Charlotte Street after six: Fitzrovia's restaurant row, read by mood

A street that has always fed the artists

Charlotte Street takes its name from Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and for most of the two centuries since it has been where London's painters, writers and, later, advertising people went to eat and drink. The district's name is said to come from the Fitzroy Tavern on the corner of Windmill Street, where between the wars Dylan Thomas, George Orwell and a rotating cast of poets and painters made the saloon bar their second home.

Today the offices around it are full of design studios and media companies, and after six the street changes shift. Doorways that were quiet all afternoon light up, tables go out on the pavement in summer, and a restaurant row with more range than almost any street in London starts its evening. Above it all rises the BT Tower, sold in 2024 with plans to become a hotel, still the easiest landmark in Fitzrovia to navigate by.

Tablecloths and tasting menus

At the formal end of the scale, Pied à Terre has been cooking on Charlotte Street since the early 1990s, in a narrow townhouse dining room that suits a long, quiet, serious dinner. It is the choice for an anniversary, a celebration or an evening when the food itself should be the event. Book well ahead and allow the whole evening.

A few doors along, The Ninth offers precise cooking with a relaxed, Mediterranean accent in a room that feels less like a ceremony. It is the answer when you want an excellent dinner without the hush. Either one gives a companion who enjoys food a great deal to talk about, and both reward a four-hour booking rather than a squeezed two.

Counters, charcoal and a certain amount of noise

The middle of the street belongs to livelier rooms. Roka, with its robata grill and counter seats, is a buzzing, dependable choice that works as well for two hours as for four. Kitchen Table, further north, is the most celebrated counter in the district, and both are covered in detail in the chef's tables field note. Norma brings a Sicilian accent to the southern end of the street.

Just off the street, a minute from Tottenham Court Road, Hakkasan on Hanway Place has served Cantonese cooking in a dark, glamorous basement since the early 2000s, and it still makes an entrance of a dinner. Around them, on Goodge Street, Rathbone Place and Great Titchfield Street, newer small rooms open and close with every season: loud, clever, often brilliant, sometimes gone within a year. For those, ask Clementine what guests have enjoyed lately.

The first glass, before the table

Fitzrovia is rich in places to begin. Charlotte Street Hotel has a lively bar on the ground floor, the easiest first stop on the street itself. Five minutes south-west, on Berners Street, the Sanderson's long bar and the grand room of Berners Tavern at The London EDITION give the start of an evening a little more theatre. For a pint with history, the Fitzroy Tavern is still on its corner.

Meeting in a bar first has a practical advantage: it gives the evening a gentle start and lets you walk to the restaurant together, arriving as two people who already know each other a little. Name the bar and the hour to Clementine; your companion will already be on a stool when you come through the door, or follow you in within moments.

Pacing a Charlotte Street evening

This street suits the dinner date best of all: £900 covers four hours, the whole arc of an evening. One possible running order:

Dress, volume and the right table

Charlotte Street is smart without being stiff. A jacket with an open collar suits nearly every room on it, and Pied à Terre earns a tie if you enjoy wearing one. Your companion reads the restaurant from its name and dresses to match: tailored and understated for the tablecloth rooms, a little more colour for Roka or Hakkasan, where the lights are low and the music is not.

In the livelier rooms, ask for a table away from the speakers and the kitchen door, or a booth where the room has them. Conversation is the point of the evening, and in a loud room the right table is the difference between talking and shouting.

Arriving, and getting back

The nearest platform is Goodge Street, on the Northern line, a short walk east of the restaurants. Allow under ten minutes on foot from Tottenham Court Road, with its Central and Elizabeth line trains, and a pleasant quarter of an hour from Oxford Circus. Stay at The Mandrake, The London EDITION, the Sanderson or Charlotte Street Hotel and the walk home after dinner takes minutes.

For an evening that carries on after dinner, into a late bar or a club, the night out page explains the longer formats. The rates page lists every rung, from the single hour at £250 up to the overnight at £1,800.

Charlotte Street habits, by name

Bianka keeps a Sicilian corner on the street and will have ordered the pasta before you have finished reading the menu. Lea likes to begin with an hour among the lamps and chairs at Heal's on Tottenham Court Road, then a light, early supper before a show. Tiffany starts almost every Fitzrovia evening at the Sanderson's long bar, and Tina knows the Berners Tavern room well and always has an opinion on your jacket.

Lea, Tiffany and Tina all sit in our petite window, and Lea's auburn waves put her in the auburn and red group. Message Clementine with the restaurant and the time, and she replies within fifteen minutes.