Choosing a London venue for 300 guests
What matters before you look at a single room, and the questions to ask the venue that most people forget.
People fall in love with rooms. We understand; we do too. But the venue decision for a large dinner is mostly made by things you cannot see in a photograph: the load-in, the kitchen’s distance from the tables, the power, the sound, the cloakroom and the pavement outside at eleven at night.
Capacity is not a number, it is a layout
Every venue will tell you its capacity. The figure is usually for a drinks reception standing shoulder to shoulder, or for round tables of ten packed to the walls. Neither is what you want.
Ask for the capacity with a stage, a dance floor, a top table of twelve, space behind the chairs for service, and tables of eight so people can actually talk. The number drops, sometimes by a third. A room that holds three hundred comfortably is a room whose capacity sheet says four hundred.
Ask about the kitchen
The distance between the kitchen and the furthest table decides whether the last guest gets a hot main course. Ask where the kitchen is, whether it is the venue’s own or a temporary one, how many covers it has served in one sitting this year, and whether the chef will be there on the night.
In a historic building the kitchen is often two floors away and the food comes up in a lift. That can work beautifully. It can also mean cold fish for table twenty-eight. We visit the kitchen on every site visit, and we ask to see the lift.
Photographs sell venues. Site visits choose them.
The sound of the room
Stand in the middle of the empty room and clap. If the sound rings for more than a second or two, three hundred people will be shouting at each other by the main course. High ceilings, glass, marble and bare walls all look wonderful and all sound terrible.
Some of this can be treated with drapes, carpet and careful placement of speakers. Some of it cannot. Ask whether the venue has hosted a dinner of your size with speeches, and ask to speak to the last client who did.
Access, load-in and the ten o’clock curfew
The room you fell in love with has a side door one metre wide and a lift that is not big enough for a stage deck. It also has a residential neighbour and a licence that requires amplified music to stop at ten. None of this appears in the brochure.
Ask about load-in times and routes, parking for production vehicles, power supply, rigging points, the music curfew and the time the last guest must leave. These answers shape what can be built and what it will cost to build it.
The rooms we return to
Over the years we have come to trust a handful of London rooms for large dinners, because the people who run them answer their phones, their kitchens have done it before, and the buildings themselves do half the work. They are not always the most famous. They are the ones where, on the night, nothing surprises us. We are happy to share the list in conversation, along with the reasons.
Photographs sell venues. Site visits choose them. Go twice, once in daylight and once in the evening, and take someone with you who will ask about the lift.
Gabby KoyaFounder and Creative Director
Tell us what you are hosting.
A few lines is enough to begin. We reply personally within one working day, and the first conversation is an hour of our time at no charge. If the date is close, say so and we will call you the same day.