Cecconi's Mayfair

Cecconi's opened on Burlington Gardens in 1978, after Enzo Cecconi left the Hotel Cipriani in Venice for London. It closed in 1999 and reopened in 2005, once Soho House had taken ownership and Ilse Crawford's StudioIlse rebuilt the interiors: black-and-white marble laid in stripes, green leather and tufted velvet, Murano mirrors, and a long horseshoe bar that the whole room arranges itself around. The studio's stated brief was to echo the grand cafés of the Veneto.

It runs all day, from breakfast through aperitivo to dinner, seven days a week, and sits directly behind the Royal Academy, which has kept the art trade at its tables for four decades. Several dishes are finished by the waiter at the table — the reason the room reads as theatre rather than as a dining room.

For private events the restaurant offers two things: exclusive hire of the whole space, taking the dining room, the bar and the pavement terrace together; and a semi-private table at the back of the room, seating eight to twelve behind a curtain. Both are arranged through the restaurant's own team.