The London restaurants now taking reservations for the first time, from Barrafina to Gloria

It’s the ultimate catch-22 for every London restaurant fan: would you rather your favourite restaurant be booked up for six months in advance, or have to wait up to an hour every time you wanted a table?

“Sometimes our customers don't see the benefit,” laughs Barrafina co-owner Sam Hart when I ask him about their no reservations policy, “but I would argue there is one.”

He explains – probably for the nth time since the tapas bar opened its first site in 2015 – that the efficiency afforded to a restaurant by asking its customers to queue rather than book allows it to provide more bang for its diners’ buck.

Reasonable, and who doesn’t love a bit of spontaneity anyway? People who are heading on their first night out after a pandemic-induced national lockdown, that’s who.

It’s one of the reasons why a number of London’s restaurants who previously refused to make reservations for smaller parties are accepting bookings for the first time when they reopen after lockdown.

Two locations of Barrafina (Dean Street and Coal Drops Yard) will open next week offering an inaugural booking service, while the remaining two will also welcome reservations when they return later in the month. It’ll be a first too for Hart’s Mexican restaurants El Pastor and Casa Pastor.

“With only 10-15 percent of the central London office community back at work, we’re effectively asking people to travel”, says Hart. “The idea of expecting people to make the journey, and when they get there, we don't have room for them – it just wouldn't work.”

As well as helping diners make their plans “a little bit more concrete” during an uncertain time, reservations also help mitigate the logistical nightmare of a socially distanced queue.

“If you're six people queuing, it's easy to distance by a metre and a half, like in your local Tesco,” says Victor Lugger, co-owner of Instagram-friendly Italian trattorias Gloria and Circolo Popolare. “But we've seen up to 500 people queuing at Circolo – that’s a very, very, very long queue.”

Lugger’s restaurants have offered reservations for groups of more than six before now, but are now allowing fans of its truffle pastas and burrata-laden pizzas to book in smaller tables. The same is the case at Dishoom, the perennially popular Indian restaurant which will reopen four locations in the capital this month, where the waiting list is almost as famous as the bacon naan.

Other restaurants are welcoming booked-in diners at times of the day usually earmarked for first-come-first-serve. Caravan will reopen its King’s Cross venue with a limited number of bookings available for its much-coveted weekend brunch service, while diminutive tapas spot Morito in Exmouth Market is allowing diners to book in the evening.

Freddie Janssen’s similarly compact Dalston cafe Snackbar will offer reservations for the first time (DM them on Instagram to book), while the considerably larger premises of street food hotspot Vinegar Yard is now allowing patrons to book its communal tables for up to six people, with drinks packages available too.

Padella fans, don’t get too excited – the much-queued-for pasta restaurants won’t be taking bookings, but they will be extending their outdoor seating at both locations, adding an extra 40 seats to the Borough Market original.

But with many hospitality leaders warning that central London could continue to be a “ghost town” even after July 4, do restaurants even need to worry about queues?

“We were fully booked for a month in literally 16 hours,” says Lugger. Him and Big Mamma group business partner Tigrane Seydoux had allocated 30 per cent of their London restaurants for reservations, but are now looking to open up more. Hart says Barrafina is already booked out for its first weekend, giving him “a certain degree of confidence that there will be at least somebody around.”

“Everyone is very excited to get back to restaurants, but Covid is still very present in everyone's minds,” adds Lugger. “We just want to make it comfortable and safe for everyone. ”

Reservations seem to be on the menu at many of the capital’s restaurants post-lockdown, with a number not just introducing bookings, but making them compulsory. Among those going reservations-only are pizza hotspot Homeslice, Bethnal Green wine bar The Laughing Heart, and every one of the 13 D&D London restaurants opening on July 4, including German Gymnasium and Bluebird Chelsea.

Does this then signal the end of London’s love-hate relationship with no-reservations restaurants?

“If you'd asked me that 101 days ago before lockdown started, I would say ‘no way, never, we’d never take reservations’”, says Hart, when asked if Barrafina might keep its reservations book open after the grip of Covid eases.

“It is too early to say, but we're certainly much more open minded about it now,” he says. “I think it'd be very sad for Barrafina to lose its spontaneous quality, but maybe some sort of hybrid is where we end up – we'll see.”

The 'no-reservations' restaurants you can now book a table at in London

Barrafina The Coal Drops Yard and Dean Street locations of the acclaimed tapas bars will open on July 4 and 9 respectively. The Adelaide Street and Drury Lane locations will also take reservations when they reopen later in the month. W1, N1, barrafina.co.uk

El Pastor The Borough Market taqueria (from the team behind Barrafina) is due to start serving its namesake pork-and-pineapple tacos from July 7. 7A Stoney Street, SE1 9AA, tacoselpastor.co.uk

Casa Pastor The King’s Cross follow-up to El Pastor will also take bookings for the first time when it reopens on July 4. Coal Drops Yard, N1C 4DQ, tacoselpastor.co.uk

Gloria The flamboyant Italian trattoria returns to Shoreditch on July 4, wacky cocktails and Instagrammable interiors included – and you can now book a table for less than six. 54-56 Great Eastern Street, EC2A 3QR, bigmammagroup.com

Circolo Popolare Gloria’s sibling restaurant will now take bookings for smaller parties when it welcomes diners back under its floral canopy on July 4. 40-41 Rathbone Place, W1T 1HX, bigmammagroup.com

Dishoom Fans of the Indian hotspot can now book dinner for up to six people. It’ll open its Shoreditch, King’s Cross and Carnaby sites on July 10, followed by Kensington on July 27 (Covent Garden remains closed for refurbishment). E2, N1, W1, W8, dishoom.com

Snackbar Freddie Janssen’s Dalston cafe serving innovative and exciting lunch fodder will now take bookings via Instagram DM – but they’ll only be open for lunch. 20 Dalston Lane, E8 3AZ, snackbarlondon.com

Caravan The coffee connoisseur will allow a limited number of bookings for weekend brunch at its King’s Cross location (opening July 4). It has taken reservations before for lunch and dinner, but you’ll be able to book at its most popular mealtime. 1 Granary Square, N1C 4AA, caravanrestaurants.co.uk

Morito The original Exmouth Market location of the Spanish-North African tapas spot will now welcome bookings after 6.15pm, having previously only offered them earlier in the day. 32 Exmouth Market, EC1R 4QE, morito.co.uk

Vinegar Yard The street food market and beer garden will reopen to the public, with groups of up to six able to book a spot at a table and even pre-order drinks packages. 72-82 St Thomas Street, SE1 3QX, vinegaryard.london

Read more

The London and UK restaurants that have confirmed reopening dates