Eating out is expensive, increasingly so, but do not think you need to fall back into Wagamama’s flavourless arms or lean yet again on Nando’s, where the chicken, once enjoyable, has become so dry it’s as if it’s been cooked in a Richard Ayoade joke.
Because look at all this – set menus and deals at some of London’s best restaurants. Sausages at Noble Rot, steak at Hawksmoor, moules mariniere at Claude Bosi’s Josephine.
Here you’ll find an ever-updated list of prime set menus, each one joyfully accessible. We’ve started with 10 restaurants but more are on the way.
- Two courses: £24
- Three courses: £28
At Noble Rot’s Soho outpost is a set weekday lunch menu of satisfying design, one that brings the comfort of affordable pan-European cooking much as any bistro in some unremarkable but charming town square, one with elegant, once-bombed out flagstones, colourful awnings and some sort of fountain. There might be a hefty Morteau sausage perched on braised lentils or a rich goulash that would please even a Hungarian farmer called Ivan.
- Two courses: £29.50
- Three courses: £35
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Carousel is best known as an incubator space, somewhere for visiting chefs to come and wow Londoners with their foreign charms. Don’t forget that it’s as much a wine bar and its own restaurant, one with an excellent lunch deal between Tuesday and Saturday, 12-3pm. Starters might include sea bream ceviche with asparagus or a juicy tomato salad; later on, lamb belly with gooseberries and chilli salsa or crab rice with lime and curry leaves.
- Three courses: £29 on Sundays
Sam Harris
Artusi, Peckham’s hit Italian restaurant – now with a site in Soho, too – has had one of the best deals around for years. On Sundays, between noon-4pm, diners may enjoy a veritable feast for under £30, one that brings top ingredients cooked well. When on, the smoked cod’s roe with polenta and a fried quail’s egg is superb, so too any number of pasta dishes. Desserts vary, but there’s always homemade ice cream, happily.
- Daily dish of the day: £ 16.50
- Menu de canut: £24.50 for two courses, £29.50 for three
Josephine
There’s a fair argument to suggest this is one of the best deals around in London. A generous bit of Lyonnaise cooking, from Claude Bosi’s team no less, for £16.50. During the week, every day brings something new, whether slow-cooked veal with pilaf rice or a classic moules mariniere. Otherwise, try the menu de canut, which has the famous Saucisson brioche, as well as andouillette. There are affordable wines, too. No wonder the restaurant is set for expansion (not just Marylebone).
Bistro Freddie, Shoreditch
- Two courses: £24
- Three courses: £29
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Bistro Freddie was one of London’s standout launches in 2023, arriving in Shoreditch as an elegant, traditional restaurant and going all in on the candles and white linen. The express set is available during weekday lunch times and brings simple but enjoyable dishes like smoked mackerel on toast, steak tartare and cod with tomatoes. It’s a lovely space, with good service.
The Pelican, Notting Hill
- Two courses: £24
- Three courses: £29
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One of a growing number of pubs under the Public House umbrella, The Pelican is the original, a Notting Hill spot favoured by the ‘slebs. The group can do no wrong, it seems – the coolest place in town in the Fat Badger, superb pasta at Canteen, a multi-floored parlour of romance at the Hero. And that’s without its countryside bolthole, the Bull at Charlbury, now under the stewardship of the brilliant Sally Abe. The Pelican’s set menu is an affordable point of reconnaissance in all this, with dishes such as cod cheeks with curry sauce, confit duck leg, and sticky toffee pudding.
Bistrot at Wild Honey, St James’s
- Two courses: £25
- Three courses: £29
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The prix fixe menu runs from noon until 6.45pm during the week at Bistrot at Wild Honey, the casual restaurant at the excellent Sofitel hotel on Pall Mall. A measured and collected sideline to chef Antony Demetre’s Michelin-starred flagship Wild Honey, the bistrot brings solid French cooking in the likes of spring potatoes with garlic velouté and duck egg, though is not confined to France. There might be cottage pie on alongside rigatoni with beef shin ragu.
- Two courses: £35
- Three courses: £38
Paul Winch-Furness
Michelin-starred food from the chef Jun Tanaka, for under £40? It’s a good deal, especially when a main course on the a la carte is likely to be north of that sum. The lunch deal isn’t a pared-back menu either, really. Starters include sea bream carpaccio and sedani (a wildly underused pasta shape) with pork ragu; main courses stroll from hake with cannellini beans to bouncy wild garlic risotto. It’s all tremendous stuff.
Hawksmoor, multiple locations
- Two courses: £32
- Three courses: £35
Hawksmoor
It is a diligent and impressive mechanism, the set menu, and Hawksmoor nails it like Bob the Builder after a bottle of decent Merlot. Starters are gracious – the mackerel salad precedes steak well – and then up comes the rump with chips, the latter fried in beef dripping, don’t forget. As for puddings, there isn’t much point in deviating from the peanut butter shortbread, but whatever you get, it’ll be good.
- Two courses: £25
- Three courses: £29
Adrian Lourie
The Devonshire keeps the price of its set menu remarkably low thanks to doing one thing (per course) and doing it right. It’s a fine thing to see a prawns and langoustine cocktail as the starter when you consider the price. And a main course of steak and chips with a bearnaise sauce thrown in, no supplement? It’s little wonder last year’s hype has turned into a place with a loyal following.