Five set menus that actually run all weekend
Five menus that keep going when the weekend starts
Most set menus quietly clock off on a Friday. London's best value is stacked into weekday lunches and pre-theatre windows, which is fine right up until you want to eat out on a Saturday and find the whole thing has reverted to à la carte.
These five do not. Every one runs its set menu on Saturday and Sunday, from a £20 lunch in Peckham to a Michelin star in Mayfair, and each has a real window rather than a vague promise. Prices, days and times below were checked against each venue's own menu on 7 August.
01 · Boulevard Brasserie
Covent Garden
Two courses £21.95 or three £26.90, every day from midday to 6.30pm.
The window is the point here. Boulevard runs its set from midday to 6.30pm seven days a week, so a Saturday that starts at noon and a Sunday that starts at five both work. Starters run to a green asparagus and pea soup, baked brie in filo with cranberry chutney, or a Caesar with fresh anchovies. Mains are a chicken paillard with caper beurre noisette, a salmon and haddock fishcake with buttered leeks and a dill velouté, a mushroom and lentil bourguignon, or the house burger. Add a dessert and it becomes three courses: crème brûlée, a Belgian chocolate truffle cake, or sorbets and ice creams. The room is proper Covent Garden bistro, cane chairs and white cloths, behind a frontage buried under flowers.
02 · som saa
Spitalfields
The Tem Toh menu, six courses for the whole table, £35 at lunch.
Tem Toh means full table, and that is how it arrives: deep fried cashew nuts with makrut leaf and dried chilli, a grilled beef salad with lemongrass and sour leaf, a green curry of tiger prawns with thai basil, a red fire stir fry of seasonal greens and mushrooms, sticky or jasmine rice, then salted palm sugar ice cream with turmeric grilled banana. One price, no ordering decisions to make. Lunch runs Saturday from midday to 2.30pm and Sunday from midday to 3pm, in a tall old Spitalfields warehouse with charcoal smoke coming off the grill. One thing to know: the whole deep fried sea bass sits on the same menu but carries a £24.50 supplement, so budget for it or skip it.
03 · Larch
City of London
Two courses £37.95 with gelato thrown in, plus an hour in the Sky Garden.
Larch sits inside the Sky Garden at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street, and a booking includes an hour up in the glass house afterwards, which is the part that makes the price add up. Starters are a prosciutto bruschetta, truffle arancini, or rosemary and garlic focaccia. Mains cover linguine al pesto genovese, penne arrabbiata, a tagliatelle ragù bolognese, and three pizzas including a prosciutto e rucola. Gelato or sorbetto comes free at the end. Service runs Tuesday to Sunday with slots from midday through to 8pm, which is the most forgiving window on this list by some distance. Sunday takes its last booking earlier, so aim for the afternoon.
04 · Jamavar
Mayfair
Three courses £51 or four £57, at lunch and again before 6.30pm, all week.
A Michelin star you can eat at twice a day. The Lunch and Early Evening menu runs all days from midday to 2.30pm and again from 5.30pm to 6.30pm, three courses for £51 or four for £57. Starters go from a samosa mutter chaat with tamarind and spiced white peas to Malabar prawns with white turmeric and curry leaves. Then a tikka course: kasundi paneer, a malai stone bass with mace and green cardamom, or murgh tikka sholey. Mains include the Old Delhi butter chicken, a Malvani prawn curry with coconut milk and tamarind, and a sindhi methi gosht of kid goat with spinach and fenugreek, all served with dal, basmati or breads. Gulab jamun closes it.
05 · Levan
Peckham
Two courses £20 or three £25, Saturday and Sunday lunch, Bib Gourmand cooking.
The cheapest table here and one of the best rooms in South London. Levan is on a side street off Rye Lane: natural wine stacked to the ceiling, records behind the pass, and a short menu that turns over with the week. Recent set lunches have run from sourdough and butter through a coquelet with sauce verte and coco beans, or trofie with mussels and datterini tomatoes, to a chocolate ganache with cherries. Two courses £20, three £25, Saturday and Sunday from midday to 3pm, and Tuesday to Friday too if the weekend gets away from you.
All five are on All Set with the full menus and a direct booking link on each. For the rest, tap Weekend Plans on the search screen and the whole weekend list comes up, times included.