Isabel Mayfair

There are two types of restaurant encounters. There are those where the food takes centre stage, the plates are piled high with the cuisine of choice, and the flavour of each dish shapes the customer’s experience. At these restaurants, eyes usually remain fixed on the table, so engrossed by the religious experience of consumption that the interiors almost fade into the background. And then there are the restaurants where the glitz of the surroundings takes centre stage, so much so that the small plate of food that was apathetically ordered lies cold at the end of the table, untouched. Here, the experience is about the atmosphere: spaces flow with conversation and bottles of champagne, the food merely an excuse to socialise.

It is rare that a restaurant manages to perfect the two—delicious food that leaves you content and satiated, coupled with the warmth and richness of an atmospheric interior. But Isabel, a restaurant that sits on Albemarle Street at the heart of Mayfair in London, somehow manages both.

When stepping foot inside Isabel, what strikes one first is the feeling of refinement. The lighting is warm and complementary—its 300 brass lamps designed with “looking your best” in mind—and the rich Art Deco-Chinoiserie interior, complete with glimpses of imperial yellows, align with the founder’s wishes of honouring Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). The result is a restaurant cloaked in a sort of golden, cinematic glow—a comforting feeling that is reminiscent of sitting by a fire, protected from the cold and dreariness that the British weather so often brings.

As one casts one’s eyes around, elements continue to emerge and take one by surprise. The bar in the centre of the space, for example, adorned with dark ebony and gold mirroring, exudes a regalness one might only expect to find on an early-twentieth-century ocean liner. Yet it somehow avoids feeling dated, possibly due to the symmetrical arrangement of potted trees that surround and enliven the ebony counter with glimpses of green. Similarly, the wallpaper, a sparkling, peachy cluster of tropical plants, keeps the space feeling fresh and verdant, honouring the proposed vintage aesthetic without feeling overdone. By contrast, The Dragon Room, a hidden subterranean space beneath the restaurant, recently renovated by New York-based Legeard Studio, explores a sophisticated dialogue between European opulence and Japanese restraint. Tinted mirrored walls, custom de Gournay panels, a carpet bearing a geometric Japanese motif, and jewel-toned plum velvet banquettes establish a richly layered interplay of colour, texture, and iridescent reflection. Its defining feature, however, is a backlit bronze installation that merges craft with narrative, its sinuous form evoking a dragon’s spine in reference to the room’s mythic namesake. There is no mistaking the glamour of Isabel. Even the waiters are clad in uniforms by Columbian designer Johanna Ortiz, a detail that might feel pretentious at other restaurants, but at Isabel feels authentic and fitting.

This is the tone that Isabel perfects so well.

It’s all too common an occurrence for a Mayfair restaurant to live up to the damning stereotype of being overpriced despite the subpar quality of the experience. Isabel, however, thinks outside the box. Its food, an eclectic variety of tapas-like plates made with the restaurant’s social-first philosophy, is considered yet straight-forward. Each dish—from lobster linguine inspired by Italy, to halibut from the Channel Islands—inherits a rich wealth of food knowledge from around the world.

Named after the founder’s grandmother, Isabel is an homage to both the classic and the modern at once. When stepping out from its amber-lit cocoon into the cold impatience of the London night, it’s hard not to feel as if one has slipped out of a different world entirely. Isabel lingers—in the memory of its warmth, in the richness of its details, and in the knowing sense that, for a few hours at least, one was somewhere softer, slower, more generous.