Featured Image Credit: Justin Tallis/Contributor/Getty Images
Topics: Restaurants and bars, Celebrity
Ben Williams
Topics: Restaurants and bars, Celebrity
Heston Blumenthal has been speaking openly about the future of one of his most famous restaurants, and while it's bad news for his fans, there's a slight catch.
For years, the two-Michelin-starred spot inside the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge has been one of the chef’s biggest success stories away from The Fat Duck, earning huge praise for its take on historic British dishes and helping cement Blumenthal’s reputation as one of the country’s most inventive names in food.
It became known for signature plates like meat fruit and its liquid nitrogen ice cream, while its success came quickly. Within a year of opening in 2011, it had picked up a Michelin star, before landing a second the following year.
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Now, after months of reflection on both his career and personal life, Blumenthal has confirmed that Dinner by Heston will close permanently at the end of January 2027.
The restaurant will finish after 16 years, with its closure tied to the end of its tenancy at the Mandarin Oriental Knightsbridge. That agreement was extended by six months so the team could reach the milestone anniversary before shutting the doors.
So while it's undeniably sad news, you'll have an extra few months than initially planned to lap it up before it's gone.
Speaking about the decision with The Times, Blumenthal said: “I’ve got a year to wrap my head around it.”
He added: “There are some huge feelings there; sadness. It’s bittersweet, but it has run its natural course. We are effectively tenants in a building and our tenancy is finished.”
The chef also explained why ending it there felt important, saying: “Six months felt like it was a good chunk of time to come back or highlight it for people who have never been before. We’re stopping at an important birthday.”
Blumenthal’s comments come as the hospitality industry continues to face intense pressure, something he addressed directly when discussing the wider picture for restaurants.
He said: “In these times most restaurants are suffering in one way or another…It’s exacerbated by the fact that food prices are rising. We chose to partner with the Mandarin because of their level of service. But they’ve got budgets, and budgets don’t always meet up. Sometimes they do. It’s one of the things that you are always going to be getting with a tenancy and a restaurant in the hotel.”
Alongside the restaurant news, Blumenthal has also been opening up about his bipolar diagnosis, which followed him being sectioned in 2023 and was later documented in the BBC programme Heston: My Life with Bipolar.
Reflecting on where he is now, he said: “You have to think of bipolar as a piece of string going up and down like a graph…You have to straighten it out a bit [with medication], so the peaks are less high and the troughs aren’t so low. But that slowed everything down. My mind wasn’t as active.”
Even so, he suggested the idea behind Dinner may not be over for good.
“I would say that my creativity is coming back. More than ever. My sadness is replaced with some excitement. I’ll miss being beside the chef on the pass, and looking at the food and thinking I can’t fault it. It’s a really lovely feeling. But there are also quite a few options on the table to do with Dinner.”