Venues in Kensington
Kensington’s private venues combine cultural richness with a residential feel — perfect for occasions that call for something understated.
Kitchen W8
Kensington — Modern British Restaurant
Up to 60 guests
Michelin-starred neighbourhood restaurant in Kensington with a private dining room for 14 and full exclusive hire for up to 60.
Leighton House
Kensington — Event Space
Up to 150 guests
The former studio-house of the Victorian painter Lord Leighton, built around the gilded, tile-lined Arab Hall. Available for exclusive whole-house hire for dinners, receptions and weddings.
Clarke's
Kensington — British Restaurant
Up to 41 guests
Sally Clarke's Kensington Church Street institution, open since 1984. Its panelled Wine Room takes intimate private lunches, dinners and receptions for up to 40.
Jacuzzi
Kensington — Italian Restaurant
Up to 170 guests
A four-floor Italian trattoria in a former Kensington bank, built around a ground-floor lemon tree and a retractable-roofed mezzanine bar.
Design Museum
Kensington — Event Space
Up to 800 guests
A hyperbolic-roofed former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, its triple-height atrium and museum galleries available for private hire.
Serpentine Galleries
Kensington — Gallery
Up to 500 guests
Two Grade II-listed sites in Kensington Gardens, hired for private events among contemporary art, with an architect-designed summer Pavilion each June to October.
Royal Garden Hotel
Kensington — Hotel
Up to 800 guests
Facing Kensington Gardens since 1965, with a pillar-free ballroom that holds 800 for a reception and divides in two, plus two restaurants and a piano bar across eleven bookable spaces.
The Belvedere
Kensington — Italian Restaurant
Up to 200 guests
A landmark garden restaurant in the former summer ballroom of Holland House, serving Italian food beneath the trees of Holland Park.
Kensington Palace
Kensington — Event Space
Up to 300 guests
Queen Anne's 1704 Orangery, in its own gardens, takes 300 for a reception, with the State Apartments alongside it for drinks. The Orangery is the only space at the palace licensed for dancing.
Japan House London
Kensington — Event Space
Up to 170 guests
A cultural institution behind an Art Deco facade on Kensington High Street, with a transformable lower-ground hall, a library and a tatami room. Hire is limited to Corporate Members and to organisations that support and promote Japanese culture, society and business.
/ About Kensington▾
Kensington grew from a village on the road west out of London into one of the capital's grander residential quarters, its wealth signalled by long runs of white stucco terrace and a scatter of embassies. Its defining building is Kensington Palace, the two-storey Jacobean house of 1605 that William III and Mary bought in 1689 as a retreat from the damp of the Thames, and which Christopher Wren was then set to enlarge. To the west, Holland Park takes its name and shape from Holland House, a country house begun in 1605 as Cope Castle; gutted by German firebombing in 1940, its surviving east wing and ruined arcades still stand among the park's woodland and formal gardens.
The area's character for gatherings is set by museums and by the studio-houses of the Victorian artists who settled here. Leighton House on Holland Park Road was the home and studio of the painter Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830–1896), whose domed Arab Hall of 1877 was built to hold a collection of Middle Eastern tiles; it has been open as a museum since 1900. On Kensington High Street, the Design Museum occupies the former Commonwealth Institute, a Grade II* listed building of the 1960s, reopened in this home in 2016.
Kensington High Street carries the shops and restaurants, while Holland Park offers a rare stretch of quiet green, its Kyoto Garden and wooded walks a short step from the traffic. Grand hotels and stucco townhouses line the residential streets behind, and the diplomatic presence lends whole blocks an unusual calm. High Street Kensington station sits on the Circle and District lines, with Kensington (Olympia) close by for rail, placing the quarter within easy reach of the West End and Heathrow alike.