Venues in West London
Hyde Park west to Kew — gardens, galleries, private houses and river frontage, where an outdoor plan is realistic from May to September.
Mazi
Notting Hill — Greek Restaurant
Notting Hill's long-loved modern Greek, famous for its blue-and-white walled garden of olive and fig trees. Available for full private hire and celebrations.
The River Café
Hammersmith — Italian Restaurant
Up to 48 guests
Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers's Michelin-starred Italian on the Thames at Hammersmith, open since 1987. Two private rooms: Sylvia's for 48 facing the river, and the 18-seat room off the kitchen.
Akub
Notting Hill — Palestinian Restaurant
Up to 50 guests
Fadi Kattan's Palestinian restaurant, in a converted Notting Hill townhouse with a glass-roofed courtyard and a top-floor room that takes fifty.
Ognisko
South Kensington — Polish Restaurant & Bar
Up to 250 guests
A Victorian townhouse on Exhibition Road, home to the Polish Hearth Club since 1940. Its first-floor Ballroom takes 180 for a reception; the whole venue goes to 250.
Julie's
Notting Hill — French Restaurant & Bar
Up to 160 guests
On the same Portland Road corner since 1969, back as a French brasserie. Private hire runs from a twenty-seat dining room to a lower ground floor with its own bar and sound system.
Maslow's Kensington
Kensington — Members' Club
Up to 20 guests
A new Kensington work-and-wellbeing house with meeting-room hire opposite High Street Kensington station.
Suzi Tros
Notting Hill — Greek Restaurant & Bar
The Mazi team's younger Notting Hill sibling: northern Greek cooking on Hillgate Street, with a dining room above and a cocktail bar in the basement.
Viajante87
Notting Hill — Cocktail Bar
Up to 120 guests
A basement cocktail bar on Notting Hill Gate with carved cork walls, a backlit glass bar and more than 300 agave spirits, taken whole for up to 120.
The Sea, The Sea
Chelsea — Seafood Restaurant & Bar
Up to 37 guests
A Chelsea fishmonger turned seafood bistro on Pavilion Road, with a raw bar, dining room and terrace available for private hire.
No. Fifty Cheyne
Chelsea — Modern British Restaurant
Up to 165 guests
A flower-festooned Chelsea restaurant on Cheyne Walk, with riverside private rooms and a whole-house hire built for live music and dancing.
Cheneston's Restaurant at The Milestone
Kensington — British Restaurant
Up to 40 guests
The Milestone's two-AA-Rosette British restaurant, a panelled Victorian dining room with leaded windows, offered for private dinners of 16 and receptions of 40.
Wild Notting Hill
Notting Hill — Mediterranean Restaurant & Bar
Up to 150 guests
A loud, high-spend Mediterranean room on Westbourne Grove, with a wraparound marble bar, a walled courtyard and a conservatory room at the back.
/ About West London▾
West London runs from the western edge of Hyde Park out along the river to Kew and Brentford. It holds the museum quarter of South Kensington, laid out on the profits of the 1851 Great Exhibition; Chelsea, with Wren’s Royal Hospital of 1682 and the King’s Road behind it; the stucco terraces of Notting Hill and Bayswater; White City, built for the Franco-British Exhibition and the Olympic Games of 1908; and the Thames reach through Hammersmith, Fulham and Chiswick. Further out, Kew is a World Heritage Site of Victorian glasshouses and three hundred acres of botanic garden, and Syon at Brentford keeps Robert Adam’s interiors and Charles Fowler’s Great Conservatory.
The hire product is domestic in grain and generous in space. Where Central sells ballrooms, West sells gardens, galleries, private houses and river frontage: forty-two acres of lawn at Fulham Palace, a Palladian villa at Chiswick, glasshouses at Kew that seat a dinner under palms. The restaurants of Notting Hill, Chelsea and Chiswick are neighbourhood rooms held to metropolitan standards, which suits a party of sixty better than a hotel does, and the museums and studios take the large evenings. It is the part of London where an outdoor plan is realistic from May to September.
Access is straightforward as far as Hammersmith and wants thought beyond it. The District, Circle and Piccadilly lines serve the inner areas, the Elizabeth line reaches Paddington, and Heathrow is half an hour from the western end, which counts for an international guest list. Kew, Brentford and Chiswick are rail or river journeys and read as a short trip out of town. Evenings end earlier than in Soho: residential licensing is tighter here, and the neighbourhoods expect it.