King
The menu here is rewritten every day off what came in from the greenmarket, and Ruth Rogers' line for what that costs you is that there are no raspberries in January. Jess Shadbolt and Clare de Boer met cooking at her River Cafe in London and opened King on the corner of King Street and Sixth, with the kitchen open to the room. Rogers sends people here out of pride in the two of them and says so out loud.
Why go
The cooking leans Southern French and Italian, and Rogers takes lunch here. There is a morning counter too: Cafe King opens at 8am Tuesday through Saturday and closes at noon.
Order this / avoid
- Order: Rogers' own lunch, which is the antipasti plate, the grilled sea bass and a dessert.1
- Avoid: planning a weekday lunch. Lunch is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from noon to 3pm.
What locals & experts say
- Ruth Rogers (The River Cafe, London), 2026-05, and the affiliation is hers to state:
I adore King. I go for the food, of course, but I also go because of the story. Jess Shadbolt and Clare de Boer, the chef-owners of King, met while working at The River Cafe.
1 She adds the sourcing and the seasonality herself:They cook simple food and really care about the ingredients, many of which come from the greenmarket.
- Pete Wells, reviewing it for the New York Times in 2018, quoted on the restaurant's own homepage:
what you really notice is how many little moves they know that can raise a recipe from good to exceptional.
2 I have not found the article itself, so read that as a line the restaurant chose to print about itself.
Good to know
- Booking: reservations open 30 days out. Dinner runs seven nights, 5 to 10pm, and until 10:30 on Friday and Saturday.
Verdict
could-visit — Ruth Rogers is the only voice I have, and she is not independent of the two people who cook here. The one critic's line, Pete Wells in 2018, is a sentence the restaurant prints on its own homepage. Book lunch and order what Rogers orders.