Eating out is increasingly expensive, but that’s no reason to fall back into Wagamama’s flavourless arms or lean yet again on Nando’s, where the chicken, once enjoyable, has become so dry it’s as if it’s been cooked in a Richard Ayoade joke.
Because look at all this – set menus and deals at some of London’s best restaurants. Sausages at Noble Rot, steak at Hawksmoor, moules mariniere at Claude Bosi’s Josephine.
Here you’ll find an ever-updated list of prime set menus, each one joyfully accessible. Below are 20 restaurants but more are on the way.
Akara, Borough
Akara is the more casual and carefree sibling to the Michelin-starred West African restaurant Akoko but is as much a dutiful nod to the region’s culinary nous and its growing popularity in the London food bubble. The restaurant takes its name from a black-eyed bean fritter from West Africa, a dish that is also popular in Brazil, where it’s known as acarajé. It is the starter on the £25 set lunch – filled with either barbecued tiger prawns or roast celeriac – before a main course of Lagos chicken, smoked mackerel or king oyster mushrooms with efik and carrot rice. Coconut and lime sorbet to finish is an extra £4.
Sune, Hackney
This little restaurant on Broadway Market might be best known for its croque monsieur these days. It comes topped with beef tartare and fermented red pepper seasoning and there are only five available per day: very much one for the ‘gram, but good enough to justify the hype. Failing that, there’s a classic set menu, with dishes such as cured trout with tomatoes, capers and dill, and roast pork loin with charred greens and peppercorn sauce.
129A Pritchard’s Road, E2 9AP, Sune.restaurant
Berners Tavern, Fitzrovia
Berners Tavern at the London Edition is set up well for the pre-theatre crowd, a chic hangout in the centre of town where British food is served in a grand old room. It might be best enjoyed later on when there’s candlelight and live music, but the early menu – between 5-6.30pm – offers promise, not least because it’s available all week bar Sundays. Think prawn cocktail, roast chicken, and raspberry and chocolate opera cake.
10 Berners Street, W1T 3NP, bernerstavern.com
Langan’s, Mayfair
Any credible brasserie will do a prix fixe menu and this is true at Langan’s, which relaunched in 2021 with designs on rekindling the glory days of the Seventies and Eighties. Michael Caine is no longer in situ but old school favourites are. The set menu – available at lunch and post-9pm for dinner – is especially generous thanks to the inclusion of yellowfin tuna with black truffle as a starter. Otherwise there’s chicken liver parfait with toasted brioche or pea panna cotta and asparagus. Main courses might include seasonal risotto, liver and bacon or salmon with beurre blanc, while desserts are fun, fruity and meringue-based.
Stratton Street, London W1J 8LB, langansbrasserie.com
Paradise, Soho
Cost-wise, this is far punchier than many of the others on the list, but deserves its place because it might be the best example of contemporary Sri Lankan in London right now. The price tag also brings a veritable feast, one where the nuances of Sinhalese cuisine are brought to Rupert Street with diligence and aplomb. The menu meanders from green chilli custard to potato and sambol, crab curry to beef with beetroot dal and okra; the paneer and Tunworth cornetto is probably one of the finest morsels this side of the Indian ocean. It is sensational cooking, explorative, fiery and educational, and if value is all, this is it.
61 Rupert Street, W1D 7PW, paradisesoho.com
The Portrait, Trafalgar Square
Richard Corrigan opened Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery in the summer of 2023, a light, breezy brasserie on the top floor with “Mary Poppins views” and to punctuate any perusal of fine art below. The set menu is a triumph, a standout, and available for lunch and early dinner throughout the week. Starters include white onion soup or smoked salmon with pomegranate and fennel, while mains could be orecchiette with wild garlic and basil, or classic fried cod alongside homemade tartare sauce. Sides – mash, chips, salads and veg – are extra and all at £6.
2 St Martin's Place, WC2H 0HE, theportraitrestaurant.com
Noble Rot, Soho
At Noble Rot’s Soho outpost is a set weekday lunch menu of satisfying design, one that brings the comfort of affordable pan-European cooking much as any bistro in some unremarkable but charming Continental town square, one with elegant, once-bombed out flagstones, colourful awnings and some sort of fountain. There might be a hefty Morteau sausage perched on braised lentils or a rich goulash that would please even a Hungarian farmer called Ivan.
2 Greek Street, W1D 4NB, noblerot.co.uk
Chishuru, Fitzrovia
Few Michelin-starred restaurants in London are as accessible as Chishuru, Joke Bakare’s groundbreaking West African restaurant that moved to the West End two years ago. Though the modern iteration is a world away from her first site, a casual, canteen-like space in Brixton Village, the food remains affordable and this is no truer than in the £45 set lunch. Starters include sinasir, a fermented rice cake with butternut squash and chilli; main courses include the likes of char-grilled guinea fowl with celeriac, jalapeno and an egusi (bean) sauce. A little pricier than everything else on the list, but it’s top cooking and vital in London.
3 Great Titchfield Street, W1W 8AX, chishuru.com
Carousel, Fitzrovia
Carousel is best known as an incubator space, somewhere for visiting chefs to come and wow Londoners with their foreign charms. Don’t forget that it’s as much a wine bar and its own restaurant, one with an excellent lunch deal between Tuesday and Saturday, 12-3pm. Starters might include sea bream ceviche with asparagus or a juicy tomato salad; later on, lamb belly with gooseberries and chilli salsa or crab rice with lime and curry leaves.
19-23 Charlotte Street, W1T 1RW, carousel-london.com
Korean Dinner Party, Soho
Inspired by Koreatown in Los Angeles, Korean Dinner Party rolled into Soho with all the irreverence and flippancy required of a fun dining spot in Kingly Court. The vibe is east-meets-west: kitsch cocktails, traditional sake and new-Asian hip hop. As for the food, a £15 set lunch combines a choice of one pickledog and one order of Korean-style tacos, or there’s a classic, bubbling and spicy stew of kimchi, enoki mushrooms, tofu and egg yolk with brown rice as a main (a solid dish, especially when hungover). Go on Tuesdays, and there’s a taco special, with three offered with all the sides for £22. But even the full Seoul-to-Soho tasting menu comes out well, costing just £35.
Top Floor, Kingly Court, Carnaby, W1B 5PW, koreandinnerparty.com
Artusi, Peckham
Artusi, Peckham’s hit Italian restaurant – now with a site in Soho, too – has had one of the best deals around for years. On Sundays, between noon-4pm, diners may enjoy a veritable feast for under £30, one that brings top ingredients cooked well. When on, the smoked cod’s roe with polenta and a fried quail’s egg is superb, so too any number of pasta dishes. Desserts vary, but there’s always homemade ice cream, happily.
161 Bellenden Road, SE15 4DH, artusi.co.uk
Josephine, Fulham
There's a fair argument to suggest this is one of the best deals around in London. A generous bit of Lyonnaise cooking, from Claude Bosi’s team no less, for £16.50. During the week, every day brings something new, whether slow-cooked veal with pilaf rice or a classic moules mariniere. Otherwise, try the menu de canut, which has the famous aucisson brioche as well as andouillette. There are affordable wines, too. No wonder the restaurant is set for expansion (not just Marylebone).
315 Fulham Road, SW10 9QH, josephinebistro.com
Bistro Freddie, Shoreditch
Bistro Freddie was one of London’s standout launches in 2023, arriving in Shoreditch as an elegant, traditional restaurant and going all in on the candles and white linen. The express set is available during weekday lunch times and brings simple but enjoyable dishes like smoked mackerel on toast, steak tartare and cod with tomatoes. It’s a lovely space, with good service.
Bistro Freddie, 74 Luke Street, EC2A 4PY, bistrofreddie.com
The Pelican, Notting Hill
One of a growing number of pubs under the Public House umbrella, The Pelican is the original, a Notting Hill spot favoured by the ‘slebs. The group can do no wrong, it seems – the coolest place in town in the Fat Badger, superb pasta at Canteen, a multi-floored parlour of romance at the Hero. And that’s without its countryside bolthole, the Bull at Charlbury, now under the stewardship of the brilliant Sally Abe. The Pelican’s set menu is an affordable point of reconnaissance in all this, with dishes such as cod cheeks with curry sauce, confit duck leg, and sticky toffee pudding.
45 All Saints Road, Notting Hill, W11 1H, thepelicanw11.com
Kolamba East, Shoreditch
Kolamba opened a second branch last year, launching in Shoreditch after seeing success in Soho. Budding restaurateurs Eroshan and Aushi Meewella were early to London’s newly buzzing Sri Lankan trend. They draw on home cooking and childhood dishes in Colombo at the restaurant, so expect the likes of idli with sambar, charred coconut chicken and spinach dhal when dining. These are among many more on the set lunch menu.
12 Blossom Street, E1 6PL, kolamba.co.uk
Bistrot at Wild Honey, St James’s
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The prix fixe menu runs from noon until 6.45pm during the week at Bistrot at Wild Honey, the casual restaurant at the excellent Sofitel hotel on Pall Mall. A measured and collected sideline to chef Antony Demetre’s Michelin-starred flagship Wild Honey, the bistrot brings solid French cooking in the likes of spring potatoes with garlic velouté and duck egg, though is not confined to France. There might be cottage pie on alongside rigatoni with beef shin ragu.
6 Waterloo Place, SW1Y 4AN, wildhoneylondon.co.uk
The Ninth, Fitzrovia
Michelin-starred food from the chef Jun Tanaka, for under £40? It’s a good deal, especially when a main course on the a la carte is likely to be north of that sum. The lunch deal isn’t a pared-back menu either, really. Starters include sea bream carpaccio and sedani (a wildly underused pasta shape) with pork ragu; main courses stroll from hake with cannellini beans to bouncy wild garlic risotto. It’s all tremendous stuff.
22 Charlotte Street, W1T 2NB, theninthlondon.com
Hawksmoor, multiple locations
It is a diligent and impressive mechanism, the set menu, and Hawksmoor nails it like Bob the Builder after a bottle of decent Merlot. Starters are gracious – the mackerel salad precedes steak well – and then up comes the rump with chips, the latter fried in beef dripping, don’t forget. As for puddings, there isn’t much point in deviating from the peanut butter shortbread, but whatever you get, it’ll be good.
Multiple locations, thehawksmoor.com
The Devonshire, Soho
The Devonshire keeps the price of its set menu remarkably low thanks to doing one thing (per course) and doing it right. For £25, a prawn and langoustine cocktail before steak and chips with bearnaise sauce. Spend an extra £4 plus service and there’s a sticky toffee pudding for good measure. Last year’s mad hype has turned into a place with a loyal following for good reason.
The Devonshire, 17 Denman Street, W1D 7HW, devonshiresoho.co.uk
BAO, multiple locations
BAO has become synonymous with affordable modern dining in London, a JKS Restaurants standout now seven years old. The BAO 15, available between 12-6pm on weekdays, is as much a star in a busy sky: the deal varies site-to-site, but reliably brings a bao, a snack (xiao chi; often fried chicken or a vegetarian alternative) and a noodle dish for just £15, while at some sites two additional pieces of Taiwanese fried chicken are available for an extra £3.50. Don’t think the menu options are restrictive, either – among the snacks are lamb dumplings or smacked cucumber, and the prawn bao, a true classic, is included too.
Across London, baolondon.com
