Bargain dining: The best deals at London's most luxurious restaurants
In this, the new era of restaurant pricing, dining out can seem a fortune. Not quite the fortune of say, a night at the theatre, but pricey nevertheless. Whereas once an expensive meal out might come in at £100 for a pair, now that seems to buy a mid-tier night for one.
Happily, though, there are a fair number of spots that still sweat it out to offer decent value for the customer. It is, of course, worth remembering that value and price are very different things. Price is functional and transactional; value is emotional. A Tesco meal deal might be less expensive than lunch at the Ritz, but only one of these will make your heart sing.
As such, alongside lunch deals and January sales, these are the best value menus we’ve seen of late. The surprising thing about this list is just how much some of these restaurants are offering against a backdrop of rising rents and rates, staff shortages and increasing food costs. And yet, menus from both the hot new openings and the established Michelin-starred kitchens can remain excellent value — provided you know where to look. Below is a good place to start.
£30 and under
The Devonshire
The £29 three-course set menu (£25 for two) at The Devonshire feels particularly good value when considering that the main course alone — skirt steak with chips and sauce — would be about that price at any decent steakhouse. The steak far surpasses “decent” here, prepared daily by in-house master butcher George Donnelly, once of the Ginger Pig. Cooked over coals, the main is arguably the star of
