Best Spaces for Private Hire

Editor’s note: The Gallery and Lecture Room can both be taken privately. Gallery for a fashion launch, Lecture Room for a tasting dinner for twenty.

Sketch, at 9 Conduit Street, puts five restaurants and bars under one roof, so the same address can mean a very different evening depending on which room you choose. The Lecture Room and the pink Gallery are the names people know, and the cooking is contemporary. The house holds three Michelin stars, which says plenty about the ambition here.

Editor’s note: The whole room is theatrical - sculptures, painted ceilings, made for an entrance.

Richard Caring's Bacchanalia, at 1 Mount Street, goes all in on Greco-Roman splendour: vast sculptures, an art collection that would not look out of place in a museum, and a dining room built for spectacle. The cooking is modern European and sets out to match the show, though the setting is what people talk about.

Editor’s note: Two beautiful private rooms: McNair (for twelve) and Eaton (for forty).

On Upper Grosvenor Street, Richard Corrigan's Mayfair flagship makes a confident case for the British larder. Game, seafood and seasonal produce are handled with skill and real generosity, and the modern British cooking never feels fussy. The room is warm and club-like, the sort of place you settle into rather than rush through.

Editor’s note: For the most discreet hire in the neighbourhood: a private dining room above the bar, your own butler, no signage.

The Connaught on Carlos Place combines the warmth of a private house with the resources of a grand hotel. Its Connaught Bar was ranked number one in the world in 2020 and 2021, and placed sixth on the global bars list in 2025. Hélène Darroze's three-starred restaurant is under the same roof.

Editor’s note: Several private rooms wood-panelled and clubby - good for a confidential lunch.

A classic Mayfair grill occupying a grand Grosvenor Square townhouse. The wood-fired grill produces exceptional steaks and seafood, while the room has the comfortable confidence of a club.