The Monday problem, and how to find a table that is actually open

Why Monday catches people out

Most visitors assume London eats seven nights a week, and the city as a whole does. The small, chef run rooms that make each district worth eating in often do not. A good number of them close on Sunday evening and all of Monday, because a kitchen that works flat out from Tuesday to Saturday needs two days off together, and Monday is the quietest night of the week to give up.

The effect is uneven across the board. The more a zone depends on small independent restaurants, the more of it is dark on a Monday. The more it depends on hotels, big brasseries and groups with several sites, the less Monday matters at all. Knowing which kind of zone you are in is most of the answer.

One rule before anything else. Opening days change, sometimes with the season, and a room that served on Mondays last year may not this year. Check the restaurant's own page on the day or call them, and ask the office as well, because the companions eat in their own districts every week and usually know.

The kitchens that nearly always open

Four kinds of kitchen are dependable on a Monday. Hotel restaurants, because they feed residents every night; the all day dining room in a large hotel is open even when the tasting menu room next to it is not. Big brasseries and grand cafés, built on the idea that somebody always wants dinner. Restaurant groups with several sites, which staff for seven days. And whole streets that live on volume, of which Chinatown is the obvious example.

The four kinds that often close are the mirror image: small chef owned rooms, neighbourhood bistros, wine bars with a short menu, and anywhere with a waiting list. If a restaurant is famous for being hard to get into, assume it is shut on a Monday until you have checked otherwise.

The middle of town: Soho, Covent Garden and Mayfair

Soho is the easiest Monday in London because it has Chinatown on its doorstep. Gerrard Street and Lisle Street trade every night of the week, and the district's bigger counters and group restaurants mostly do too. Some of the smaller rooms on the side streets are dark, but Soho has so much of everything that you will barely notice.

Covent Garden is kinder still, because Monday is a working night in the theatres. Most West End shows perform six nights a week, Monday through Saturday, and take their night off on Sunday, so the pre theatre and supper kitchens around the Piazza are running as normal. The big brasseries around Russell Street and the long established rooms off St Martin's Lane are the safest bets.

Mayfair splits down the middle. Its small, fashionable rooms are among the likeliest on the board to take Monday off, but its hotel dining rooms do not, and The Wolseley on Piccadilly, the grand café on the district's southern edge, serves from breakfast onwards every day of the week. If your evening is in W1K, the hotel on the corner is a better Monday plan than the restaurant everyone has been talking about.

Marylebone, where Monday takes planning

Marylebone is the zone where a Monday most often goes wrong, and it is worth being candid about why. The village is built on small independent rooms, exactly the kind that rest early in the week, and the High Street on a Monday night can be noticeably dimmer than on a Thursday. A guest who wanders out at eight expecting the Friday version will find several doors shut.

The answer is to look to the edges. The hotels on the fringes of the village, on Portland Place, on Portman Square and along the Marylebone Road, keep their dining rooms open all week, and the larger restaurants on and around the High Street are likelier to trade than the tiny ones in the side streets. Better still, decide a day ahead. The two companions who live in W1U eat in the village every week and know which kitchens are open on which nights.

If you are staying in Marylebone and would rather not gamble, Soho is about fifteen minutes' walk away and Chinatown a few minutes beyond that. The office will say so rather than send you down a quiet street.

The south west and the west

Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Chelsea and Kensington behave like Marylebone in a milder form. Each has a layer of small neighbourhood rooms that may close on Mondays and a layer of hotel dining rooms and larger brasseries that tend to keep going. In Knightsbridge the hotels along the park are the safest choice; in Chelsea, the bigger rooms around Sloane Square; in W8, the high street rather than the lanes behind the church.

Paddington is easy, for the opposite reason. Its trade is travellers, and travellers arrive every night of the week, so the hotels around the station feed people on a Monday as a matter of course. After a late train, that is often the simplest answer: dinner four minutes from your room, and no search at all.

The east: an ordinary working night at the wharf

Canary Wharf turns the whole pattern upside down. It is quiet at the weekend and busy from Monday to Thursday, because its customers are the people working in the towers. Monday is an ordinary working night there, and the restaurants around Cabot Square and along the water serve accordingly. If you land on a Monday and are staying in E14, you are in the one zone where it makes no difference at all.

Shoreditch sits somewhere in between. The curry houses of Brick Lane and the bigger restaurants and groups around Shoreditch High Street open on Mondays, while a number of the smaller wine bars and chef led rooms in the side streets take the night off. Nobody on the board lives in the east, so a Monday booking out there needs the usual few hours of notice.

Booking dinner on a Monday

The dinner on your side of town plan works on a Monday exactly as on any other night: a companion who knows your zone, a table near your hotel, two hours at £500 or three at £700. The only difference is the order of things. Choose the restaurant first, check it is open, then send the office its name and the time. The companion will have a view, and if she knows the room is dark that evening she will say so before anybody sets out.

The early twenties names on the board suit a Monday that needs some improvising. Jasmin, in Soho, can often do the same evening and knows which kitchens nearby open on which nights. Luna lives in Mayfair, among hotel dining rooms that never close. Bianka, in Knightsbridge, likes one long dinner and a day of notice, which on a Monday is exactly the right amount of planning.

The fee goes to her directly when she arrives. For the other half of the question, how late each zone keeps going once it is open, see our note on last orders, zone by zone.