Palm Court Brasserie

Palm Court Brasserie sits on King Street, overlooking the Covent Garden piazza, behind a scarlet awning and a row of hanging baskets. Inside, the room is worked up to a 1920s art nouveau template: lattice screens and mirrored panels, deep red leather banquettes, bentwood chairs, hanging ferns and milk-glass globes overhead, with vintage French posters on the walls and white linen on every table.

The kitchen keeps to the classic brasserie repertoire, moules marinières, steak frites, duck confit, boeuf bourguignon and crème brûlée, with a long list of hand-picked wines behind it. The room trades from noon to 11pm every day of the week, and the pre-theatre service is timed around West End curtain-up.

For a private event the space to take is the semi-private dining room at the back of the restaurant. French sliding doors close it off from the main floor entirely, and it holds fifty, either as a long seated dinner or as a standing reception with canapés. The events team writes menus to brief. It is one enclosed room rather than a floor of function suites, which is the right shape for a single hosted party.