For the past decade, London has lived through the era of the small menu
Blame the natural wine bar boom, the shared-plates takeover, the obsession with “doing a few things well”. Lean lists became a sign of confidence. Places scrapped dessert entirely or threw in a single pre-prepared option to keep tables turning. Then came Covid, when shorter menus meant fewer chefs on the rota, tighter controls on waste, more predictable ordering and less risk, all of which helped to keep costs down, which was vital for survival.
But something’s shifting. Just as the city has swerved away from bare-bones interiors and rediscovered its taste for plush fabrics, tablecloths and dramatic rooms, the long menu is quietly creeping back in. Maximalism is having a moment, and restaurants want you to stay and spend – the diners still going out to these kinds of places are likely a little less price-conscious than those choosing to stay home in the current climate.
We first noticed the return of the huge menu at Legado, Nieves Barragán’s Shoreditch restaurant, which opened in July. We counted almost 60 dishes. Sixty. Seven savoury sections, nine desserts. We assumed it was an opening flex and that once labour costs settled in and best sellers were identified, they’d trim it back. We checked. They haven’t. Not that we’re complaining, we loved it. It’s a huge restaurant, and giving diners breadth might be exactly the strategy for keeping the room full.
Then came Tobi Masa, the London spin-off of NYC’s Sushi Masa, tucked inside the Rosewood Chancery. Five pages of Japanese dishes. Again, it’s a huge dining room, and the crowd is likely to be quite varied, maybe skewing towards a Middle Eastern customer – and if you’ve seen restaurant menus in Dubai, well, they’re mostly massive.
Over in Kingly Court, ALTA has gone long as well, with a stacked run of Northern Spanish plates and a drinks list that doesn’t quit. And we don’t just mean an indulgent wine section. They’re running vermouths, fortified bottles, ciders, cocktails and a full non-alc page, and we’re here for it.
And now there’s Lilibet’s in Mayfair, where maximalism is fully dialled up. The interiors are extra EXTRA, sure, but the menu is the real show-off: six pages, fourteen sections, eleven desserts. Eleven. There’s also a hefty selection of fishes, all displayed in a gleaming ice cabinet like the crown jewels.
So why the comeback? Partly because diners want more than the minimalism of the post-Covid years. When they are spending, they want to feel a sense of occasion again – plush dining rooms, longer evenings, and the sense they’re getting their money’s worth. And partly because with fewer diners around, restaurants need to hedge their bets: offer menus broad enough to appeal to a bigger crowd, or filled with enough ‘next time’ dishes to make people return.
One-page menus aren’t disappearing (we’re still here for the wine bars with no kitchens). But the era of long menu energy is officially upon us.
