The door to Lilibet’s on Mayfair’s Bruton Street opens not so much into a restaurant as into a fantasy – one upholstered in blush-pink velvet, imposing floral centrepieces, lit by the soft gleam of chandeliers, and humming with the low, conspiratorial energy of a very good party. At Lilibet’s, the air feels perfumed with equal parts butter and brine; somewhere to your left, a tower of oysters glistens like jewellery; to your right, a table leans in over something theatrical. It is excessive, certainly, but knowingly, intentionally so.
An Opulent Arrival at Lilibet’s
In a city that has spent the past few years flirting with restraint (pared-back dining rooms, small plates, earnest provenance), Lilibet’s lands with a deliberate sense of occasion, offering something a bit more special for discerning diners in the capital. This is a full-throated embrace of pleasure, glamour, and just a hint of over-indulgence. Set on the storied site of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth and borrowing her childhood nickname, the restaurant trades not on nostalgia but on reinvention, imagining a more decadent, less dutiful lineage. Opened by Ross Shonhan in September of 2025, it offers something increasingly rare in London right now: a place that dares to be grand.
Before we’ve quite taken in the room, a cocktail menu, complete with a dedicated martini section, lands at the table, its pages given over to playful, faintly decadent reworkings of the classics. The Tomatini, currently enjoying something of a London moment, appears here in a ‘Burnt’ iteration: Ketel One Vodka lifted with grilled tomato, rosemary oil, white balsamic and lemon. The result lands neatly between sweetness and tang.
More striking still is the house Oystershell Martini, a quietly audacious construction of oyster shell–infused Belvedere Vodka and Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth, finished with lemon and parsley oil – briny, mineral, and uncannily faithful to what I imagine drinking an actual oyster would taste like.
Lilibet’s Bar Snacks: Balancing Precision and Indulgence
We start with a selection of their snacks. The focaccia di recco is fresh and still warm. The cheese is the right amount of oily to contrast the fresh, saline brightness of the tuna loin gilda, which is constructed of fresh, raw tuna, pickled radish, and anchovy. The anchovy eclair is the highlight for me. The choux pastry and anchovy infused cream are light and fresh, whilst still being rich with the umami anchovy flavour, and perfectly complemented by the tang of sweet and sour sauce on top.
Seafood at the Centre, Simplicity at Its Best
The snacks are followed by the sea bass crudo, which is delightful, with exactly the right balance of extra virgin olive oil, tangy lemon, and verjus, a type of acidic juice made by pressing unripe grapes, crab-apples or other sour fruit. While Lilibet’s is, at heart, a seafood restaurant, the roasted peppers are something of a sleeper hit – soft, deeply sweet, and just catching at the edges with char. Their richness cut through with a light acidity that stops them from feeling too much. In a room so intent on spectacle, it’s a reminder that simplicity, when handled well, is equally compelling.
Our main course, the grilled sea bream served with capers and grilled tomatoes, has a perfectly crisped skin, but it’s the vegetable sides that steal the show. The asparagus is perfectly tender and plump, served with a tart sun-dried tomato paste. Meanwhile, the lobster mashed potato is the stuff of dreams. It’s smooth, light, buttery, topped with chunks of lobster and atop of a rich lobster jus. Lilibet’s is worth a visit just for the mash.
Lilibet’s has also just introduced an alternative Sunday lunch, which feels entirely in keeping with the restaurant’s appetite for doing things differently. The centrepiece is Bullit de Peix, a traditional Balearic fisherman’s stew of grouper, monkfish or flounder with potatoes, tomato and saffron slow-cooked in a clay pot and served in stages, as it would be on the White Isle. Fish first, then the potatoes, before an arroz a banda arrives, cooked in the deeply flavoured broth and finished with alioli.
It’s a theatrical progression, more ritual than roast, and a marked departure from the usual parade of beef and Yorkshires. In a part of London that rarely strays from Sunday tradition, it lands as something both transportive and faintly subversive, aligning neatly with Lilibet’s broader interest in championing lesser-seen seafood. This is in contrast to Soho’s Manzi’s which presents seafood in an equally camp, theatrical way, but embraces the classics fully.
Desserts That Lean Into the Drama
It’s worth noting that it’s not just the interiors that lean into theatre at Lilibet’s. The food is equally beautiful, right through to dessert. We’re served a vanilla cheesecake with strawberry coulis: rich, certainly, but refreshingly straightforward after so much earlier indulgence. Their signature crêpe, meanwhile, arrives with more ceremony, topped with Grand Marnier, set alight at the table, and folded around ice cream. It’s a moment of deliberate flourish, one that feels totally appropriate for the setting.
A Rare Return to Grand Dining in Mayfair at Lilibet’s
In the end, Lilibet’s feels less like a simple addition to Mayfair’s dining scene and more like a deliberate act of escapism – one that wholly leans into pleasure, polish, and sense of occasion. It is, at times, a little too much, but that is precisely the point: This is a restaurant that understands the value of spectacle and commits to it fully. For a city that has grown increasingly comfortable with restraint and minimalism, Lilibet’s offers something altogether rarer – a place to indulge and, for a few hours at least, get entirely carried away with it.
