Dinings

Dinings, London: Worth Booking?

Dinings sits at 22 Harcourt Street in Marylebone, and for a Japanese restaurant in this part of London, that address alone signals something worth investigating. The venue is one of the more accessible options in the city's Japanese dining tier — booking here is direct compared to the weeks-out waits at competitors further east or in Mayfair, which makes it a practical first call if you want a quality Japanese meal without a month of planning.

The value proposition at Dinings is built around a tapas-style Japanese format, which means you control the spend per round rather than committing to a fixed omakase price upfront. That structure suits groups who want flexibility, and it means two people can eat well without locking into a tasting menu that may or may not justify its price. In London's Japanese restaurant tier, that flexibility is genuinely useful: the alternatives that match Dinings on quality often force a higher spend per head with no opt-out.

For food and drink enthusiasts who want depth and context rather than a conveyor-belt sushi experience, Dinings delivers a more considered approach. The smaller, basement-room format keeps the atmosphere tighter than a large-format Japanese restaurant, and the Marylebone location puts you close to enough post-dinner options that the evening has natural momentum. If your priority is technical sushi precision at the level of a dedicated omakase counter, this is not that. But if you want well-executed Japanese small plates at a price point that doesn't require an occasion to justify, Dinings earns the booking.

Booking is easy relative to London's broader Japanese dining scene. Walk-ins may work at quieter midweek lunches, but evening reservations are the safer approach. No dress code data is confirmed, but Marylebone's general register suggests smart casual is the safe default.

Explore more of what London has to offer: our full London restaurants guide, our full London bars guide, our full London hotels guide, our full London wineries guide, and our full London experiences guide. For cocktail bars nearby, 69 Colebrooke Row, A Bar with Shapes For a Name, Academy, and Amaro are all worth considering depending on what you want from the rest of your evening. Further afield, Bramble in Edinburgh, Bar Kismet in Halifax, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu represent the same quality tier in their respective cities.

Quick reference: 22 Harcourt St, Marylebone, London W1H 4HH. Booking difficulty: easy. Smart casual dress recommended.