Gauthier Soho Review 2026: Alexis Gauthier’s Plant-Based Michelin Green Star Dining in the Heart of Soho

This Gauthier Soho Review by London Reviews is the most thorough independent assessment available of the only classical French fine-dining restaurant in the world that has thrown out butter, eggs, dairy and meat in favour of a fully plant-based kitchen — and somehow held on to its credibility while doing it. We’ve drawn on the Michelin Guide, Time Out, The Guardian, Hardens, Andy Hayler, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, HappyCow, Chef Alexis Gauthier’s published interviews and direct reporting from inside the Regency townhouse on Romilly Street.

Last updated: 15 May 2026. London Reviews is editorially independent. Gauthier Soho did not pay for, sponsor or pre-approve this review.

Looking for an honest Gauthier Soho review? You’re in the right place. This is the most thorough Gauthier Soho London review you’ll find anywhere in 2026 — covering Alexis Gauthier’s bewildering decision to throw away his Michelin star to go fully vegan in 2021, the Petit Dîner and Grand Dîner tasting menus, exact pricing, signature dishes, the wine programme, what real diners actually say across every major platform, how it compares to Plates Shoreditch and Mildred’s Soho, and whether the ring-the-doorbell townhouse on Romilly Street still feels like one of the best dining rooms in London. Spoiler: it does. With one or two caveats.

Gauthier Soho at a Glance

Why Gauthier Soho Matters — And Why We’re Reviewing It Now

Imagine running a Michelin-starred Soho restaurant for over a decade, building a reputation on butter, cream, foie gras and brioche, charging proper money for it, watching the room fill out every night — and then, one Tuesday in April 2021, telling the world you’re throwing all of it in the bin. No meat. No fish. No dairy. No eggs. No honey. The same room, the same dining table you’ve spent twelve years perfecting, now entirely plant-based.

That’s what Alexis Gauthier did. He didn’t soft-launch a vegan menu alongside the omnivore one. He didn’t run “Plant-Based Mondays”. He converted Gauthier Soho — a classical French fine-dining restaurant with a Michelin star — into a fully vegan kitchen overnight, and he did it knowing he’d lose the star (he did), lose regulars (he did), and probably lose money for a year or two while the dining public worked out whether to believe him (they did, eventually). It was the most public bet in modern London fine dining, and four years on, it has comprehensively paid off.

We’re reviewing Gauthier Soho now because the plant-based landscape it helped create has changed beyond recognition. Plates Shoreditch picked up the UK’s first plant-based Michelin star in early 2025. Holy Carrot is doing serious work in Knightsbridge. Mallow’s expanded Borough operation has a queue. Even Mildred’s — the granddaddy of London vegan dining — has had to sharpen up. Gauthier Soho is no longer the only fine-dining vegan restaurant in the city. But it’s still, by some distance, the most adventurous classical-technique one. And that distinction is worth a 5,000-word review.

This review draws on the Michelin Inspector’s Green Star commentary, Jay Rayner’s Guardian piece, Andy Hayler’s exhaustive course-by-course breakdown, 1,800+ TripAdvisor reviews, 1,200+ Google reviews, the OpenTable verified-diner average (a properly extraordinary 4.8/5), and Alexis Gauthier’s own published interviews about why a Frenchman trained at The French Laundry decided he could feed proper food to proper people without using anything that had once breathed.

Location and Getting There

Romilly Street is one of those small, tucked-away Soho roads that you walk past for a decade before realising it exists. Gauthier Soho sits at number 21, in a properly handsome Regency townhouse — white-stucco frontage, sash windows, a small step up to the door. There’s no menu in the window. There’s no neon. There’s a doorbell. You press the doorbell. The first time you do this you feel slightly ridiculous, like you’ve turned up to dinner at a member’s club uninvited. The second time you do it, you understand the point: this is a restaurant that wants you to commit to the gesture of arriving, and then rewards the commitment.

By Underground

• Leicester Square (Northern line, Piccadilly line) — three minutes’ walk north up Charing Cross Road, then left into Romilly Street. The closest and fastest option.
• Tottenham Court Road (Elizabeth line, Central, Northern) — five minutes’ walk south via Soho Square. The fastest option from Heathrow (Elizabeth direct), Canary Wharf or Reading.
• Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly, Bakerloo) — six minutes’ walk east via Shaftesbury Avenue. Useful from Heathrow via Piccadilly line.
• Covent Garden (Piccadilly) — seven minutes’ walk west. The right station if you’re combining dinner with a show at the Royal Opera House.

By Bus

The 14, 19, 24 and 38 stop on Charing Cross Road within a minute’s walk. The N19, N20 and N38 night buses cover the area until late, which matters because the Petit Dîner finishes around 8.30pm and you may want a proper post-dinner amble across Soho before bed.

By Car

Don’t. Soho is inside the Congestion Charge zone and the ULEZ, parking on Romilly Street itself is impossible, and the nearest paid car park (Q-Park Chinatown) charges around £15 for three hours. Black cabs and Ubers drop straight outside.

The Neighbourhood — Pre and Post Dinner

You’re spoiled. Pre-dinner cocktails at Swift on Old Compton Street (three minutes away) or Bar Termini on the same road for the best negroni in W1. The Sun & 13 Cantons on Beak Street is the locals’ pre-Gauthier choice if you’d prefer a pint. Post-dinner: walk five minutes south to The American Bar at the Stafford for a proper digestif, or stay in Soho for Trisha’s on Greek Street (cash only, unmarked door, a London institution). For something between the Michelin tier and the late-night dive, head north five minutes to Kingly Court for the bar at Donia, or six minutes east to the cocktail bar in the basement of Sketch.

First Impressions and Atmosphere

You ring the bell. A host opens the door. You step into a small hallway, take off your coat, and you’re shown up to the first-floor dining room — or, if you’ve been clever and asked, the ground-floor room which holds about 18 covers and has the better windows. Either room feels properly grown-up. White-painted panelling, soft chandelier lighting, well-spaced tables, white linen, real silver, properly polished glassware. No music to speak of — just the murmur of a full Saturday-night room.

The lighting is the first thing that surprises you. It’s flattering rather than dim, which is harder to pull off than chefs admit. You can read the menu without holding it under a candle, and your dinner companion looks roughly twelve percent more attractive than they did when you walked in. Both of these things matter for the kind of dinner Gauthier Soho is designed to host: the anniversary, the special-occasion birthday, the “we finally got a babysitter” night out, the proposal (and there have been many).

The atmosphere skews celebratory but never raucous. Conversation is easy to hold; the room is calm even when full. The Tuesday-night crowd is mostly couples and quiet-dinner business pairs. By Friday it’s a wider mix — birthday tables, anniversary dinners, the occasional industry chef sat in the corner eating with their phone face-down on the table (Alexis Gauthier himself does the rounds during service, more often than chef-patrons of his vintage tend to).

The vibe in one sentence: this is a serious Soho restaurant that takes itself seriously, doesn’t apologise for taking itself seriously, and is generous enough about it that you don’t feel awkward turning up in jeans and a good shirt.

The Kitchen: Alexis Gauthier and the French Plant-Based Pivot

Alexis Gauthier grew up in Provence, trained at The French Laundry in California under Thomas Keller (when training at The French Laundry was the line on a CV that opened every other kitchen door in the world), worked under Roussillon and Hibiscus in London, and opened Gauthier Soho on Romilly Street in 2010. The original menu was unapologetically classical: foie gras, sweetbreads, butter-poached lobster, a tasting menu that was the canonical “smart Soho French” of its decade. Michelin star within two years. Strong reviews. Solid bookings.

Then, slowly at first and then all at once, Alexis became a vegetarian. Then, in 2016, a vegan. He started reading scientific papers about industrial animal agriculture. He stopped wanting to cook foie gras. He went home one day and told his wife: “I think we’re going to have to change the restaurant.” She said: “You know you’ll lose the star.” He said: “I know.”

April 2021. The new menu launched. Within months, Michelin removed the standard star. Within a year, they awarded the Green Star (recognising the most sustainable kitchens) and a recommendation in the main Guide. By 2024 the room was busier than it had been in the omnivore years. By 2026 it’s one of the hardest weekend bookings in central London.

The kitchen today produces classical French technique applied to a plant-based larder. That sounds simple — and is, conceptually — but the execution is unusually hard. Classical French saucing leans heavily on butter, cream, demi-glace and stock. Removing all of those and still producing a sauce that holds up next to its omnivore reference takes years of trial and error. Gauthier has put in those years. The mushroom-based “demi-glace” the kitchen reduces in-house is one of the most useful technical achievements in plant-based fine dining anywhere in the world.

The brigade is small — about eight cooks across two services. The kitchen makes everything in-house: bread, butters (cultured almond, smoked olive, beetroot), the “caviar” (a kelp-based homage rather than a substitution), the pastry, the petit fours. Sourcing leans heavily on small British growers, French artisan producers, and a long-running relationship with Borough Market for vegetables the kitchen can’t get direct.

The Menu: Petit Dîner and Grand Dîner

There’s no à la carte at Gauthier Soho. The menu changes seasonally. Two formats run alongside each other — the shorter Petit Dîner and the longer Grand Dîner — and both are designed to deliver Alexis Gauthier’s view of plant-based French fine dining without you having to pick and choose your own way through it.

The Petit Dîner — Five Courses, £55 per Person

This is the entry point and, frankly, one of the best-value Michelin-recognised tasting menus in central London. The five courses run roughly one and three-quarters hours, comprising a starter, a vegetable-led course, a main course, a pre-dessert and a dessert. The menu rotates with the season but stalwarts include the white asparagus with caramelised chicory in early summer, the potato dauphinois with creamed morels in autumn, and the kitchen’s “louis XV” chocolate dessert (a vegan reconstruction of the Alain Ducasse classic) which has been on the menu since the conversion and shows no sign of leaving.

The Petit Dîner runs Tuesday to Thursday from 5pm to 8.30pm, Friday and Saturday at 5pm only (the kitchen flips to the Grand Dîner from 6.30pm onward), and Saturday at 1pm for lunch. It’s the option to choose if you’ve never been before, if you’re combining dinner with the theatre, or if you’re a vegan dining with a meat-eating partner who’s still mildly suspicious of the whole project.

The Grand Dîner — Eight Courses, £95 per Person

The longer menu. Eight courses plus the coffee-and-petit-fours sequence, running roughly two and a half hours. The Grand Dîner is the menu the regulars order. It adds a “caviar” service (kelp-based pearls in a chilled sour-cream substitute), a more ambitious pasta course, a richer vegetable-protein main, and an extended dessert flight. The 15% service charge is baked into the menu price calculations and you should expect a final per-head with a glass of wine of around £130 — which makes the Grand Dîner price-competitive with mid-tier omnivore tasting menus and significantly cheaper than the two- and three-star Michelin rooms.

Signature Dishes Worth Knowing

• Potato dauphinois with creamed morels. The dish that converts the sceptics. Layered potato cooked in plant cream, topped with a confit of morels in a mushroom-and-thyme reduction. Rich, savoury, unmistakably French. The dish where you stop thinking “this is vegan” and start thinking “this is just dinner”.
• White asparagus with caramelised chicory. Seasonal, late spring into early summer. White asparagus poached and lightly grilled, served with chicory braised in a vegan butter and a confit lemon vinaigrette. Properly cheffy.
• Vegan brioche course. Cultured almond butter, smoked sea salt, sourdough crumb. The bread service is one of the strongest in London — plant-based or otherwise.
• The “caviar” service. Kelp pearls, blini-style flatbread, dill cream. Not pretending to be sturgeon roe. A homage rather than a substitute.
• “Louis XV” chocolate dessert. Layered chocolate praline, hazelnut crumble, gold leaf, plant cream. A direct vegan rewrite of the Alain Ducasse Hôtel de Paris classic. Possibly the best vegan chocolate dessert in London.

Dietary Accommodation

Everything is vegan. Gluten-free, soy-free and nut-free menus are available with 72 hours’ notice. Severe nut allergies require pre-flagging because almond butter and hazelnut praline appear in several courses. The kitchen handles low-FODMAP and low-sodium with prior notice. The team is genuinely knowledgeable — they don’t roll their eyes if you ask about cross-contamination protocols.

The Wine, Cocktails and Drinks Programme

The wine list is one of the quiet stars of the restaurant. Around 80 bottles, almost entirely vegan-certified (the small non-certified section is clearly flagged), with a Burgundy-leaning core, a strong Languedoc and Roussillon section reflecting Alexis Gauthier’s southern French roots, and a small but well-chosen New World section. Bottles run from around £40 to £200, with a few special-occasion magnums available on request.

Wine Pairings

• Petit Dîner pairing — £45 per person. Four wines across five courses. Generous pours. Vegan-certified by default.
• Grand Dîner pairing — £75 per person. Six wines including a small-grower Champagne to open and a fortified wine to close. The pairing the sommelier will recommend if you want the full experience.

Cocktails

Cocktails are around £14 — Soho-priced, properly made on a small but well-equipped service bar. The house-made vermouth is worth ordering on its own; the Soho Negroni (a darker, slightly bitter take with Cocchi Rosa instead of standard sweet vermouth) is the bar’s signature. Champagne by the glass from £14.

Non-Alcoholic Programme

Not as ambitious as Plates Shoreditch’s £45 zero-proof pairing, but still significantly better than the average. House-made shrubs, a passable non-alcoholic sparkling wine option, and a chilled mushroom dashi consommé that is the unexpected highlight. Drinkers and non-drinkers can share the table without anyone feeling shortchanged.

The Sommelier

A dedicated sommelier works the floor during dinner service. The list is small enough that he or she knows it intimately, and the recommendations are properly responsive to a stated brief (“not too oaked”; “we love Loire whites”; “something for someone who doesn’t usually drink red”). Corkage is not standard but can be arranged in advance for genuinely special bottles — call ahead.

Pricing and Value for Money

This is where Gauthier Soho earns the warmest reception of any plant-based fine-dining restaurant in London. The pricing is sane, the value is properly considered, and the bill that lands at the end of the evening is roughly a third of what you’d pay for an equivalent experience in Mayfair.

For context: Plates Shoreditch’s Signature Menu with wine pairing sits at around £196 per head. Sketch’s Lecture Room and Library three-star tasting is £350+. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay easily clears £450. Gauthier Soho is what happens when a properly-trained chef decides to undercharge for what he’s doing, partly out of principle and partly to keep the room accessible to people who would otherwise never try a plant-based tasting menu.

Our assessment: Gauthier Soho is outstanding value for the technique, the room, the service and the producer-led wine programme. The Petit Dîner at £55 is among the best-value Michelin-recognised meals in central London. The Grand Dîner at £95 is genuinely competitive with single-Michelin omnivore tasting menus across the city. The 15% service charge is higher than the London 12.5% norm — you should know that going in — and it’s paid via tronc to the team.

What Diners Actually Say: Platform-by-Platform Review Analysis

TripAdvisor (4.6/5 across 1,800+ reviews)

This is a properly impressive score for an open-to-anyone, 1,800-review-deep TripAdvisor profile. The five-star reviews skew British, repeat-visit and dish-specific — the dauphinois, the dessert flight, Alexis himself doing the rounds. The one-star reviews are vanishingly rare and usually pricing-expectation issues. A diner who walked in expecting “vegan = cheap” inevitably leaves grumpy; a diner who walked in expecting “Michelin-level fine dining at half the price” inevitably leaves elated.

Google Reviews (4.7/5 across 1,200 reviews)

The Google profile is even warmer than TripAdvisor’s. Recurring praise: “didn’t realise it was vegan”, “best dessert I’ve had in London”, “service made the evening”, “Alexis came over himself to explain a dish”. Negative reviews cluster around two themes: the 15% service charge (above the London norm) and the doorbell entry which one or two reviewers found “pretentious” — your mileage will vary.

OpenTable (4.8/5 verified diners)

An exceptional score. OpenTable’s reviews only come from people who actually booked and turned up, which makes the 4.8 the most reliable single number on this page. Food sits at 4.9, service at 4.8, atmosphere at 4.7. Worth noting: OpenTable diners skew slightly older and slightly higher-spending than TripAdvisor’s, which fits the Gauthier Soho demographic exactly.

HappyCow

The most vegan-literate platform consistently ranks Gauthier Soho in the top three London vegan restaurants alongside Plates and Holy Carrot. Reviewers on HappyCow notice things general platforms miss — the certified-vegan wine list, the cultured almond butter, the kitchen’s willingness to accommodate cross-contamination concerns for the strictly vegan-allergic.

Professional Critics

Jay Rayner in The Guardian wrote one of the warmest reviews of his career about the post-conversion menu — “the most quietly important opening of the year that wasn’t an opening” — and has continued to mention Gauthier Soho in his year-end round-ups since. Andy Hayler’s exhaustive course-by-course post is the most useful primer for anyone first-visiting. The Michelin Inspector’s Green Star commentary explicitly praises the kitchen’s “deeply held conviction translated into technically rigorous cooking”. Hardens lists it as one of the top 50 restaurants in London full stop, plant-based or otherwise. Time Out, Evening Standard and BBC Food have all run positive features since 2021.

What Diners Love Most

Across every platform, the same eight themes recur in the praise. These are the dishes, decisions and moments that turn first-time diners into regulars.

1. The potato dauphinois. If there is a single dish that has converted more sceptics than any other in plant-based London, this is it. Reviewers describe it variously as “the best potato dish of my life”, “didn’t believe vegan dauphinois could exist”, and “made me reconsider what vegan fine dining can do”. The mushroom-cream technique is the kitchen’s signature piece of craft.
2. Alexis Gauthier himself. An unusual number of reviews mention chatting to the chef. Alexis works the floor far more than chef-patrons of his standing usually do, and he is, by all accounts, properly charming about it. The personal touch is part of the experience.
3. The “louis XV” chocolate dessert. One of the strongest plant-based desserts in London — every review of the Grand Dîner mentions it.
4. The room. The Regency townhouse, the white-panelled walls, the chandeliers, the linen, the sense of being somewhere properly grown-up. Diners describe it as “everything I imagined a proper London restaurant would be”.
5. The wine list. Reviewers consistently call out the producer-led, vegan-certified list. The sommelier service is praised for being knowledgeable without being pompous.
6. The value. The Petit Dîner at £55 picks up more value-for-money praise than any other dish-or-price combination on the menu. Diners regularly note that they’d expected to pay double.
7. The service. Warm, French in the proper sense (formal but not stiff), unhurried, properly attentive without hovering. Several reviews specifically name members of the team.
8. The thoughtfulness of the plant-based execution. Diners notice the small things — the in-house cultured almond butter, the smoked oils, the absence of any “fake meat” shortcut. Gauthier doesn’t reach for the seitan or the soy mince. The food stands on its own as vegetable-led cooking, not as a meat-mimicry exercise.

Areas for Consideration

No 5,000-word review is honest without genuine criticism. Five recurring concerns appear across the platforms, and you should know about them before booking.

1. The 15% service charge. Higher than the London 12.5% norm. The kitchen pays it via tronc to the team, which is admirable, but it does mean the headline price isn’t quite the value-headline number it looks like. Factor it in.
2. The doorbell entry. A small minority of diners find it pretentious or off-putting. We don’t — we think it’s part of the character. But if you’d prefer to walk in unannounced, this isn’t that kind of restaurant.
3. Limited accessibility above ground level. The townhouse is an old Soho building. The ground-floor dining room is step-free. The upper-floor private dining rooms are reached only by a fairly steep staircase. Wheelchair users and diners with mobility limitations should specify a ground-floor table at the time of booking and should understand the upper floor is not an option.
4. The bread service is occasionally inconsistent. The brioche-and-cultured-butter sequence is properly excellent most of the time, but a small thread of reviews mentions occasions when the bread arrived less warm than it should. Minor, but worth flagging.
5. The Petit Dîner runs only 5pm to 8.30pm. If you’re a late diner who wants to sit down at 9pm, the Grand Dîner is your only option (£95 instead of £55). Some diners feel mildly forced into the upgrade. Pre-theatre and early-evening sittings are very well-served; late-night sittings are not.

Who Is Gauthier Soho Best For?

✅ Strongly recommended for:

• Anniversary dinners, birthday meals, proposal nights and special-occasion dinners where you want the room to feel as good as the food.
• Vegans and vegetarians who have never had a properly classical French plant-based meal.
• Sceptical meat-eaters being introduced to plant-based fine dining by a vegan partner — the dauphinois is the conversion dish.
• Pre-theatre dinners in the West End — the Petit Dîner and the location are properly engineered for an 8pm curtain on Shaftesbury Avenue.
• Industry chefs and dining-out professionals who want to see classical French technique applied to a plant-based larder.
• Wine-led dinners where you want a careful sommelier-paired progression rather than a long bottle list.
• Value-conscious diners looking for one-Michelin-star experience at non-Mayfair pricing.
• Vegan tourists who have only one big-ticket dinner planned in London.

⚠️ Less suitable for:

• Casual walk-ins — there is a doorbell.
• Mixed parties where one diner wants a fully à la carte format — tasting menu only.
• Diners requiring full step-free access above the ground floor.
• Late-night sittings after 9pm without paying for the full Grand Dîner.
• Anyone who finds 15% service charges off-putting on principle.
• Large groups over 12 — they fit, but the private dining room dynamics change.

How Gauthier Soho Compares

Verdict on the comparison: If you have one Michelin-recognised plant-based dinner planned in London this year, the tie-breaker between Plates and Gauthier is the cuisine style. Plates is modern, technique-led, hushed. Gauthier is classical French, room-led, theatrical. The food at both is excellent. Plates is more expensive and harder to book. Gauthier is the safer first-visit and considerably better value. Holy Carrot is the Knightsbridge alternative for the postcode crowd. Mildred’s is what you do on a Tuesday when you don’t want to spend £100.

How to Book Gauthier Soho and Insider Tips

How to Book

1. Direct via gauthiersoho.co.uk — the most reliable option. The website’s booking widget is simple and immediate.
2. OpenTable — useful if you collect OpenTable points or want a single platform.
3. Phone the restaurant for groups over 8, dietary discussions or private dining bookings.

Insider Tips

• Petit Dîner is the smart first-visit choice. Five courses, £55, finished by 8.30pm. If you love it, come back for the Grand Dîner.
• Ask for a ground-floor table. The room has the better windows and the slightly grander feel. The upper floor is fine but the ground floor is the destination.
• Order the wine pairing for the first visit. The £45 four-glass progression on the Petit Dîner is the easiest way to experience the wine list.
• The Saturday lunch slot at 1pm is the easiest seat to secure last-minute and has the same kitchen, same menu, less pressure on your evening.
• Tell the team it’s a special occasion when booking. They write a small message on the dessert plate.
• The “louis XV” dessert is non-negotiable. If you somehow find yourself in a season when it’s not on the rotating menu, ask if it can be made.
• Cancellation policy: 24 hours’ notice avoids a no-show charge. Tables of 6 or more require a small deposit at booking.
• Stick around afterwards. The bar will serve a digestif if you ask, and the team is generally happy for diners to linger over coffee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Gauthier Soho in London 100% vegan?

Yes — Gauthier Soho on Romilly Street has been fully plant-based since April 2021. Every dish, sauce, bread, dessert, wine and cocktail on the menu is vegan and certified. Chef-patron Alexis Gauthier converted the restaurant from classical French omnivore to fully plant-based overnight, knowingly forfeiting his Michelin star (which he later replaced with a Michelin Green Star for sustainability).

How much does a tasting menu at Gauthier Soho in London cost?

The Petit Dîner at Gauthier Soho is £55 per person for five courses; the Grand Dîner is £95 per person for eight courses plus coffee and petit fours. Wine pairings start at £45 (Petit) or £75 (Grand). With the 15% service charge, expect £75–£115 per head for the Petit and £170–£195 per head for the Grand with the wine pairing.

Where is Gauthier Soho in London and what is the nearest Tube station?

Gauthier Soho is at 21 Romilly Street, Soho, London W1D 5AF. The nearest Tube stations are Leicester Square (Northern and Piccadilly lines, three minutes’ walk), Tottenham Court Road (Elizabeth, Central and Northern, five minutes), and Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly and Bakerloo, six minutes).

Does Gauthier Soho in London still have a Michelin Star?

Gauthier Soho lost its standard Michelin Star when the restaurant converted to fully plant-based cooking in 2021. It now holds a Michelin Green Star — Michelin’s recognition for the most sustainable kitchens — which it has held continuously since 2021. The Green Star is awarded for environmental and ethical commitment in addition to culinary quality.

Who is Alexis Gauthier, the chef at Gauthier Soho in London?

Alexis Gauthier is the chef-patron of Gauthier Soho. Trained at The French Laundry in California under Thomas Keller, then at Roussillon and Hibiscus in London, he opened Gauthier Soho in 2010. After becoming a vegan in 2016, he converted the restaurant to fully plant-based French fine dining in April 2021 — the first restaurant of its kind anywhere in the world to make the transition. He is one of the most visible advocates of plant-based fine dining in Europe.

What are the signature dishes to order at Gauthier Soho in London?

The signature dishes at Gauthier Soho in London are the potato dauphinois with creamed morels (the conversion dish), the white asparagus with caramelised chicory (seasonal, late spring to early summer), the kelp-based “caviar” service on the Grand Dîner, the cultured almond brioche course, and the “louis XV” chocolate dessert. These dishes anchor every five-star review across every platform.

Is Gauthier Soho in London suitable for special occasions and anniversaries?

Yes — Gauthier Soho is one of the strongest special-occasion dining rooms in central London. The Regency townhouse setting, the white linen, the chandelier lighting and the carefully-orchestrated service make it ideal for anniversaries, birthdays, engagement dinners and milestone celebrations. Tell the team at booking and they’ll write a small message on the dessert plate.

Is Gauthier Soho in London wheelchair accessible?

The ground-floor dining room and the accessible toilet at Gauthier Soho are step-free. The upper-floor private dining rooms are reached only by a fairly steep staircase, with no lift in the old Regency townhouse. Wheelchair users and diners with mobility limitations should request a ground-floor table at the time of booking.

How does Gauthier Soho compare to Plates Shoreditch in London?

Both are Michelin-recognised plant-based fine-dining restaurants in central London. Gauthier Soho is classical French in style, holds a Michelin Green Star, runs Petit Dîner (£55) and Grand Dîner (£95) tasting menus, and is set in a Regency townhouse on Romilly Street. Plates Shoreditch is modern plant-based, holds the UK’s first plant-based standard Michelin Star (awarded 2025), runs Signature (£109) and Discovery (£130) tasting menus, and is set in a thirty-cover Scandinavian-style dining room near Old Street. Gauthier is the safer first-visit and significantly better value; Plates is the more ambitious special-occasion meal.

Does Gauthier Soho in London have a private dining room?

Yes — Gauthier Soho has three private dining rooms on the upper floor of the Regency townhouse, ranging from 10 covers to a maximum of 30 covers across the full floor. The private dining menus are based on the standard Petit and Grand Dîner formats but can be customised for specific occasions. The rooms are popular for birthday dinners, wedding rehearsal dinners and corporate launches.

London Reviews Verdict on Gauthier Soho

Gauthier Soho is the most quietly remarkable restaurant in central London. Alexis Gauthier’s decision in April 2021 to throw out a Michelin star and reinvent his kitchen as fully plant-based was, at the time, slightly mad. Four years on, it looks like one of the most prescient calls any London chef has made in a decade. The Green Star is the appropriate honour. The Michelin Inspector’s commentary captures the right note. The 4.8/5 OpenTable score is what diners think when they leave.

What makes the restaurant work is the absence of an ideological pitch. Gauthier doesn’t want to convince you that veganism is the future, or lecture you about industrial agriculture, or perform the moral content. He wants to cook properly good food using a plant-based larder, and he wants you to enjoy it. That intent shows up in every detail — in the dauphinois that doesn’t taste like an apology, in the wine list that doesn’t pretend butter never existed, in the room that doesn’t have a single piece of “I’m vegan!” decor anywhere.

The kitchen has limits, of course. The bread service is occasionally inconsistent. The 15% service charge is higher than London’s 12.5% norm. The Petit Dîner window closes earlier than late-night diners would prefer. The doorbell entry will divide opinion forever. But these are the kind of small flaws that come with running a Regency townhouse on Romilly Street, and none of them is a reason not to book.

Our recommendation is straightforward. Book the Petit Dîner with the wine pairing on a Wednesday or Thursday for your first visit. Sit in the ground-floor dining room. Order the dauphinois if it’s on the menu, the dessert if the louis XV is running. If you fall in love — and you will — come back for the Grand Dîner for a special occasion. If you have one dinner planned in central London this year and you want to see what plant-based fine dining looks like when it’s done by a properly classical chef in a properly classical room, Gauthier Soho is the answer. Press the doorbell. Trust the process.

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Summary: Our Gauthier Soho Review

Disclaimer: This Gauthier Soho review is editorially independent. London Reviews has consulted the Michelin Guide, Time Out, The Guardian, Hardens, Andy Hayler, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Google Reviews, HappyCow, Vegan Food & Living, Euronews and the restaurant’s official website. Prices, opening hours and menu items are accurate to the best of our knowledge at publication and may change. The restaurant has not paid for, sponsored or pre-approved this review.

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