How to Get a Table at London's Hardest-to-Book Restaurants

Being told a restaurant is fully booked is a very London experience. The good news is that a few habits change your odds more than any amount of refreshing at random. This guide sets out the principles, without promising any one trick will work every time.

Learn the release rhythm

Most popular restaurants do not spread tables evenly through the calendar. They open a block of bookings at a set point, often on a set weekday and time, and the best slots go within minutes. If you only look when you need a table, you will be looking at what is left.

Luxury London, in its piece on the hardest restaurants to book in the capital, points to exactly this pattern. It reports that the upstairs grill at The Devonshire in Soho releases its bookings on the website three weeks ahead, every Thursday at 10.30am. Others work on longer horizons: the same publication says reservations at One Club Row in Shoreditch open eight weeks ahead.

The practical lesson is to put the release moment in your diary, not the dinner date. Decide the day you want to eat, count back by the restaurant's window, and be on the booking page a few minutes early with your party size and a couple of alternative times in mind. Always check the restaurant's own website for the current window before you plan around it, as these things change.

Be flexible on the day and the hour

• Weeknights go more slowly than Fridays and Saturdays, so aim for Monday to Wednesday where you can.
• Early and late slots tend to last longer than the prime middle of the evening.
• A table for two is far easier to find than a table for five. Smaller groups slot into gaps.

Think bar first

A restaurant with a bar often keeps part of the room for people who simply turn up. Luxury London notes that the ground-floor bar at The Devonshire has free-for-all seating, which means you can try your luck without a reservation. That is the sort of arrangement worth looking for elsewhere: a front bar, a counter, a few stools by the kitchen.

Bar seating suits solo diners and pairs, and it is often the most relaxed way in. Arrive when doors open or just after, be ready to wait for a stool to clear, and be prepared to eat a little differently from the full dining room. Whether a bar offers the full menu varies, so ask politely when you arrive.

Watch for cancellations

Tables do come back. Plans change, and a booking made three weeks ahead is often released again a day or two before. The same Luxury London piece suggests keeping an eye on the Devonshire website for last-minute cancellations, which is sound advice for almost any restaurant that runs its own booking page.

• Check the booking page in the morning, when overnight cancellations appear.
• Look again in the late afternoon, when people drop out for that evening.
• Where a restaurant offers an alert or waiting list through its booking page, join it. It costs nothing.

Know the sister restaurant

Some of the busiest restaurants have a neighbour or sibling that is easier to approach, or at least a second chance to try. Luxury London mentions The Dover in Mayfair and its sister restaurant, Dover Street Counter, a couple of doors down, though it also calls the latter hard to book. Treat a sister venue as a second line of attack, not a guaranteed fallback, and apply the same habits to both: learn the window, be flexible, check for cancellations.

A simple plan

• Choose two or three places rather than fixating on one.
• Find each one's release time on its own website and add it to your calendar.
• Book the moment the window opens, with a flexible day and an early or late hour.
• If you miss out, check back for cancellations, and consider a bar seat on a quieter night.

None of this is glamorous, and that is rather the point. Persistence beats luck, and a little preparation turns a restaurant that is always full into one you can actually get into. For current details, start with the venues themselves, and see Luxury London's guide to the hardest restaurants to book for the places named here.