We’re not short of remarkable restaurants in London, with new hot spots opening every other week, making choosing where to dine a pretty difficult task.
For those who take their food very seriously, you might find yourself consulting the Michelin Guide, to see which eateries are really worth your time.
While the places in the guide might not have a prestigious star to their name, all of the spots have been personally approved by Michelin inspectors, so you know they’re going to be good… and hopefully a little friendlier to your wallet (although this isn’t always the case).
If you’re looking to book a table, you might be interested to know that 11 London restaurants have been added to the guide already this year, including one that is often said to ‘feel like the 1990s’.
We’re talking about Arlington in St James’s, which you might have known better as Le Caprice – a favourite haunt of the rich and famous.
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Everyone from Princess Diana to Elizabeth Taylor dined at Le Caprice over the years, which was run by restaurateurs Jeremy King and Chris Corbin from 1981. It sold to Richard Caring in 2005, before closing in 2020.
King has since taken back over the running of the site, and reopened it in March 2024 as Arlington, a reimagined version of the iconic restaurant. The decor is strikingly similar, and it serves up several OG dishes from the Le Caprice menu such as fish cakes and hokey pokey ice cream in coupes.
Because of this, many reviews comment that the eatery has a ‘very 90s’ feel. On Google, Nehal Abdelmoniem gave five stars, writing: ‘Very 90s vibe, phenomenal service and food.’ While Reha Arslan posted: ‘Incredible nostalgia, you feel like you are in 1990’s again.’
And Peter Whent added: ‘We remember when this was Le Caprice. It was one of our favourite restaurants. This latest incarnation hasn’t lost anything. The atmosphere is stylish, but not too crowded. The service is good as it gets – attentive, polite, knowledgeable, and endlessly helpful. The highlight is the menu. It’s not too stuffy and everything we had was delivered looking beautiful.’
Also new to the Michelin Guide was Ibai, a basque steak restaurant in city of London, which Metro visited in June 2024 and gave a solid 9/10 rating.
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Our review highlighted the Croque Ibai, a grilled cheese sandwich ‘on performance enhancers’, with carabinero, aka a deep-sea prawn, Tomme de Bribis, a hard cheese from the French Pyrenees, and boudin noir. The La Noir de Bigorre Ham and Crisps were siad to be ‘on another level’ piled up like nachos and topped with honey-drizzled, smoked Piparra peppers from Northern Spain. But it was The Gâteau Basque dessert that really impressed, leaving one guest doing an impression of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.
Other new additions to the guide included four spots in Mayfair: Aragawa, Dosa, Mary’s and Nihu, as well as Donia in Soho, Llama Inn in Shoreditch, Mignonette in Richmond, Pollini at Ladbroke Hall, and Sesta in Hackney.
This comes after a few other spots made the guide at the end of 2024, including Lita, The Hero, Agora, Cloth, and Kioku by Endo.
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