Mayfair set menus in London this November, from £24
From £24 on Heddon Street to two Michelin stars on Albemarle Street, six Mayfair set menus
Mayfair set menus take in a lot of London across a few short streets. On Heddon Street, a hearth burns at the centre of an open kitchen and dumplings are folded by hand. On Albemarle Street, fireplaces warm a dining room in a building that used to house an art gallery, and a vivid red basement belongs to a kitchen holding two Michelin stars. At the corner of Grosvenor Square, the front of a grill restaurant has become a life-sized gingerbread house for Christmas.
Each set menu here sounds like its own address. DakaDaka opens with Georgian dumplings and a lamb kebab with satsebeli and sumac, and 34 Mayfair can finish with Cropwell Bishop Stilton and port wine jelly. Lunch in this neighbourhood can mean a lively Georgian table or a 1920s dining room with a top-hatted doorman, and the character of each one comes through on the card.
01 | 34 Mayfair
Mayfair
Two or three courses £46 to £52, Mon to Fri, 12pm to 5pm.
Each Christmas the frontage of 34 Mayfair becomes a festive installation, and this year, with Silent Pool Gin, the cascade of baubles has been rebuilt as a life-sized gingerbread house. Behind it sits a gorgeous art deco dining room of warm table lamps and burnt orange leather banquettes, with a rotisserie and grill lit each morning. The festive menu runs to Black Angus fillet mignon with 34 peppercorn sauce and shoestring fries. A Silent Pool mulled pear with gingerbread ice cream carries the theme through to dessert.
02 | DakaDaka
Mayfair
Two or three courses £29 to £35, Wed to Fri, 12pm to 2.30pm | two or three courses £29 to £35, Mon to Thu, 5.30pm to 6pm.
The khinkali at DakaDaka are folded by hand, one filled with Iberico pork pluma and one with girolles, and they open the Sadili set menu. The name refers to lively, passionate conversation at the dinner table, and the ground floor gives it plenty to talk about: a central hearth, khinkali cauldrons and a wood-burning oven. Time Out gave the restaurant four stars and reports a cellar of over 100 Georgian wines. Dessert is a fantastic full stop, red wine ice cream with ponchiki.
03 | Heddon Street Kitchen
Mayfair
Two or three courses £24 to £29, Mon to Fri, Until 6pm.
Regent Street's own directory calls Heddon Street Kitchen a "glamorous all-day bar and restaurant", and it runs over three floors to back that up. The ground floor is built around an open kitchen, and the first floor overlooks the street with a private bar and an ice cream bar of its own.
04 | Il Gattopardo
Mayfair
Two or three courses £34 to £38, Mon to Fri, Lunch | three courses £38, Sun to Wed, 5pm to 6.45pm.
Hot Dinners reports that Il Gattopardo occupies a building that used to house an art gallery, and the walls have kept the habit, with Italian artwork set among fireplaces and furnishings in honey, amber and azure. At the back, a retractable glass roof makes what Hot Dinners calls "a great hidden courtyard space in good weather". The Genova early dinner travels from grilled octopus with Taggiasca olives to a brilliant maritozzo with chocolate custard.
05 | The Cocochine
Mayfair
Two or three courses £35 to £45, Tue to Sat, 12pm to 2.30pm.
A menu that changes every couple of weeks gives The Cocochine a reason to be visited more than once. Much of its seasonal produce comes from a regenerative farm in Northamptonshire about 60 miles away, and seafood comes from Tanera Island off the Scottish coast. The setting is a four-storey townhouse on Bruton Place, where Hot Dinners reports that each room has its own art theme.
06 | Gymkhana
Mayfair
Three or four courses £85 to £95, Mon to Sun, 12pm to 2.30pm.
The members' clubs of colonial India gave Gymkhana its name and its manners, and two Michelin stars for its cooking have followed. Fine Dining Lovers describes deep wood panelling and warm amber lighting, and the Michelin Guide adds ground-floor booths and a "vivid red basement". Since 2 November a festive lunch has taken the place of the regular one.
Walk past the gingerbread house on Grosvenor Square this Christmas and a set lunch is waiting behind it, one of many on our list of London lunch set menus. Mayfair has plenty of front doors worth opening. At Christmas, one of them comes dressed as gingerbread.