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A two Michelin-starred restaurant in the heart of London’s shopping district has announced it’s upping its single supplement for diners eating without a companion – to a wallet-busting £390.
The highly revered independent-owned Alex Dilling at Hotel Cafe Royal, overlooking Regent Street, currently charges £350 to diners who want to eat alone during the restaurant’s dinner service – the same price that a couple would pay for the £175 tasting menu.
The lunch service works the same way, one person currently pays £170, while two would pay £85 each.
The 34-seat, 11 table restaurant, serving modern French cuisine, will increase the dinner charge from August 18th, making a tasting menu for one in the evening £390.
The restaurant’s owners, Victoria Sheppard and top chef Alex Dilling, say an increase from suppliers has forced the planned increase.
Sheppard, who is the youngest woman at 33 to own a two Michelin-starred restaurant, told MailOnline the solo supplement ‘has been recently implemented.’
Solo diners will feel the brunt of rising supplier and staff costs at top London restaurant Alex Dilling at Hotel Cafe Royal – with a minimum spend already enforced and rising next month to £390
The independent-owned restaurant has a coveted two Michelin-stars. Single diners currently pay twice the price that those arriving in twos or larger groups pay
She said: ‘We have a very high demand for solo dining and only 11 tables and a very maximum of 34 covers in our restaurant, to date we don’t turn our tables.
‘We procure amongst the highest quality ingredients possibly available to provide the highest level of gastronomic experience.
She added: ‘I can confirm our prices are increasing by 11% for dinner tasting menus despite an increase in staff costs of 30% and our average cost increase from our suppliers being 25%.’
Shepperd said should solo diners not want to pay the minimum spend, the restaurant would try to accommodate without it, if availability allowed.
While single supplements in the travel industry are commonplace – tourists have long been charged an additional fee for sole occupancy of hotel rooms, they’re still rare in the restaurant industry.
Two Michelin-star restaurant Alex Dilling at London’s Hotel Cafe Royal will charge solo diners £390 from August 18th, twice the price of
High-end London restaurants including three Michelin-starred Sketch and Helen Darroze at The Connaught and two Michelin-starred Ikoyi don’t charge single supplements although they do only serve tasting menus, with Sketch charging £190pp, Helen Darroze £195pp and Ikoyi £300pp.
Earlier this month, the Observer revealed how some of the UK’s top restaurants are charging hundreds of pounds to guests that cancel their reservations.
This means some customers have been left with hefty bills despite not getting anything to eat.
The Ledbury in London, which has two Michelin stars, charges £195 for guests that cancel within 48 hours of their booking.
Meanwhile, Core by Clare Smyth, which has three Michelin stars, has a similar policy charging £150 per head for guests that cancel.
And it’s not just the country’s fanciest restaurants that are charging fees.
An analysis by the Observer found that 90 of the UK’s top 100 restaurants – named in the – charge for cancellations and no shows, with some charging a fee for up to two weeks in advance.
The highest fee is Ynyshir, (pronounced inish-eer), in Machynlleth, Wales.
Voted the best restaurant in the UK, it charges customers £375 a head for dinner, with sales ‘final and non-refundable’.
Guests who can’t make the date can reschedule but need to give a minimum of two weeks notice.
Core by Clare Smyth, which has three Michelin stars, has a similar policy charging £150 per head for guests that cancel
Chefs have previously spoken of the difficulties with last minute cancellations and no shows, with many saying it can crumble the restaurant industry – which is already fragile post-Covid.
Celebrity chef Tom Kerridge previously berated customers who failed to show up at his London restaurant.
He wrote: ‘To the 27 people that booked @kerridgesbandg and then failed to turn up on a Saturday night…This industry, like many others is on the verge of collapse.
‘Your behaviour is disgraceful, shortsighted and down right unhelpful…all of you ‘no shows’ in all restaurants up and down the country and adding to the issues already being faced…YOU are putting peoples jobs more at risk…
‘We put staff levels to the number of covers booked and when you fail to turn up, it now costs us, which in turn will force very uncomfortable and hard decisions about staffing levels.
‘You are the worst kind of guest, and that is ‘selfish.’ I hope you have a good look at yourselves…’
James Snowdon, co-founder of the Palmerston in Edinburgh told the Observer that they once charged £10 per head but ‘no one blinked an eyelid’, so increased it to £20 each.
One customer told the paper they cancelled at a restaurant five hours in advanced after being delayed on her way there from the Cotswolds, only to be charged £125.
‘I did cancel on the same day, but I would never not turn up. I figured I would be giving them some time to fill the space,’ she said.
Other restaurants include Salt in Stratford-upon-Avon, who charge £55 for their tasting menu.
‘If someone cancels midweek within 48 hours, we struggle to resell the table,’ he says. ‘It is dead money. With that table being open, food has been ordered, prep has begun and staff have been scheduled. I’m very strict with it, and we have lost customers from it in the past,’ he said.
Other less exclusive restaurants also charge for no shows. The Tamil Prince in Islington charges £35-a-head for late cancellation up to six-hours before booking.
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