Michelin set lunches in London from £25: six to book
Starred and Bib Gourmand set menus from £25, from a Maida Vale pub to a hotel dining room in St James's
Michelin recognition in London tends to be pictured in Mayfair, behind a heavy door and a long tasting menu. The set lunch tells a different story. Look at where the starred and Bib Gourmand kitchens on All Set serve a fixed-price lunch, and the map fills with high streets: Kensington, Chiswick, a pub in Maida Vale, a former trattoria in Highbury.
Those neighbourhood kitchens carry this list. Kitchen W8 has kept its star since 2011 while calling itself a neighbourhood restaurant, and The Hero of Maida earns its Bib Gourmand with pies and fire. The centre answers in its own way, with a Soho counter and a hotel that won its first star.
01 | Kitchen W8
Kensington
three courses £49.50, Mon to Sat, 12.15pm to 1.45pm, 6pm to 6.45pm
Kitchen W8 opened in 2009 wanting to be a home from home, and has held its star since 2011. The kitchen buys from farmers and fishermen it admires and leans on wild food in season, from venison to hedgerow fruits. The set menu runs to chalk stream trout crudo, or Cornish pollock with sherry-roasted grapes. An early evening sitting at the same price turns it into a weeknight supper.
02 | La Trompette
Chiswick
three courses £45, Wed to Fri, 12pm to 2pm
The menu at La Trompette changes every day with the seasons, and an award-winning wine list stands behind it. Professional Lunch called the cooking "first-rate French-inspired modern cooking". The same review singled out the crab and scallop tortelloni with bisque and a chocolate soufflé, and praised the terrace and the engaged service.
03 | The Hero of Maida
Maida Vale
two or three courses £25 to £29, Mon to Fri, 12pm to 3pm
An inn has stood on this Maida Vale corner for almost 150 years, and The Hero of Maida keeps it a pub: tufted leather banquettes, candles, a working fireplace in the brick hearth. The Michelin Guide names mince on toast and a chicken and tarragon pie among the plates. The set lunch runs off a seasonal menu that changes regularly.
04 | Farang
Islington
four courses £35, Thu to Fri, 12pm to 2.30pm
Lunch at Farang opens with salted turmeric prawn miang, folded into an edible betel leaf and eaten in one bite. The produce leaves Bangkok on a Sunday and reaches the kitchen by Wednesday, and the Bib Gourmand has held for five years running. Banana and condensed milk on cassia roti closes the four courses, served in a terrazzo-tiled former trattoria that the kitchen took over in 2017 and never gave back.
05 | The Palomar
Soho
three courses £28, Mon to Fri, 12pm to 2.30pm
At The Palomar the kitchen is open and the counter seats face it, so lunch comes with the chefs at work. Baby cucumbers with green tahini and crispy chilli show the Jerusalem-inspired cooking, and the bread is baked in-house every day. The Bib Gourmand arrived in 2014, the year it opened where Soho meets Chinatown. The same three courses return for pre-theatre: three courses £28, Mon to Fri, 5pm to 6pm.
06 | Michael Caines London
Mayfair
three or four courses £48 to £58, Mon to Fri, 12pm to 2.30pm
Michael Caines London won its Michelin star in record time, the first for the hotel around it. The lunch menu changes weekly, with shellfish bisque and Cornish cod from a kitchen built on seasonal British ingredients. Below it sits a 400-year-old wine cellar.
Kitchen W8 opened with the aim of sending guests out feeling better than when they arrived. At lunch, in Kensington or Highbury or a Maida Vale pub, that aim comes at a fixed price. Every London lunch set menu is on All Set when the habit sticks.