Viral restaurants and months-long waitlists: has booking culture ruined London’s dining scene?

Your alarm is set. You know exactly who’s in your group of six. You’ve got your debit card to hand. With one minute to go, it’s time to start refreshing the page. No, it’s not a Glasto ticket you’re after – it’s a table for dinner in three months’ time. 

From reservation release times being firmly logged in people’s calendars to months-long waitlists and bots hoovering up the best spots, eating out at some of London’s latest hotspots has become something of an Olympic sport. According to new OpenTable statistics from between January and the middle of May this year, only 52 percent of diners using the booking service reserved their table three days or less in advance. That means that almost half of all people securing some of the capital’s most coveted seats were doing so well in advance of the event. 

And so, London’s restaurant scene has become something solely for the group chat admin kind of people; for the hen-do organisers and the people who don’t forget to send birthday cards. It’s certainly not for the coasters out there.

‘But I’m not fussed about those swanky, celeb-filled restaurants,’ you say. Well, bad luck. Even little non-fussy neighbourhood joints have become inundated with #FoodTok-loving gaggles apparently wanting to spend more time taking pictures of their viral noodles than actually eating them.

Just look at Singburi. The tiny, family-run Thai restaurant on an unassuming stretch of Leytonstone High Street announced themselves as ‘fully booked for the whole year’ last September. Fancy some pub grub and a Guinness at The Devonshire in Soho? Set your alarm for 10.30am on a Thursday then wait three weeks and you might have a shot. Desperate to try Mambow in Clapton after we gave it the top spot on our 50 best restaurants in London list? Give it a month. (Sorry about that.)

Of course, there’s nothing we love to see more than London’s independent businesses thriving and bringing in the big bucks. But how did booking culture get here? Is the thrill of a spontaneous dinner out never to be seen again?

The viral effect

A couple of swipes on your ‘for you page’ on TikTok and you’ll probably be bombarded with a giant croissant (seriously?) or carbonara being served from a parmesan wheel, with enough likes to indicate it’s surely the greatest thing to have ever happened to London’s food scene (we’d argue it’s not). Whether we like it or not, TikTok has given rise to a new level of ‘hype’ restaurant, and with it, the mega advance booking.

Kensington’s Jacuzzi has TikTok to thank for its recent boom in bookings, while Xi’an Impression’s biangbiang noodles making it big on everyone’s FYP has brought new masses to the already popular spot off Holloway Road. Jesse Burgess, host of the popular TOPJAW TikTok account, knows a thing or two about restaurants going viral. ‘Things have shifted slightly to video media because you consume it more quickly,’ says Burgess. ‘The videos are so shareable. People comment and tag their partner or their mates.’ 

But with overnight social media success comes a whole lot of pressure for these restaurants – particularly the local haunts which might not necessarily have the infrastructure or staff in place to deal with overwhelming demand. ‘Singburi is a pretty lo-fi restaurant doing good Thai food, but they’re not trying to be anything exceptional. They just are very popular,’ says Burgess. ‘Some people go [after seeing it online], expecting an absolute wild experience and when they don’t get that, they get frustrated. It’s a funny thing for a restaurant to manage.’

As soon as a restaurant becomes an it-spot, it finds itself at the centre of a storm: is it worth the hype, or is it just doing the social media rounds? Some will flock to Resy to try to secure a booking, while others will avoid it at all costs, convinced it can’t be as good as everyone says it is. ‘I have mixed energy towards viral restaurants,’ says Alice, 26, from Battersea. ‘Some have blown up for a reason and have special dishes but when you weigh that up with the months in advance you have to book them, the dishes don’t seem quite so special.’

What happened to spontaneity?

Out in central London and risk asking a mate ‘fancy grabbing dinner tonight?’ You’ll likely end up in a high-street chain with aggressively bright lighting and a bill that feels way too high for the quality of food you’ve endured – because all the decent places are booked up and have few spots for walk-ins. 

The lack of spontaneity has also made highly-strung monsters of us all. ‘I’ve set an alarm for midnight before to book a restaurant a month in advance which gives similar energy to running for a sunbed on holiday which is such a no,’ says Alice. Perhaps walk-in restaurants – like Koya in Soho or Manteca in Shoreditch – are the answer for us more go-with-the-flow sorts? ‘It’s great when it works out,’ says Rosie Kellett, a food content creator. ‘But sometimes it can be a bit gutting to not guarantee a table if you don’t have time to queue or it’s a long way to get there.’

Setting alarms to book a restaurant gives similar energy to running for a sunbed on holiday

And the problems don’t stop at landing the table. Even if one of your more organised friends has managed to lock in a booking at one of the capital’s most sought-after spots and been kind enough to bring you along for the ride – the clock can often start ticking the second you sit down. ‘Recently I had a table for seven at 8pm and we were really rushed,’ says Georgina, 26, from Islington. ‘By 9.45pm they asked us to pay the bill. They definitely didn’t want us to have pudding. It was like: pay and get out.’

Ninety minutes for a table of two and two hours for a table of more than four has become standard practice on the London food scene. It might not be the most relaxing practice, but given the current climate, can we really complain? Grappling with soaring operating costs, increasing food prices and dwindling mark-ups on booze, restaurants are doing all they can to churn out as many covers in an evening as possible. 

Listen: if you can't beat ’em, join ’em. If you want an 8pm dinner table at Berenjak in Soho, you’re going to have to get those alarms set, wait your turn and – like the Glastonbury ticket sale – hope it delivers. Or, if that really does just kill the buzz for you: pick your friends wisely and suck up to the group booker.