The Ledbury.

The Ledbury

The Iberian pork at The Ledbury comes from the only herd in England, fed on rapeseed oil that Brett Graham presses on his own Shropshire farm.

Why go

Brett Graham cooks and owns The Ledbury. He farms a good part of what he puts in front of you. He came from Williamtown, north of Sydney, and opened the room on Ledbury Road in 2005 at twenty-six. MICHELIN gave it a star inside a year, a second in 2010 and a third in February 2024. He still cooks the menu and works the floor himself. The day after that third star he told Joe Lutrario of Restaurant what he wants the place to be: I don't want to run a restaurant where people only come once. I want The Ledbury to be their place for special occasions. (Restaurant) Asked in July 2025 what the success comes down to, he answered with the service: although it's a fancy restaurant, I try and make sure the service makes people feel at ease… We make lots of notes on customers – their dislikes, preferences – and make sure we recognise as many people who are returning as possible. (Country & Town House)

Since the room reopened in February 2022 there has been no a la carte (Harden's), so the tasting menu is the only way to eat here: eight courses at dinner, six at lunch (The Infatuation, September 2024). Graham says it has got longer as well, and gives the credit to Tom Spenceley, his head chef since the reopening: The length of the tasting menu has increased and it's a more intense experience than it was. (Restaurant) Jake Missing of The Infatuation warns that a full tasting menu here can easily break the three-hour mark.4 Max Williams of Square Mile sat down to nine courses at 8pm in July 2023 and left with the clock nearing midnight and missing the final tube a distinct possibility.5

The bread course is the one to hope for. The MICHELIN inspector's came as a laminated dough like a croissant, folded into a bow tie and filled with a parmesan and truffle béchamel; be prepared for it to be messy, but oh so delicious (September 2025).1 Chet Sharma, the chef-patron of BiBi, brought his own team here for BiBi's fourth birthday and called the same stuffed croissant filthy but so good (The Glossary, August 2025).10

In season, the venison on the menu is his own. He started a deer park at Aynhoe Park in 2017 and keeps two more, in Berkshire and in Northampton (Country & Town House). If you can choose your month, the MICHELIN inspector says to come in game season: Brett Graham is passionate about hunting and the game produce on offer here is superb.1 A Devon grower raises the sawa wasabi in flowing water (Andy Hayler). A server grates it at your table (The Infatuation). The refit put a glass cabinet of mushrooms on the stairs down to the bathrooms. We also got a mushroom fridge where we grow mushrooms that customers can see – we harvest that for one of the dishes, Graham says.7

Graham carried that course to the MICHELIN inspector's table himself in September 2025: house-grown shiitake in a slightly jellied dashi over a warm truffle royale, a nettle sauce added at the table, and ricotta-filled pasta parcels like little jewels which just burst in the mouth.1 I don't think they could have bettered this dish in any way, the inspector wrote, and of the cooking as a whole: The dishes I ate were highly detailed, beautifully plated and had so much going on in each mouthful: sweet, savoury, bitter and acidic elements all interplaying. And yet, there was never one ingredient too many.1 The critic Andy Hayler ate the whole menu in June 2024 and got a shiitake course with potato: The truffle helped but it was hard to get excited about this dish.3 His complaint ran wider than the mushrooms: The kitchen has a tendency to never use three ingredients when six or more will do, but the dishes today were nicely balanced and the technical execution was good.3

Dinner was £285 a head in the Harden's 2026 guide, against £225 in June 2024 (Andy Hayler). Harden's reports growing pushback this year against the eye-watering bill8 from its own diners, some of whom call the meal beautiful… but at an unacceptable price.8 The same survey still put the room fourth in the UK and higher than any other London restaurant on the list, off 30,000 reports from 2,500 diners (Time Out, December 2025).

Order this / avoid

• On the menu: the bread course, laminated like a croissant and stuffed with cheese.
• On the menu: the mushrooms from the cabinet, when the kitchen is harvesting it.
• On the menu: turbot. Jake Missing had it under a sake velouté and called it one of the most faultless dishes we've ever had from a tasting menu (The Infatuation, September 2024).4 Max Williams had it Cornish and on the bone, topped with caviar and swamped by a lovely yellow buttery sauce (Square Mile, July 2023).5
• On the menu: veal sweetbread. Max Williams, July 2023: rich, warm, smothered in an onion sauce you could wrap yourself up in on a winter's night.5
• On the menu: hay-aged Anjou pigeon, carved away from the table with a croustade of liver and confit wing to eat while you wait. The MICHELIN inspector, September 2025: the breast had a crisp skin but cut like butter.1
• Drink: a bottle from the cheaper end of the list. Andy Hayler counted 69 of them under £75 among 521 labels, at an average markup of 2.8 times retail, which is quite fair for London (June 2024).3 Corkage was £75 a bottle in July 2023 (Square Mile).

What locals & experts say

• The MICHELIN inspector, September 2025, on what kind of three-star this is: Smoothly and efficiently run but without old-school formality or grandeur, The Ledbury is one of the new breed of Three-Star restaurants. It's cool, rather than opulent.1
• The same inspector, on finding the owner working the floor: He was there during our dinner (and may well be during yours too) and he served a course to every table. Yet he did so in such a down-to-earth style that if I hadn't already known what he looked like, I would never have guessed he was the owner.1
• Jake Missing, The Infatuation, September 2024, on who is in the room: This is a humming dining room with couples, tourists, swaggering bankers, and W11 mothers taking Etonian sons out for a spot of lunch.4
• Max Williams, Square Mile, July 2023, on the decor: polished brown floor, light grey walls, spotless white tablecloths, a liberal amount of fawn sprinkled around the place. Imagine a restaurant dressed for a hunting weekend.5
• Chet Sharma, chef-patron of BiBi, August 2025, on the room and the service: Every time you go it evolves and just gets better. The room itself is actually quite stuffy, with starched white tablecloths – it does have three Michelin stars, after all – but the service is so friendly.10

Good to know

• Where: 127 Ledbury Road, Notting Hill W11 2AQ, behind a large canopy with the name legible only from a few feet away. Nearest station Westbourne Park.
• Booking: call +44 20 7792 9090 (The Infatuation, September 2024). The restaurant books its own tables.
• When: shut Sunday and Monday. Jake Missing says to come at lunch for the shorter menu and the light, though lunch does not run every day, so ask when you call. Take an early table if you want the last tube home.
• What it costs: at lunch in June 2024 the full tasting menu was £200 and the six-course one £180. Andy Hayler's dinner bill that month came to £350 a head with wine, £200 of it food.3
• The menu moves: Where before Covid we had a couple of signature dishes, now it's more fluid with the seasons, it's more changeable, Graham says.7

Verdict

should-visit — Go for the night that was going to be special anyway, which is the night Graham built this room for. The pigs, the deer and the mushrooms are his own, and he is usually in the room while you eat them. Eight courses run past three hours and cost £285 a head in the 2026 Harden's guide, a bill some of that guide's own diners have stopped forgiving.