Dalloway Terrace

Named after the heroine of Virginia Woolf’s novel, Dalloway Terrace sits at the front of The Bloomsbury Hotel on Great Russell Street and has built a following almost entirely on its looks. The terrace is heated and covered by a retractable roof, wrapped in greenery and fairy lights, which means it functions year round rather than only in summer, a detail that matters given how much of its appeal is the setting itself.

Food ranges from breakfast through to an all day menu of English leaning dishes: beer battered fish and chips, roasted beetroot, a lobster salad, alongside a proper afternoon tea that starts from £55 a head and £70 with Champagne. None of it is trying to be groundbreaking, it’s solid brasserie cooking that knows its job is to complement the room rather than steal attention from it.

Afternoon tea is genuinely the reason most people book, and it’s worth choosing this over some of the grander hotel teas nearby if you want somewhere that photographs beautifully without the formality of a jacket and tie requirement. Starters on the all day menu begin around £13 and mains from £25, which is reasonable for the location just off the British Museum.

It suits birthday lunches, a relaxed catch up with friends, and visitors who want a quintessentially English looking space without needing to book weeks ahead the way you would for somewhere like The Ritz. The atmosphere is calm rather than lively, which some diners love and others find a little sedate for an evening out.

The honest note is that the food, while perfectly pleasant, isn’t really the point, and diners expecting a memorable meal on the strength of the reviews may come away thinking the cooking is a notch below the setting. Go for the room and the tea, keep expectations realistic for the dinner menu. Reservations run through OpenTable or the Bloomsbury Hotel’s own site.