A Damien Hirst coral reef across the ceiling, Frank Gehry crocodiles on the walls, and a Robata grill sending smoke over Berkeley Square. Sexy Fish is London's most unapologetic spectacle — and beneath the glitter, the Asian seafood is far better than it needs to be.
There are restaurants that decorate, and there is Sexy Fish, which commissions. The dining room on the corner of Berkeley Square carries a coral reef of shimmering bronze fish by Damien Hirst across its ceiling, crocodiles by Frank Gehry along its walls, and mermaid sculptures watching over a bar that runs late and loud. It is Mayfair's most photographed room for a reason: nothing else in London looks remotely like it.
The food has always had to fight the interior for attention, and it wins more often than the sceptics admit. The kitchen is built around a Robata grill — Japanese charcoal cooking that delivers blistered, smoky fish and seafood with theatrical directness. Around it sits a broad Asian seafood repertoire: sushi and sashimi cut with genuine precision, black cod that honours the dish's London lineage, and shellfish platters engineered for tables intent on celebration.
This is a room in which restraint would be a category error, and the crowd understands the assignment. Birthdays arrive in numbers; the bar mixes serious cocktails for the pre-theatre and post-deal crowd alike; and the service, for all the glamour, runs on well-drilled Mayfair professionalism. The private Coral Reef Room downstairs — its walls lined with live coral tanks — may be the single most extravagant private dining space in the city.
Sexy Fish is not the restaurant for a quiet conversation about the wine's minerality. It is the restaurant for the night that needs to feel like an event — and at that particular job, on Berkeley Square, it has no equal.
This is the birthday restaurant London's celebrators choose when the brief is spectacle. The room supplies the drama before the first drink lands — Hirst above, Gehry on the walls, a bar with real theatre — and the menu is built for group indulgence: shellfish platters, Robata skewers for the table, sushi boats that make an entrance. For a milestone year, ask about the Coral Reef Room and give the party a private aquarium. Nobody forgets a birthday here; that is the entire point.
Some deals close over quiet claret; others need momentum. When the occasion calls for confidence made visible, Sexy Fish delivers: a Berkeley Square address, a room that flatters everyone in it, and a late bar for the handshake that becomes a celebration. The Robata menu keeps ordering decisive — black cod, prawns, a platter for the table — and the energy of the room keeps the evening moving forward. Book a corner table for the conversation; keep the bar for afterwards.
Diner Reviews
Occasion: Birthday
Thirtieth birthday, table of ten. The room did exactly what I booked it for — everyone was photographing the ceiling before the cocktails arrived. Robata black cod and the shellfish platter were superb, and the staff handled a loud table with total grace. Expensive, worth it, already rebooked.
Occasion: Close a Deal
Brought a US client here to sign off a two-year negotiation. The Hirst ceiling did the small talk for me, the sushi was genuinely excellent, and by the time we moved to the bar the deal was done. As a closing venue it is unfair — the room does half the persuading.
