A Michelin Restaurant Evening by Chauffeur in London

The evening is longer than a booking suggests

A table booked for seven does not mean an evening ending at nine. A full tasting menu with matched wines routinely runs three hours or more, and the good ones are deliberately unhurried. Add an aperitif beforehand and the evening stretches comfortably past eleven without anybody intending it to.

This matters for two reasons. A fixed return time is almost always wrong, and anybody driving home has to spend a long evening watching other people enjoy the pairings. Both problems disappear with an open return and a chauffeur. It is a small piece of planning that changes the character of an entire evening.

Set-down in Mayfair, Soho and the City

London's best-regarded kitchens cluster in places designed before cars: narrow Mayfair streets with single-file traffic and residents' bays, Soho lanes with delivery restrictions, and City side streets that are quiet at nine in the evening and impassable at seven. Several sit on red routes where stopping is not permitted at all during controlled hours.

The practical answer is a set-down agreed in advance, often around the corner rather than at the door. Hotel restaurants are the exception, since a hotel forecourt with a doorman generally allows a proper arrival. We confirm what works for your restaurant rather than assuming a general rule.

• Arrival point agreed against the actual street, not the postcode
• Hotel forecourts used where the restaurant sits inside a hotel
• Controlled hours checked, since red route rules run late
• A short walk accepted where it is the graceful option

Wine pairings and the designated driver problem

The whole point of a matched pairing is that it is matched, and the person who has to drive afterwards spends the evening being handed a glass of water. In a party of four that is one person having a materially worse night than everyone else, and it is entirely avoidable.

Removing the driver from the table also changes the conversation. Nobody is calculating units or watching the time, and the decision about a final glass is not a legal question. That is worth more to most parties than any other aspect of the arrangement. It is also the reason these bookings are so often made by the person who would otherwise have been driving.

Timing an arrival at a restaurant that holds tables briefly

Restaurants of this kind run to a covers plan and will often hold a table for only a short grace period, particularly on a Friday or Saturday. Arriving fifteen minutes late can genuinely cost the reservation, and there is rarely another table to move to.

We plan departures from the booking time backwards, with an allowance for the last few streets, which in central London are the unpredictable part. Where the margin looks thin we say so when the booking is made rather than on the evening. A table lost at half past eight on a Saturday is rarely recoverable, however apologetic everybody at the door is.

Leaving when you are ready

The best ending to a long dinner is walking out to a car that is already at the kerb. A message when coffee arrives, or when you ask for the bill, gives the chauffeur ample time to be in position, and it removes the standing-about that follows an otherwise excellent evening.

Bookings and messages on the night both run over WhatsApp on +44 (0) 7775 554 848. Give us the restaurant name as well as the address, because the arrival point is often a matter of which side of the street rather than which building. Doormen and front-of-house staff are also a good deal more helpful when a vehicle arrives where they are expecting it.

Plan your chauffeur journey

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