2-Michelin-star Dinner by Heston in London to close — but there's still a chance to dine

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal has announced London’s Dinner by Heston restaurant will close after more than 15 years of serving up Michelin-grade dishes.

There’s one piece of good news: you have until the end of January 2027 to try to get a booking there.

Blumenthal announced these plans in an interview with The Times, in which he explained the timing was in part down to the end of the site’s tenancy at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge.

“There are some huge feelings there; sadness. It’s bittersweet, but it has run its natural course. We are effectively tenants in a building and our tenancy is finished,” Blumenthal told The Times.

“I’ve got a year to wrap my head around it.”

By the point at which Dinner by Heston closes, it will have been open for sixteen years. The restaurant opened in 2011.

You’ll see all sorts of eye-opening stats about the percentage of restaurant that fail in their first year, but Dinner by Heston is not one of those. And, scanning through its booking system, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a slot right now.

Blumenthal has also talked about plans to run a special eight-course tasting menu ahead of the closure, which you’ll no doubt be able to dine out on for ages.

So why is Dinner by Heston closing? The chef does talk about increasing pressures restaurants face, and it sounds like the tenancy’s end was ultimately a clean and relatively painless way to bow out.

“In these times most restaurants are suffering in one way or another,” says Blumenthal.

“It’s exacerbated by the fact that food prices are rising. We chose to partner with the Mandarin because of their level of service. But they’ve got budgets, and budgets don’t always meet up. Sometimes they do.”

SL 6 Ltd, the parent company of Blumenthal’s restaurant portfolio, which includes The Fat Duck, The Hinds Head and the Dinner by Heston locations in London and Dubai (opened in 2023), posted losses of £2 million in the 2024 tax year. The London restaurant closure is likely not solely down to the chef re-calibrating his life after a 2023 bipolar disorder diagnosis.

Dinner by Heston in London is a two-Michelin-star restaurant, and has held its second since 2014. Its current maxed-out offering is the Chef’s Table eight-course menu, at £255 a head. Sample dishes include things like Blumenthal’s iconic Meat Fruit — with a chicken liver parfait that looks like a mandarin — and Early Grey Tea Cured Salmon.

Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck remains Blumenthal’s most celebrated restaurant. It has held three Michelin stars since 2004.

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