St James’s is not short of good restaurants. Some of London’s grandest dining rooms sit within a few streets of each other here, and a newcomer has to do more than cook well to get noticed. Claro, which opened on Waterloo Place in autumn 2024, has managed it.
We visited on a Friday afternoon in September, one of those late summer days that makes a three-hour lunch and sharing a bottle of wine, seem perfectly reasonable. The restaurant occupies a Grade II-listed former bank, and the building does a lot of the work: high ceilings, warm natural materials, plenty of light, and an open kitchen that keeps the room lively. It feels like an occasion, but nobody is going to make you feel underdressed.
The original Claro opened in Tel Aviv in 2014 under chef Ran Shmueli. In London, the kitchen is led by Group Executive Chef Tal Feigenbaum, whose CV includes Noma in Copenhagen and the three-Michelin-starred Martín Berasategui in San Sebastián, alongside head chef Shadi Issawy. The cooking is Mediterranean with a strong Middle Eastern accent: seasonal produce, plenty of herbs and pickles, and a good deal done over fire.
The menu is built for sharing, which is dangerous when everything sounds worth ordering. We started with tuna tartare, served with Greek yoghurt, pickled onion, mint oil and a za’atar cracker. That’s a lot of components, but they work together. The yoghurt’s tang lifts the fish, and the za’atar and pickles pull the whole thing east.
Carlingford oysters came dressed with chilli, pickled fennel, ouzo and lime. Good oysters need little help, but this dressing earns its place: bright, sharp, faintly aniseed, and gone in two mouthfuls.
The dish I’m still thinking about is one I’d probably have skipped: grilled pickled hispi cabbage. I’d never eaten anything like it. [Add a line on how it tasted.] It held its own against the seafood and the steak, and it’s the clearest sign of how seriously this kitchen takes vegetables.
For my main I had the bavette, served with green vegetables, celeriac purée and demi-glace. Bavette punishes careless cooking, and this was handled well. The beef was rich, the sauce deep, and the earthy purée kept it from tipping into heaviness. My partner’s mussels in a white wine broth were simpler and none the worse for it, the sort of bowl where the broth is half the point.
We also shared the potato gratin cacio e pepe. As a devoted fan of cacio e pepe spaghetti, I was always going to order it, and I was curious how the flavours would carry over to potatoes. Very well, as it turns out. It was rich, peppery and properly delicious, and our waiter told us it takes hours to make, which you can taste. It melted in my mouth.
We were full by dessert and ordered it anyway: olive oil cake with oregano honey, almond tuile, salted almonds and yoghurt ice cream. The olive oil, honey and almonds tie it back to the rest of the meal, and the ice cream’s sharpness keeps the sweetness in check. We were glad we didn’t pass.
Our waiter told us the menu changes constantly, with the kitchen always trying new ingredients and combinations, so the meal we ate may not exist by the time you visit. Plenty of restaurants find their hits and stop there. Claro is more restless, and the experiments land because they start from flavour. Even the odder combinations make sense once you taste them.
The service deserves credit too. The staff knew the menu well, were plainly enthusiastic about the food, and never hovered, which matters more over a long lunch than you might think.
Claro is listed in the Michelin Guide but doesn’t hold a star, and that surprised me. Stars aren’t the only measure of a restaurant. Still, the cooking here, from the cabbage to the bavette, has the precision and imagination you’d expect from a starred kitchen, along with a generosity that starred dining rooms sometimes lack.
We came for a good lunch and left already planning a return, mostly to see what the kitchen has changed by then.
Claro, 12 Waterloo Place, St James’s, London SW1Y 4AU. Book at claro-london.com.
