Arlington

Jeremy King reopened this corner of Arlington Street in March 2024, on the exact site where he and Chris Corbin ran Le Caprice from 1981. The room is a deliberate act of restoration rather than reinvention: mirrored walls, chrome art-deco fittings, cane Thonet-style chairs and white lacquered panelling, hung with David Bailey's black-and-white portraits of the cast of characters who used to eat here. General manager Jesus Adorno, who served the original Le Caprice for close to four decades, returned to run the floor.

The kitchen keeps to King's register of modern European and British classics, served without fuss to a room that reads as much West End as St James's — a piano plays through service, and the long bar at one end of the dining room draws its own crowd before and after the tables turn. It has quickly become one of the harder reservations in the neighbourhood, in the way its predecessor once was.

Private hire is modest and specific: a semi-private alcove seating up to eight, tucked within the main room rather than partitioned from it. It suits a dinner among friends more than a full private event, and there is no confirmed exclusive hire of the wider restaurant.