In a city as large and sometimes anonymous as London, there is something quietly thrilling about being known. Not because you are famous, but because you are recognised: your name remembered, your drink anticipated, your coat taken without asking. For over two centuries, London's members' clubs have traded on precisely this feeling, offering not just access but belonging. What has changed is who gets to belong – and what it is they want to belong to.
A hundred years ago, the club was a place of retreat. Men-only, wood-panelled, heavy with cigar smoke and faintly soporific after lunch. White's, Boodles and Brooks's set the template: private spaces for the aristocracy and elite, built around gaming, political socialising and, eventually, dining – at a time when restaurants did not yet fulfil that role. They were exclusive in the most literal sense: socially homogenous, geographically concentrated around St James's, and governed by rules that reflected a narrow vision of society.
Today, the landscape has shifted almost beyond recognition. London's clubs now span the city and draw younger, more varied crowds, pulling from across industries and social backgrounds. It was a slow evolution; by the 90s, they were increasingly organised around shared interests – from the bohemian creatives of Chelsea Arts Club to the media-friendly Groucho in Soho to the theatrical and literary circles of the Garrick. Then came Soho House which went on to inspire a revolutionary wave of members clubs. Founder Nick Jones took a ‘reverse snobbery’ approach, eschewing dress codes and other elitist hallmarks.
Alongside the Great Soho House Spread, smaller, more rarefied clubs cropped up. In 2012 the English businessman Robin Birley quietly opened Five Hertford Street (once described as London’s most secretive club) where Prince William and Margot Robbie could be found sharing the dancefloor. By then, membership to a club, once gained, allowed for a spontaneity that most Londoners craved – no reservations or cancellation fees, just somewhere to drop in unannounced and be offered a table in the restaurant or a seat at the bar. Many also offered bedrooms, allowing members to stay in London at relatively accessible rates, often with reciprocal access to affiliated clubs around the world. For the work from home generation, Soho House became a glorified coworking space; those who coveted the anonymity members clubs once offered went elsewhere.
These days, that yearning for a sense of exclusivity has not disappeared, but it has been reconfigured. What clubs now offer is something closer to democratised exclusivity: access not just to a space, but to a certain kind of atmosphere – and crucially, to a certain kind of person. ‘Clubs in Mayfair have become restaurants that you have to pay to enter,’ as one industry insider neatly puts it. It is a line that captures the shift perfectly. Club dining rooms are no longer adjuncts but destinations in their own right, often rivalling the city's best standalone restaurants. At their core, clubs still provide what they always did – a place to eat, drink and linger that is neither home nor hotel – but the emphasis has subtly moved. Where once the appeal lay in familiarity and routine, now it lies in proximity: to networks, to culture, to energy. The purpose of the modern club is less about retreating and more about being in the room where things are happening.
And yet, the most interesting development may be happening in reverse. Increasingly, restaurants are beginning to behave like clubs.
Take what might be called clubby restaurants: places that are technically open to all, but on different levels operate through soft barriers to entry; a curation of guests. The invitation-only Green Room at the Devonshire or The Dover and Martino's in Sloane Square, the newest openings from former Soho House executive Martin Kuczmarski, are a case in point. Booking is less a matter of platforms than of proximity. ‘We have a very strong base of regular customers, and we always do our best to accommodate them - especially people that we love. At the end, restaurants are all about the people,’ as Martin diplomatically puts it. Those in the know don't use SevenRooms; they call a number stored in their phone. Likewise with the Fat Badger, the unmarked door, the side-street entrance, the WhatsApp number quietly offered by the maitre'd — these details create a mood that shifts between private party, speakeasy and neighbourhood pub. It feels like a stage door where you might bump into a celebrity avoiding the paps.
The effect is powerful. By relying on word-of-mouth rather than traditional PR machinery, scarcity — whether intentional or not — becomes part of the appeal. Kuczmarski's launch was notably free of formal press machinery, reaching instead a deliberately limited initial audience. The result: a powerful sense of familiarity and insider status. ‘I personally don’t like to talk about our restaurants, or about anything that is not yet open,’ he says, ‘I strongly believe actions speak louder than words.The product must be the best, and if you deliver a great product, your customer will love it, return and spread the word to others.’
Elsewhere, restaurants are formalising this instinct. James Gummer of Public House Group which owns Notting Hill’s Canteen, The Fat Badger, The Hart and newly opened Cece’s among others operates a ‘locals first’ approach, prioritising regulars and echoing the rhythms of a club. ‘That sense of belonging, that’s what people are looking for,’ he says. The New York restaurateur Gabe Stulman puts it succinctly: ‘Look after your locals like celebrities and celebrities like locals.’ It is a philosophy that collapses hierarchy while reinforcing loyalty.
In a city where choice is endless, it’s clear that the idea of somewhere that feels like a home away from home still has enormous pull. The best clubs understand this instinctively: staff who know your name, a table that feels like yours, the comfort of returning to the same room, of being part of something ongoing.
Robin Birley's clubs, Five Hertford Street and Oswald's, epitomise this and set the standard for many new openings. Robin’s late father, Mark, was the legendary founder of Annabel's nightclub and one of London's great tastemakers. When the original Annabel's opened, it felt like stepping into a private Mayfair drawing room — opulent, intimate, and entirely self-contained. That sense of entering another world was Annabel's gift to London. Yet the newer incarnation has become louder, more gilded, more performative. The clientele is younger and wealthier, but perhaps less anchored in the traditions that once defined the place.
For some of the newer clubs, there is a conscious attempt to reclaim an older ethos. William Woodhams describes the ambition for his forthcoming project, The Pembroke, in Belgravia, as building ‘the club for the next hundred years,’ with membership capped to ensure space, and food priced not as a luxury add-on but as an accessible pleasure. There is talk of nostalgia — tea ladies, classic dishes — but without the rigidity of dress codes or old hierarchies. Their only rule is simple: be polite to the staff.
Architecture continues to play its part. Clubs trade heavily on their physical setting, often occupying buildings of historical or architectural significance. From the stately continuity of White's to the grand domestic scale of The Pembroke — set to occupy six stories and housed in a former prime ministerial residence overlooking Buckingham Palace — physical space reinforces a sense of permanence and occasion.Location, too, remains symbolic. The traditional cluster around St James's has long since expanded, first to Berkeley Square and Soho, and then more decisively eastwards with the arrival of Soho House in Shoreditch. That move marked a turning point, introducing leisure into the club model: swimming pools, bedrooms, and the possibility of spending an entire day, even a weekend, within its orbit. Now a new wave of neighbourhood clubs — Celeste, the Notting Hill outpost of Maison Estelle, The Lighthouse in Fulham, The Roof Gardens and Maslow’s Kensington — reflects a city becoming more localised, more village-like, and increasingly resistant to crossing town for a sense of belonging.
The wellness trend has become embedded in many clubs too. The RAC's Grecian swimming pool was an early precursor; that instinct has been amplified across the sector, from the Lansdowne's squash courts and gym to the wellness-focused members club Six Senses Place in the redeveloped Whiteley's, and Lighthouse Social, with its spa, pool and even — heaven forbid — a crèche.
Few figures have shaped the modern club more than Mark and now Robin, who reimagined the format to include both men and women and infused it with a particular brand of glamour and comfort. His clubs offer not just exclusivity but theatre: interiors, service and a social choreography that others have since tried to replicate.
Yet if clubs risk becoming stages for display, restaurants are increasingly where a sense of exclusivity and belonging is being rebuilt. Places like The River Cafe which reciprocates loyalty by fitting in regulars last minute, or St John and Maison François — affectionately nicknamed ‘the Canteen’ by art world regulars — cultivate what might be called inclusive exclusivity. Anyone can, in theory, book. But over time, patterns emerge: regulars are recognised, preferences remembered, a community forms — lightly held, but deeply felt. As James Gummer puts it ‘if someone comes in often, we find them a table if they haven’t booked, get them a drink quickly, small things that show we know them’.
London now has around 135 members' clubs, with more opening in the past four years than in the decades following the Groucho Club's arrival in 1985. Alongside them, a parallel ecosystem of quasi-club restaurants has emerged, each offering its own version of access, familiarity and atmosphere.
What both models understand is that luxury today is not simply about money or materials. It is about being known, being comfortable, and being part of a room that feels, however briefly, like it belongs to you.
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