Café Royal Grill

The Grill Room opened with the Café Royal in 1865 and still wears its Louis XVI interior: mirrored walls, plaster caryatids carrying a gold-leafed cornice, and painted panels set into the ceiling. Oscar Wilde held court here, and the hotel's own history puts Winston Churchill, Brigitte Bardot and Diana, Princess of Wales among the later regulars. The room moved to its present position beside the historic lobby in the 1920s, inside what is now a Grade II-listed building on Regent Street.

For most of the past decade the room was known chiefly for afternoon tea. In June 2025, marking the restaurant's 160th year, it returned to lunch and dinner under Kevin Gratton, previously of Scott's and Le Caprice. The cooking is British and grill-led, built around named producers, and it keeps a chicken and bacon pie that has been passed chef to chef since the restaurant's early years. Two cocktails are taken from the Café Royal Cocktail Book of 1937. A grand piano stands at the centre of the room, and live classical, jazz and acoustic sets run through lunch, tea and dinner.

Taken whole, the room seats fifty-four or holds seventy-five standing, and is available for private hire through the house. Red leather tub chairs, white linen and low table lamps sit beneath all that gilding, so the room dresses itself; there is little a private party needs to add.