Restaurant Story
Tom Sellers built his restaurant on the site of a council toilet block at the Bermondsey end of Tooley Street, opened it in April 2013 at age 26, and had a Michelin star within five months. The second star came in 2021, and both hold in the 2026 guide.
Why go
Sellers trained under Tom Aikens in London, at Thomas Keller's Per Se in New York, and at Rene Redzepi's Noma before opening at an age when most cooks are still on the line (City A.M.). The conceit that named the place: the tasting menu reads as chapters of his own biography, each dish a memory reworked with the technique those kitchens taught him. The famous opener is a candle made of beef dripping that melts as the bread course sits under it, turning the taper into the dip. In 2023 he closed the building for a 2.5-million-pound rebuild that added a second storey, a terrace and a bar (Hot Dinners), and reopened without diluting the format.
Order this / avoid
- Order: there is no ordering to do; dinner is a seven-course surprise menu at 275 pounds, lunch a five-course version at 175 pounds (venue site, 2026). The dripping candle and the Paddington Bear marmalade dessert are the recurring bookends, with Michelin noting luxury mains running "from langoustines to turbot."
- Avoid: booking it as a quick pre-theater meal. The venue tells guests to allow two to four hours, and the pacing assumes you have them.
What locals & experts say
- MICHELIN Guide (2026): two stars. Inspectors call the dishes
as succulent as they are visually arresting.
1 - Time Out London: Guy Dimond, reviewing at opening:
The rapid succession of small, artfully crafted dishes at this Bermondsey outpost of modernist cuisine is playful,
addingThe artistry's not mere gimmickry.
2 - City A.M. (2024): the first post-rebuild review closes flatly:
Story is the business.
3
Good to know
- Timing: lunch and dinner services; confirm current days in the booking flow, since the venue publishes them there rather than on static pages.
- Booking: essential, well ahead, via restaurantstory.co.uk.
- Dietary: the kitchen states it cannot cater for a fully vegan, fully dairy-and-gluten-free, or halal diet, and wants requirements 48 hours before you sit down. Gluten-free alone is workable with that notice; cross-contamination handling is not published, so celiacs should call.
- Getting there: 199 Tooley St, a short walk from London Bridge station toward Tower Bridge.
Verdict
must-visit — Two Michelin stars held into the 2026 guide, a career signature in the bread-and-dripping candle, and a menu format, ten-ish chapters of one chef's autobiography, that defined a decade of London tasting menus. The 275-pound tab is the only argument against, and the rung rests on the marquee award and the format's originality, not the hype around either.