Cédric Grolet at The Berkeley

Cédric Grolet chose The Berkeley for his first patisserie outside France, opening on Valentine's Day 2022 as the third address after Le Meurice and Opéra in Paris. The pastry chef is known for trompe-l'oeil fruit and flower creations built to look exactly like the thing they are made of, and the London maison is where he makes them: a working patisserie run as an open lab, designed by Rémi Tessier in white stone and gold leaf, with a gilded ceiling, the Grolet flower mark on the wall and Hyde Park framed through the windows.

The boutique counter is the heart of it. Pastries and viennoiseries are finished on-site in limited daily numbers and sold to take away, while the Chef's Counter runs a tasting experience at the lab itself. Alongside sits the Berkeley Café, a light-filled room of cream bouclé banquettes, cane chairs and burr-wood panelling that serves breakfast through the day and the Goûtea, the house reading of afternoon tea where the pastry work replaces the usual cake stand.

This is a patisserie and café rather than a private-hire venue, and its events offer is correspondingly light: the Chef's Counter can be booked for a tasting, the café takes reservations, and the kitchen makes celebration and wedding cakes to order. There is no dedicated private dining room or full buyout product published. For a client it reads as an intimate, design-led setting for a small daytime gathering or a bespoke-cake commission, arranged through the hotel, rather than a room for a DJ-led party.