The Ledbury in London has joined an exclusive club of restaurants in the UK which hold three Michelin stars. Its third star was announced during the unveiling of the 2024 Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland at a ceremony in Manchester on Monday night. The achievement comes just twelve months after The Ledbury reclaimed its two stars in the 2023 guide – it had lost both after closing from 2020 to 2022 due to Covid, which made it ineligible for inspection.

It joins only a handful of other three-star restaurants in London; Mayfair restaurants Hélène Darroze at The Connaught, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester and Sketch: Lecture Room and Library, as well as Core by Clare Smyth in Notting Hill and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. The remaining three-star restaurants around the UK are The Fat Duck and The Waterside Inn in Bray and L’Enclume in Cartmel.

The Ledbury has long had a reputation as one of the capital’s finest restaurants. It first opened in 2005 as a sister restaurant to The Square, Phil Howard’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Mayfair (that closed in 2020). It gained its first star within a year of opening and its second in 2010, and held onto both until 2021, by which point it had closed, citing the difficulties around Covid restrictions. That hiatus made it ineligible for Michelin assessment and it lost its stars, though reclaimed both in the 2023 guide (it reopened in February 2022 after a refit). Over the years, The Ledbury has also earned spots on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants and was voted UK’s top restaurant in the National Restaurant Awards in 2010 and 2011.

It is headed up by chef-patron Brett Graham, who runs the restaurant with head chef Tom Spencerley and sous chefs Harry Corder and April Partridge, who won the Roux Scholarship in 2023. Brett was born in Australia and moved to London in the early 2000s, when he worked at The Square under its chef-patron Phil Howard (he won Young Chef of the Year while there), before joining The Ledbury. There, he has become known for seasonal, thoughtful cooking, which is rooted in classical French technique.