The service charge, and who gets it

Why this page exists

Because “service charge” means five different things in five different restaurants on the same street, and you are entitled to know which one this is before you pay it. In some places it goes to the server. In some it goes to the house. In some it replaces the tip and in some it sits on top of one. Here is ours.

Parties of eight or fewer

No automatic charge. Nothing is added to the bill and nothing is suggested by a card machine set to twenty-five per cent by default. What you leave is what you decide to leave, and nobody here will treat you differently for it.

Parties of nine or more, and private dining

Twenty per cent, added automatically, stated on the enquiry and printed on the bill. Large parties take more staff for longer and the arithmetic stops working without it — but you should see the number before you commit to the evening, not when the bill arrives, which is why it is on the enquiry.

Where the money goes

Into a pool, shared across the whole team on a published split that every member of staff can see and that includes the kitchen. Cooks are the people most often left out of tip pools in this country and it is the single most resented thing in the trade. Daniel starts at eight in the morning to bake the bread somebody compliments at nine at night; he is in the pool.

The house takes nothing from it. Not a processing fee, not an administration percentage, nothing.

Cash tips go to the person you hand them to. They are not pooled, not collected and not counted against anybody's share. If somebody looked after you particularly well and you want that to reach them specifically, cash is how.