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Rosettes aren’t just for prize ponies. The AA Rosette Awards were established in 1956 and see UK restaurants rated from one to five Rosettes - with one being pretty good, and five being utterly amazing.
For the newly-announced spring 2025 edition of AA Rosette Awards, the highest rated London restaurant was Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal, which was upgraded to four Rosettes.
Four Rosettes means a restaurant offers ‘a truly outstanding gastronomic experience’ and is one of the best in the country. Alex Dilling at Hotel Café Royal is a double Michelin star restaurant which opened in 2022 at Piccadilly’s historic Hotel Cafe Royal. The 34-seat restaurant offers a £215 a head tasting menu and offers a ‘modern take on traditional French gastronomic cuisine’. The AA’s anonymous inspectors praised the restaurant for being ‘one of London’s most elegantly stylish dining rooms with cooking to match’.
No other London restaurant has been given four Rosettes this year, but a trio of spots were deemed worthy of three; Cord by Le Cordon Bleu in the City of London, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles at the OWO on Whitehall and Sael in St James’s, which we reviewed last year.
At last autumn’s AA Hospitality Awards, the Silver Birch in Chiswick was named London Restaurant of the Year, scoring the accolade for ‘excellence in food, service, and dining experience’, after appearing in 2023’s AA guide with three Rosettes.
More Michelin with Time Out
Last week Michelin unveiled its 2025 guide to the UK’s restaurants. Some won stars, others lost them, then some picked up ‘green’ stars for sustainable dining and Bib Gourmands for affordability. You can find a London Michelin round-up for 2025 here and find my (Time Out food editor Leonie Cooper’s) favourites here.
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