Lifestyle

Sitting pretty: How to bag the best tables in London’s hottest restaurants



Ever looked with forlorn longing at the couple who snagged the sweetest seat in the restaurant? 

Simply securing a spot at one of London’s hottest restaurants just doesn’t cut it any more. You’ve got to get the best tables, too. Because, sure, good meals are about good food and good company. But are you going to be able to concentrate on that fabulous fillet steak or charming chum when you know you’re sitting in outer Siberia? When you can see the golden people, the regulars in the know, chuckling elegantly at what ought to be your table? No, you are not. But what are the best tables, and how can you get them? Let us be your guide.

Table 30, Polpo Beak Street, W1

Polpo is ideal second date territory — perfect for when you like someone enough to be holed up in a dark corner, knees touching, butterflies bubbling in your chest like the second glass of Prosecco you’ve just saucily knocked back without breaking eye contact. So ask for table 30, tucked into an alcove on your right — hidden, but with imperious views across the restaurant. It is, in founder Russell Norman’s own words, ‘the naughty table’. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith sat here once and nobody batted an eyelid. If the Fresh Prince can be secluded here, think what you could get up to.

Table 20, Noble Rot, WC1

Table 20 at industry-adored Noble Rot, however, is for couples at the other end of the scale to second-daters. It’s the high table for two in the interconnecting room between the wine bar and restaurant. Table 20 is where you can observe every single diner who walks in. Table 20 is where you ask to sit when dining with someone you have absolutely adored for many years, and to whom you have absolutely nothing left to say. It’s for the couple able to communicate entirely in grunts, who still love each other’s company, and wine. Here at table 20, you have your own very sociable private dining room, to make new pals or to people-watch and wink at each other as the same bitchy thought occurs to you both simultaneously. Table 20 is ultimate couple goals. Be more table 20. 

The Snug, The Berkeley Bar, SW1

What, you don’t know about the Snug? Darling, let us enlighten you. In July, The Berkeley opened a wine bar with all sorts of natural New Worlds and nine grand grand crus. So far, so chic. But the chicest table is actually in a former store cupboard on your left as you walk in. This is the Snug, and it is divine: highly ’grammable pink mural by terribly cool New York artist TM Davy, creamy leather banquette for up to eight, a heavy door that can be closed for privacy, should the occasion arise… It is bookable, but if no one’s reserved it then it’s yours — first come first served. Although you’ll have to beat the gentleman who recently bagged it four nights on the trot, with a different lady each time. 

Garden 1, Campania, E2

You know those gorgeously hued Italian alcohol adverts — all Sophia Loren-a-likes in sunglasses and tanned Clooneys in collarless linen drinking premium lager as they twirl vongole al fresco with the whole family of nonnas and bambinos? Fancy a bit of that? Call up Campania, at least a week in advance, and ask for ‘Garden 1’, the seat favoured by Laura Jackson. ‘Garden’ actually refers to the tiny conservatory, containing four highly covetable tables. ‘Garden 1’, on your right as you walk in, is the godfather table: views into the back kitchen where linguine queen Maria Grazia pinches plump ravioli pillows; light filtering through the garlands of dried flowers; ample room for plates of papardelle and bottles of rustic rosso. Because at this dream table, it would be rude not to drink wine at lunchtime. What’s Italian for, ‘I mean, the dream?’

The window table, Pophams, N1

Great ’gram shots don’t just happen. It’s all about the light. And when it comes to showing off Pophams Bakery’s sculptural masterpastries, natural daylight is crucial. You need the window seat to the right, at 9am. 

As watery sunlight slants in, your passionfruit and mango custard Danish is illuminated like a virgin in a medieval painting. A hush as you capture the moment on your phone. Then you bite in, and yes, sweet baby Jesus, it’s good.

Table 40, Brat, E1

Tomos Parry’s Basque-inspired Brat is, 18 months in, still one of the hottest tables in town. Quite literally so. The famed woodfired grill, on which gloriously carmine hunks of Jersey beef achieve their charred perfection, can also lightly grill diners who get too close. Where you want to sit for maximum cool is table 40: by the open window, far from the grill, under a gently swirling fan and with a picturesque view of Shoreditch High Street unspooling below.

Stool 1,  Flor, SE1​

London’s restaurant counter culture makes it totally acceptable for solo diners to prop up bars. In fact, the bar is the best place to be at Flor, James Lowe’s super-hot Borough Market spot, where tables are booked out for weeks but the counter stools by the open kitchen are available to walk-ins. You want stool 1: right next to the wall, so you can have a little lean after your third glass of funky Austrian white.

From stool 1, you can observe the magical process in the teeny tiny open kitchen — mussel flatbreads whisked from pans, anchovy toast loaded thickly with lardo — discuss passionately your wine preferences with the bartenders (‘something… fresh?’) and bat eyelids at the kitchen team.

Table 51,  Hutong, SE1

Table 51, Hutong (Photo credit: Paul Winch-Furness)

In most restaurants with a view, food is an overpriced afterthought: generic fusion tapas destined to congeal while you duck pout against a moody City backdrop. And obviously you will be posing at table 51 at Hutong, known among staff as one of three ‘proposal tables’. Table 51 is in a nook behind the bar, right next to the glass, with a panoramic view over St Paul’s and as much of London as your beady eyes can spot from the 33rd floor of the Shard. But don’t let your food get cold. Hutong’s north Chinese food is pretty great: proper dim sum and some splashy lobster/truffle combos. 

Table 9, Peckham Bazaar, SE15

This is where you go on one of those hot, sticky days in London when you’d sell your granny for a garden. But obviously you can’t afford one. You live in London. Rather than schlep to the park and get food poisoning from warm egg mayo, come to Peckham Bazaar and eat Balkans-inspired courgette fritters and marinated anchovies. And make sure to ask for table 9. This table for three is tucked in the corner of the terrace, sheltered from the road by chartreuse foliage, with mismatched chairs — and it’s perfect because it feels almost achievable. This could be your bit of garden. This could be you. 

The green table, Towpath Café, N1

Wandering along the Regent’s Canal in search of creative inspiration, you feel faint. Quick, head to Towpath Café. You’ll need to be here before 12pm to snatch the green table at the end, which is small enough to keep all to yourself. Order a nourishing plate of heirloom tomatoes on toast. Then whip out your leather-bound notebook and, with furrowed brow, do a little sketch. Jot down a line of simple, affecting poetry; a poignant observation on your fellow man. Feel restored.

The little red table, Southampton Arms, NW5

Red Table, Southampton Arms

The only way to get this prime piece of Kentish Town table estate is to get here early enough for the pork, which can sell out by 2pm on Saturdays. But first, the table: the small red circular one (below) in the garden, on your left, under the awning. What, not out in the sun? No, fool, for this is England, and either you’ll fry pinkly or it’ll hailstone into your pint.

This table provides for: your pale friend who burns when it’s overcast, the pal who doesn’t smoke, apart from after three pints, and dogs. It’s also warm in winter thanks to the heaters. And once you’ve flopped down? Tackle the best pork bap in the world: a frankly wanton pile of sweet, fatty pig, hefty smudge of mustard, and a slab of tooth-sticking crackling.

Table 11, Kerridge’s Bar & Grill at The Corinthia, SW1

Table 11, Kerridge’s Bar & Grill at The Corinthia

Look, you are at Tom Kerridge’s very swanky restaurant because today you are being a massive baller. So you need the table to suit it. You need to call up, in person, and ask for table 11, right next to the rotisserie. This is a seriously special table: one of two designed by artist Robi Walters, with a beautiful green collage made up of old menus under the glass. It’s very pretty, your dining companions will be impressed and you all get to make eyes at the treacle-cured beef and stuffed Cotswold chickens twirling on the rotisserie, just before they hit your plates. 



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