Nine or more
Groups of 9 or more
The booking form stops at eight on purpose. Above that a table is not really the thing being booked — a set menu, a section of the room and an extra server are — and pretending otherwise produces exactly the evening nobody wanted.
Why the form refuses
A restaurant kitchen can cook fifty-four covers of anything and about twelve covers of everything. A group of fourteen ordering fourteen different dishes at eight o'clock on a Saturday does not get a fourteen-plate table — it gets four plates, then a gap, then four more, and a birthday that limps. The fix is not more staff. It is knowing roughly what is coming.
So a group agrees a short set menu — usually three choices at each course, drawn from whatever is on that week — at least five days ahead. It is the same food at the same prices. What changes is that the kitchen can prepare for it, and your table eats together.
What it costs
The set menu is priced from the actual menu, so it moves with the seasons rather than sitting at a round number all year. A 20% service charge applies to every party of 9 or more, is stated on the enquiry, and is shared across the whole team including the kitchen — the split is published.
Where you would sit
- Nine to twelve. The corner tables in the dining room on a quieter night, or the private room. Both work; the corner is cheaper and less formal.
- Thirteen to twenty-two. The private room, seated. There is no other honest answer — see private dining.
- Up to twenty-eight standing. The private room again, with the tables out and food passed rather than plated.
- More than twenty-eight. We cannot do it, and we do not hire out the whole restaurant on a Friday or Saturday. The full list of what we do not do.
No card, and no charge for a no-show. We do not take a card to hold a table of eight or fewer, and we do not charge for a no-show. That is a deliberate choice and it costs us real money — on a Saturday a no-show at eight is a table that earns nothing for the rest of the night. We would rather carry that than treat everybody as a risk. What we ask in return is the thirty seconds it takes to click the cancel link in your confirmation email. Private dining is different, because a room and a set menu are bought in advance; the deposit terms are on that page.
One thing worth saying plainly: a group booking is the one case where we do take a deposit, because a set menu is bought in and a room is held. The amount and the terms are on the enquiry, in writing, before anybody pays anything.