Five hundred and fifty pounds a head. That was Claridge's price for Christmas Day lunch in 2025, roast turkey and beef wellington under the art deco chandeliers, and the tables went anyway. The festive stretch from December 24 to January 1 is the most lopsided week in fine dining: London's hotels triple their prices and fill, Tokyo's great counters lock their doors outright, and Las Vegas serves dinner as if the calendar said Tuesday. Plan by city logic first and restaurant logic second, and the week works.
Three mechanics separate festive booking from the ordinary kind. The menus are fixed, so you are buying an event rather than choosing dinner. The money moves up front, with deposits or full prepayment standard and refunds rare. And the calendar is compressed: every serious room sells one or two sittings instead of a full evening of turns, so capacity that absorbs demand in March simply does not exist in the last week of December. Each city handles those constraints in its own way.
London: the hotels carry Christmas Day
On December 25 the Underground does not run and the independents close, which hands the day to the grand hotels, and they treat it as the fixture of their year. The Ritz Restaurant stages a six-course lunch under executive chef John Williams MBE with a five-piece band, a vocalist and a visit from Father Christmas for the children. Pavyllon, Yannick Alléno's Michelin-starred room at the Four Seasons Park Lane, serves Christmas menus at both lunch and dinner, the evening sitting with live music. At the old War Office, Mauro Colagreco at Raffles London ran a six-course Christmas tasting last year that opened with poached Scottish langoustine and mooli noodles and landed an English wagyu short rib dressed as a pumpkin mince pie.
The price of admission is real. Claridge's charged 550 pounds for lunch and 325 pounds for dinner in 2025; the Landmark's Winter Garden ran a 425-pound buffet of lobster, caviar and bronze turkey with rosé champagne poured throughout; Charlotte Street Hotel's Oscar came in at 150 pounds with a glass of champagne and sittings from noon to 6:30pm. Menus publish in early autumn, deposits are taken at booking, and the famous sittings go within weeks. The complete field, including the handful of rooms outside the hotels that open, is in the wider Christmas Day list; for everything else the city serves that week, start with the London dining guide.
Paris: réveillon is the event
Paris spends December 25 quieter than visitors expect and saves its fire for réveillon (the long night-feast, eaten on Christmas Eve and again on New Year's Eve). December 31 is the restaurant night of the French year. La Tour d'Argent priced its New Year réveillon at 900 euros a head, pressed duck and Seine view included; Epicure, Le Bristol's dining room and a three-star in the 2025 France guide, sells set menus from 490 euros; Kinugawa's Japanese réveillon ran 390 euros; and Le Cinq at the Four Seasons George V stages a starred New Year's Eve menu of its own. The palace hotels also carry Christmas Day itself while the city's independents rest. Réveillon menus surface in October and sell on a different clock from normal service, so move early; the full city map is in the Paris dining guide.
Tokyo: the week the counters go dark
December 25 is a working day in Japan and a famously commercial date night, so Christmas dinner in Tokyo is the easy part. The trap is the week that follows. Oshogatsu, the New Year holiday, closes independent restaurants from roughly December 29 to January 3, and that includes the destination counters; Sushi Saito and its peers go dark with everyone else while their chefs are home eating osechi (the traditional New Year spread). New Year's Eve itself is observed at home over toshikoshi soba, the year-crossing noodles, not at a counter. Hotel dining rooms and the depachika food halls beneath the department stores carry the week on reduced hours. If the trip's whole point is a counter pilgrimage, choose any other week of the year; if the dates are fixed, the Tokyo dining guide flags which rooms hold New Year hours.
Las Vegas: nothing closes
The Strip treats December 25 as a revenue day. Last Christmas the Eiffel Tower Restaurant served from 4:30pm to 9:30pm above the Boulevard; Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab ran its full menu from 11:30 in the morning; Mon Ami Gabi opened at 7am and added a Bûche de Noël and a Salade de Noël to the regular card from 4pm. New Year's Eve is the busiest night of the Vegas year: minimum spends appear, two-seating structures take over, and the fireworks close the Strip to traffic. Book the marquee rooms weeks out and treat the Las Vegas dining guide as the shortlist. And if a tripled set menu offends you, the regular menus that stay available on December 25 are the honest workaround no other city offers.
The booking calendar
September is for London: the hotel Christmas menus publish and the named sittings fill first. October and November are for Paris réveillon and for New Year's Eve everywhere, because most December 31 menus are prepaid, single-purpose and non-refundable. Sixty to ninety days covers the ordinary great tables around the holidays, the same arithmetic as how far ahead to book a Michelin table. December itself is for cancellation lists and for handing the problem to a professional, and the concierge reservation guide covers when that is worth the relationship. If the holiday dinner doubles as a milestone, the best anniversary restaurants hold their value in any week of the year.
Skip these, honestly
Skip the late New Year's Eve seating if you are travelling with children or landing jet-lagged; the early sitting eats the same menu at a gentler price and releases you before the crush. Skip Paris on December 25 if your target is one specific independent kitchen, because it will be closed and its palace-hotel substitutes cost double. And skip Tokyo entirely between December 29 and January 3 if the trip exists for the counters; rebook the week, not the restaurant.
Frequently asked questions
Are Michelin-starred restaurants open on Christmas Day?
In London, the hotel rooms are: Pavyllon at the Four Seasons Park Lane served a six-course Yannick Alléno menu on December 25 last year, and Mauro Colagreco's dining room at Raffles The OWO did the same. Independent starred kitchens overwhelmingly close. The pattern repeats across most Western capitals, so aim at hotels first and confirm sittings when menus publish in early autumn.
How far ahead should I book Christmas lunch in London?
Treat September as the deadline. The grand-hotel menus publish in early autumn, prices in 2025 ran from 150 pounds at Charlotte Street Hotel to 550 pounds at Claridge's, and the famous rooms fill within weeks of release. The Ritz's six-course lunch with its live band is among the most contested sittings of the day, so call the moment the menu appears.
What is reveillon?
Réveillon is the French night-feast eaten twice each winter, on Christmas Eve and again on New Year's Eve, traditionally running past midnight. Restaurants treat December 31 as the commercial peak: La Tour d'Argent priced its New Year réveillon at 900 euros a head, and most serious Paris dining rooms sell a single extended seating with wine. Book in October or November.
Are Tokyo restaurants open between Christmas and New Year?
Christmas, yes; New Year, mostly no. December 25 is a normal working day in Japan and the city's restaurants treat it as date night. From around December 29 to January 3, oshogatsu shuts the independents, including the destination sushi counters, while hotel dining rooms and department-store food halls carry on with reduced hours. Do not plan a once-in-a-lifetime counter meal for that window.
Is New Year's Eve dinner at a fine dining restaurant worth it?
Worth it if you choose the seating deliberately. The early sitting eats the same kitchen's food at a gentler price and frees you for midnight; the late sitting costs more, runs long and lands the toast at the table. Menus are prepaid and non-refundable almost everywhere, so commit only when plans are firm. The rooms that do the night best are ranked in our New Year's Eve dinner guide.
Keep reading
Each headline night has its own full ranking: the best restaurants for New Year's Eve dinner and the best restaurants open on Christmas Day. The next set-menu holiday on the calendar lands in February: the best restaurants for Valentine's Day.
Holiday menus, prices and opening hours cited here are the most recent published examples, checked in May 2026; festive programmes change annually and sell out, so confirm dates and sittings with the restaurant before paying a deposit. Restaurants for Kings is editorial, not sponsored. Some reservation links may earn an affiliate commission, which never affects a ranking or a score.