It is lunchtime in centralLondonand hungry patrons are filing into the newly crowned best restaurant in the country.
This time, it is not a sparsely furnished warehouse conversion where you have to squint to see your natural wine. Nor is it a buzzy A-list hotspot, where the chefs will vet your social media before you have even arrived.
Instead, it is the Ritz: the 119-year-old British institution where denim is outlawed, etiquette is king and selfies are met with a disapproving frown.
Hailed the best restaurant in the UK this week by the National Restaurant awards, the hallowed dining hall of one of London’s grandest hotels harks back to a time of heavy tablecloths and silver service, straight-backed chairs and seven courses.
A meal at the Mayfair hotel, whose gilded restaurant is as renowned for its stringent dress code (men are expected to wear a jacket and tie) as its £62 crêpe suzette, was described by the competition’s judges as a “wonderful and memorable assault on the senses”.
But what do its patrons, who come from far and wide to sample the beef wellington and hay-aged Bresse duck servedarts de la table, really think?
“It’s second to none – there’s nothing else like it,” says Yvonne Robertson, a 55-year-old fitness instructor from Glasgow who came last year and is now back for a photograph under the hotel’s arches.
“It’s first class – a whole-day experience. We got all dolled up and were in there for hours.”
It is no wonder that for many it is a once-in-a-lifetime trip: the restaurant’s three-course lunch menu rings in at £92, while the five-course à la carte dining experience will set you back £199 (throw in another £700 if you want the prestige wine pairing).
“It’s not cheap,” admitted the competition judges, “but when eating at this level of luxury you wouldn’t expect it to be.”
Robertson’s companion, Audrey O’Neill, an administrator, is inclined to agree. “It’s exceptional,” she says. Just try not to drop anything on the floor. “My champagne glass fell off the table – I was mortified,” she says, laughing. The waiters came to her assistance faster than you could say: “White gloves.”
In the hotel lobby, which smells like fresh peonies, French perfume and, well, money, even the hotel’s youngest patron is enamoured of the chandeliers and soft piano music. “It’s her first trip to the Ritz,” says 38-year-old Marie-Claire Lowry, motioning to her baby daughter, Marlie, who is propped happily on an ornate green sofa with a crumbled scone.
“Everything is pristine,” says Lowry, who is treating her mother, Janice Lowry, to a “posh cup of tea” for her 74th birthday. They will not quite make it all the way into what the judges called “London’s most decadent dining room” this time, but will definitely be back.
“We dropped something of the baby’s on the floor and we’re not even worried because it’s probably so clean,” she says. “Even my hands smell amazing from the soap in the bathrooms.”
Headed by the executive chef, John Williams, the historic dining room – visited by prime ministers and princesses, and painted in a pink colour palette designed to complement a lady’s blush – was quietly awarded its second Michelin star in February. Now, it has beaten Notting Hill’s celebrity favouritethe Ledburyto be crowned best in show.
Not everyone, though, is quite so charmed by its grandeur.
“I had a very nice beef wellington,” says Clayton Such, a 44-year-old chief executive from San Francisco. “But I’m not sure it’s thebestrestaurant in the UK. I think the whole vibe of the Ritz … is people who want to pretend to be wealthy versus just being wealthy.”
It did not help that he was politely but firmly told to put on a jacket and tie for dinner when he wandered down from his hotel room in a short-sleeved shirt. “It definitely seems like a place where people want to put on airs,” he says.