If you’re decking out a room, or a house, or the second house, RH (formerly known as Restoration Hardware) is likely among your first ports of call.
Here, you don’t shop for a piece, you buy into a look – so much so that a membership program is responsible for most of its revenue.
Although first and foremost a retail concept, RH has long transcended its own confines and merged into an all-encompassing lifestyle destination, with its international outcrop of ‘galleries’ offering not just a place to shop, but also a destination to eat, drink, meet, and just exist. While RH has galleries across Europe and the US – NYC, Paris, San Diego, Denver, Madrid, LA, and even Oxfordshire – 2026 marked the first time it got its own bricks-and-mortar address in London.
And what an address it is. Located on the corner between flashy New Bond Street and historic Savile Row, RH London, The Gallery – as it is officially named – occupies an early 18th-century Palladian mansion designed by Venetian architect Giacomo Leoni. The building has been restored, reimagined, and reinvented by RH founder and CEO Gary Friedman alongside London firm Foster and Partners.
It spans five floors and nearly 54,000 sq ft – a sprawling chapel dedicated to the religion of interior design. RH’s flagship drinking and dining venues are neatly interspersed across these floors and connected by a glass lift. On the ground floor there’s the Dining Room – all gold ceilings, Roman columns, and ostentatious Murano chandeliers.
For me, though, it was straight up to the Perch Bar – a secret(ish) rooftop hideaway imagined by New Zealand-born designer Anouska Hempel. Inspired by an aviary, there’s smoked glass and metal bird cage-inspired structures. Clever placements of screens and plants make nearly every table feel private and intimate. One serious design flaw in a London summer punctuated by heatwaves, though: heated seats, left on without warning.
Service is young but friendly, and the space is full: a duo ahead of me hoping to nab a walk-in table was told the lunchtime service was fully booked.
Dishes don’t push boundaries, but are confident in their level of luxe. A healthy caviar section sets the tone: have it on top of teeny tiny lobster rolls, to season a baked potato, or as a surprisingly successful addition to a grilled avocado.
The rest of the menu is crowd-pleasing and inclusive. No particular region or cuisine is leaned on too heavily, but that feels like the point when you’re catering to shoppers looking for a mid-browse break: have a fresh ‘Chinese’ chicken salad enlivened with plenty of soy dressing, or a hefty filet steak drenched in bernaise sauce with a side of blue cheese-spiked creamed spinach, and wash everything down with a glass of champagne before heading back to trying sofas. Just make sure the underseat heating is switched off before you settle in for lunch.
