Rs 19,000 per meal: Prices at Britain’s top restaurants doubled since Brexit
The price of a meal at the United Kingdom’s top restaurants has more than doubled since Brexit, reported The Guardian. According to two new guide books, the price of a meal has been from £100 (Rs 9,000) per person to more than £200 (around Rs 19,000) since Brexit.
As per the editor of Harden’s London Restaurants, Peter Harden, “We’ve gone very quickly from a time five years ago when charging over £100 a head was the outlier, to now, when for the very top restaurants £200 pounds a head is becoming the norm.”
In a first, Harden’s London Restaurant Guide has increased its top price threshold to £130 a head to reflect record menu price rises. The 2023 edition of the guide comprises 15 restaurants in London with a guide price of more than £200 per head, compared with six in that bracket this year.
And Harden’s Best UK Restaurants for 2023, published in December, will include 12 restaurants outside London that are charging more than £200 per head, compared with eight this year. The guide includes Britain’s most expensive restaurant Ynyshir Hall in Ceredigion, Wales where the 32 course taster menu costs £410 per person.
Hardin said that initially there was just a single restaurant costing more than £150 when they did their first post-Brexit London edition in 2017. However, there are 37 new restaurants now that charge over £150. Also, there are 154 in the guide above the £100 level, said Hardin.
“This phenomenon is not restricted to London. The most expensive formula price in our UK guide this year is £430, for Ynyshir in Wales,” added Hardin.
According to Harden, Brexit was posing an existential threat to the hospitality and restaurant business.
“Brexit has been absolutely disastrous for the trade. We launched our guide 32 years ago before the Maastricht treaty. The ability to recruit Europeans, was one of the key drivers of the restaurant revolution that took place in the UK over the last 25 years or so. [At] many of the top restaurants … 80% plus of their staff would have been European,” Harden told the Guardian.
The per head charges at Harden’s top London restaurants for 2023 are Araki at £380, Kitchen Table at £330, Endo at Rotunda at £285, Roketsu at £285, Story at £272, Maru at £242, Ledbury at £236, Ikoyi at £231 per person and Core at £226 per person.
