Plates

Plates is the first vegan restaurant in the UK to hold a MICHELIN star, awarded in February 2025, seven months after siblings Kirk and Keeley Haworth moved it to Old Street. Kirk cooked through kitchens including The French Laundry and Restaurant Sat Bains before turning to plant-based cooking after a diagnosis of Lyme disease; the result is fine dining built entirely from vegetables, mushrooms and fruit, and a tasting menu most of the room orders without being vegan at all.

The dining room seats just 25. Terracotta-toned walls, a curved banquette and marble-topped tables sit beneath handmade aluminium lights by Colin Chetwood, with a dried-seaweed installation nodding to the kitchen's raw materials. It is a small, warm, family-run space where the whole restaurant can be taken privately for a seated dinner, and a south-facing terrace adds a few covers in summer.

Two minutes' walk away, the Food Studio and development kitchen hosts private takeovers for up to 16 in a chef's-table format, run by the same team for tasting dinners, discreet celebrations and launches. Both spaces are booked by arrangement through the events office rather than as an off-the-shelf package, and reservations for the restaurant itself run months ahead.