
/ About
The National Portrait Gallery reopened on St Martin's Place in June 2023 after a three-year, £41m rebuild by Jamie Fobert Architects: a new Weston Wing, a reworked public forecourt, and nine redisplayed galleries carrying more than 1,100 portraits, a third more than before it closed. Exclusive hire runs across three floors of the Grade I-listed building, from the gold-lit Ondaatje Main Hall at the entrance to the salon-hung reds of Gallery 18 and the 17th and 18th Century Galleries, the navy intimacy of the Tudor rooms, and the contemporary top-lit spaces of the Weston Wing. Every wall carries a sitter (Elizabeth I in ermine, the Brontës in oil, the century's most photographed faces), so a dinner here is staged inside the collection rather than beside it.
Below ground, Larry's occupies the old Victorian vaults, a brick-arched, red-fronted bar built for cocktail receptions rather than a formal seating plan, run by Daisy Green Collection alongside Audrey Green, the ground-floor café. Up on the fourth floor, The Portrait Restaurant by Richard Corrigan, in partnership with Searcys, takes the best view in the building: a glass-walled dining room looking straight down Whitehall to the London Eye. Hire is exclusive, Monday to Thursday evenings from 6.45pm, with the whole Main Gallery bookable as a single reception across all three floors for the rare event that needs the full building.
/ Rooms Available
17th and 18th Century Galleries
Exclusive HireNine adjoining rooms on the third floor devoted to Restoration society, hung floor to cornice with portraits from the period. Sold as a single reception space or broken into smaller adjoining rooms for a more intimate gathering, with a top-lit skylit room at its centre.
Ondaatje Main Hall
Exclusive HireThe atrium at the Gallery's main entrance — the first space every guest walks into. A contemporary, top-lit hall with a projected portrait mural and a curved gold reception desk, built to hold branded launches, product reveals and standing receptions rather than a seated dinner.
Victorian Galleries
Exclusive HireA long top-lit corridor gallery on the second floor, its walls dense with Victorian portraiture, arched doorways framing the view down its full length. Suits a long formal dinner more than any other room in the building — the table can run the corridor's length under a single sightline.
Gallery 18
Exclusive HireA single salon-hung room on the third floor, portraits stacked floor to ceiling against deep red walls in the Georgian manner — Exhibition Culture from 1750 to the 1850s. The Gallery's own choice for a dinner that matches the grandeur of the period, and the room most photographed for it.
Larry's
Exclusive HireA speakeasy bar in the Gallery's old Victorian vaults, brick-arched and gold-shelved behind a lacquered red bar front — run by Daisy Green Collection as one of two spaces they operate in the Weston Wing (alongside Audrey Green, the ground-floor café). Built for a cocktail reception rather than a formal seating plan.
The Ondaatje Wing Theatre
Exclusive HireA 138-seat lecture theatre with tiered seating and an in-house AV technician, hired subject to availability alongside a breakfast, reception or dinner elsewhere in the Gallery. The Gallery's own choice for a talk, panel or presentation ahead of an evening event.
The Portrait Restaurant
Exclusive HireRichard Corrigan's restaurant on the Gallery's fourth floor, run in partnership with Searcys, with a glass-walled dining room looking straight down over Trafalgar Square, Big Ben and the London Eye. Booked directly through the restaurant's own events team rather than the Gallery's venue-hire desk.
20th Century Gallery
Exclusive HireA light, innovative balcony space on the second floor showing familiar faces from the 1960s to the 1990s. Suited to pre-dinner drinks, and often combined with the adjacent Victorian Galleries to run a contemporary space into a classical one across the same evening.
Contemporary Galleries
Exclusive HireA newly built suite in the Weston Wing, top-lit and housing the Gallery's permanent contemporary Collection — portraits of the present day rather than the past. The most modern of the hireable rooms, and the one paired most often with a pre-dinner reception before guests move through to the older galleries.
Tudor Galleries
Exclusive HireThe starting point of the Collection on the third floor — the oldest portraits in the Gallery, Elizabeth I among them, against navy walls. The smallest and most intimate of the period rooms, suited to a dinner in close company with the Gallery's earliest works.
/ Perfect For
/ Features
Catering
- – In-House Luxury Dining
Venue Specs
- – Private Entrance
- – Wheelchair Accessible
- – Dedicated Events Team
- – Cloakroom
- – Wi-Fi
/ Getting Here
National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 7HS
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