When you picture the world’s most exclusive restaurants, you probably imagine: members’ clubs, 3-Michelin Star hotels, and the latest TikTok trend. Not, I imagine, a cosy English pub tucked away in the heart of Bristol. But that’s what the Bank Tavern is—with everyone desperate to try its legendary Sunday roast.
How did the Bank Tavern become so exclusive?
When the pub was crowned the home of Bristol’s best Sunday lunch at the Observer Food Monthly Awards in 2019, few could’ve foreseen it leading to its infamous ‘four-year waiting list’. In March 2022, the Bank Tavern stopped taking bookings altogether to clear it—finally accomplished at the end of 2023.
Now, to keep the diary from growing out of control again, The Bank Tavern has introduced a yearly booking system that sees Sunday lunch bookings reopening on January 1. That means you could be booking a table for a Sunday roast almost 12 months before you eat it.
How does it compare against the world’s most exclusive restaurants?
Payment technology provider Dojo has conducted a study into the hardest restaurants to get into across the world. By analysing reservation waiting times, demand for restaurants and social media followings, only two of these restaurants are in the UK.
London’s Nina in Mayfair—a moody basement Italian serving things like truffle arancini and seabass carpaccio—is 17th on the list, with a wait-time of up to 180 days. Unless you’re happy to grab an early or late slot, you’re not getting a table today, tomorrow, or this week.
By comparison, The Bank Tavern is 6th, making it more exclusive than world-famous restaurants like Copenhagen’s Noma, Mexico City’s Pujol and Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy. Digging into the data, you can see The Bank Tavern’s lack of online hype, with fewer Google searches and Instagram followers than those above it.
While The Bank Tavern is unlikely to take the world’s top spot anytime soon—The Lost Kitchen in Freedom, USA, sends out postcards to people who have entered for a reservation via a lottery—it’s still the most exclusive restaurant in the UK. The only question left to answer is: Is it worth the wait?
To learn more about The Bank Tavern head here.
The world’s most exclusive restaurants:
- The Lost Kitchen, Freedom, USA
- Rao’s, New York, USA
- Disfrutar, Barcelona, Spain
- House Of Prime Rib, San Francisco, USA
- El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain
- The Bank Tavern, Bristol, UK
- Pujol, Mexico City, Mexico
- Damon Baehrel, New York, USA
- Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark
- La Mercerie, Marseille, France
- Mugaritz, Gipuzkoa, Spain
- The Inn at Little Washington, Washington, USA
- Firedoor, Sydney, Australia
- Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy
- De Librije, Zwolle, Netherlands
- Mesa 1, Punta de Mita, Mexico
- Nina, London, UK
- Tsuke Edomae, Austin, USA
- Orso, Anchorage, USA
- Cafe Lafayette Dinner Train, North Woodstock, USA