2024. Long a proprietor of establishments that wouldn’t look out of place in an Edward Hopper painting, King remembers the excess of the 1980s, when artists, writers and actors of all kinds would turn up to dine past midnight. He sought to rekindle a past edge this year with a 25 per cent discount for those who book after 9.45pm, explaining: “I don’t fully understand why it happened but I’m determined to redress the situation”.
Though a new-age reticence for late night frivolity is starkly apparent, those bemoaning London’s lack of New York flair and dismissing its credentials ought to better acquaint themselves with the options. London is, and can be, a city that never sleeps. It’s merely a matter of knowing where to go.
Bar Italia is a Soho institution and dishes out ciabatta sandwiches until 4am, a public service to the fiercely inebriated, while the branch of Meatliqor near Oxford Circus serves burgers and hotdogs until 2.30am. In the City, Los Mochis takes order up until 11.30pm and it’s the same nearby at the Ivy Asia.
Soho or Chinatown are especially good for those with designs on nocturnal pursuits. Speedboat is a thriving Thai sports bar that accepts bookings until 10.30pm and offers a booze-dampening menu until 12.30am at weekends. And that’s child’s play compared to places like Noodle and Beer and Opium in Chinatown, which stay open until 3 or 4am. Balans on Old Compton Street goes even further: you can sit down to dine right up to 5am on Wednesdays and Thursdays and until 6am come Friday.
It’s fair to say that London suffers from restrictive licensing laws, busy residents and high rents. It’s also difficult that many diners have less to spend in 2025 and good staff are hard to find. And let’s not get into the pedestrianisation debate. Or the weather.
But like Berlin and Bangkok, Paris and NYC, London is frenetic and feverish, full of creativity and fun. And there are bars, restaurants and hotels ready and willing to cater for those who don’t mind all that much if they look a little bleary eyed in the morning. For all the 6pm bookings, the capital is open and willing.
“Compared to a lot of places, kitchens tend to shut early in London,” says Andrea Ascuiti, whose Shoreditch pizzeria 081 stays open until 1am. “But there are places that are more continental. There’s demand for them. We get another rush around 11pm and people can stay until past midnight, have a drink, chill and have a pizza, just like in Italy.”
