Lima Cantina

Lima Cantina occupies a former stained-glass workshop off Garrick Street, its lofty arched windows, exposed brick and industrial fittings warmed by copper pendants, patterned tiled floors and clusters of greenery. It is the more relaxed sibling to LIMA in Fitzrovia, opened in September 2023 by founders Gabriel and Jose-Luis Gonzalez as a return to the everyday food of the Peruvian capital: ceviche and tiradito, pisco sours, and pollo a la brasa turned on a charcoal rotisserie.

The room reads as a proper Covent Garden dining room rather than a hotel restaurant, livelier at the front by the open kitchen and bar, quieter in the light-filled Loggia at the windows. Upstairs, El Bar keeps its own hours as a cocktail room. The theatre district on the doorstep gives it an easy pre- and post-show rhythm, and the crowd runs from West End regulars to the Peruvian diaspora who come for the pollo.

For private events the whole restaurant can be taken exclusively, seating around a hundred, with the Loggia and El Bar available for smaller gatherings. The space suits a seated dinner that loosens into a standing reception, and the events team quotes on private hire by arrangement.