Fitzrovia Thanksgiving Dinner, £65 a Head: Riding House

Riding House, the all-day restaurant and cocktail bar at 43-51 Great Titchfield Street in Fitzrovia, London W1W 7PQ, is serving its Thanksgiving feast for lunch or dinner on Thursday 26 November 2026, and its Fitzrovia room keeps the party going on the evening of Friday 27 November for anyone who works on Thursday. The feast costs £65 per guest and is served family style, with every dish brought to the table together. The group calls Thanksgiving a Riding House institution, and the menu reads like a Stateside banquet built for passing plates.

The meal opens with an Evan Williams pickleback, bourbon chased with pickle brine, and there is a non-alcoholic version for anyone who wants it. Alongside it come cornbread dinner rolls with whipped pumpkin butter. Then the main event lands all at once: roast turkey with cornbread and sausage stuffing, served with maple-buttered sweet potatoes, truffled mac and cheese, creamed corn, glazed sprouts with bacon, green beans, calvados gravy and a cranberry and orange relish.

Vegetarians can have a portobello and sweet potato wellington instead of turkey, but it is pre-order only, so mention it when you book. Dessert is the restaurant's twist on the classic: a pumpkin pie ice cream served with a hot doughnut. Because everything arrives together, it suits groups of friends far more than a plated tasting menu does, and nobody has to wait for the next course.

Drinks are a big part of the night. Two cocktails come as a one-litre fountain for £70 or a single serve for £14: the American Sweetheart, with Evan Williams bourbon, lime, coconut, caramel, apple and ginger ale, and an Evan Williams egg nog made with bourbon, cream and spices. A fountain on the table is the easiest way for a group of six or eight to keep glasses full without waving at a server.

Two more drinks are single serve only at £14 each. The American Mule mixes Tito's vodka with lime, ginger and soda, and the Spiced Peach Old Fashioned uses chilli-infused Evan Williams bourbon with peach and bitters. The printed menu says 100% of the service charge goes to the team, and it asks guests to mention allergies or intolerances, which is worth doing with sausage stuffing, bacon sprouts and nut-free requests in play.

Riding House describes its Fitzrovia restaurant as the icon that started it all: inventive all-day dining and a handsome cocktail bar that brought the neighbourhood to life. The Telegraph's Zoe Williams reviewed it in 2011 and wrote that it was so well planned she wanted to give it a diploma. Jay Rayner, in a 2022 Out to Lunch quote the group still prints, said he came on his own dime for breakfast and for lunch.

The group now also runs restaurants in Bloomsbury and Victoria, but the Friday 27 November Thanksgiving evening is in Fitzrovia only. For private parties the Fitzrovia site lists The Dining Room, which seats 55, and The Lounge, which seats 25, so an office Thanksgiving or a large American family gathering can take a room of its own rather than a cluster of tables.

The Fitzrovia room is built for all-day trade, from breakfast at 7:30am on weekdays through to late dinner, which is why a Thursday Thanksgiving lunch here feels like a busy London restaurant rather than a hired hall. Expect office regulars at the bar and families at the long tables, with the cocktail bar running alongside the turkey service.

Thursday 26 November is a normal working day in Britain, so lunch tables appeal to Americans who want to celebrate on the actual holiday and still get back to the office, while the Friday evening suits friends who would rather celebrate over a long dinner without an early start.

If you arrive early, the 3-6 happy hour runs from 3pm to 6pm Monday to Saturday with classic cocktails, beer, wine, shooters and snacks at £3 to £6. Festive menus start from 17 November, so by Thanksgiving week the room is likely to have Christmas parties alongside the turkey crowd. Dogs are welcome in designated areas if you tell the team when you book.

Great Titchfield Street runs north from the Oxford Circus end of Oxford Street into the grid of Fitzrovia, so the restaurant is an easy walk from Oxford Circus Underground station. Before a lunch booking, walk a few blocks north to Fitzroy Square, the Georgian square of pale stone terraces that gives the area its name, and look up for the BT Tower rising over the rooftops nearby.

After dinner, the streets towards Charlotte Street are full of restaurants and pubs if anyone still has room for a nightcap, and Regent Street is a short walk south for the route back to Oxford Circus. It is a very London way to finish an American holiday: turkey and bourbon on Great Titchfield Street, then a walk past the shop windows on the way to the Tube.

Riding House Fitzrovia is at 43-51 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PQ. Regular opening hours are Monday to Friday 7:30am to 11pm, Saturday 9am to 11pm and Sunday 9am to 5pm. The Thanksgiving feast is £65 per guest on Thursday 26 November for lunch or dinner, with an extra Fitzrovia-only evening on Friday 27 November.

Outside Thanksgiving week the restaurant runs a bottomless brunch with three courses and free-flowing drinks from £45 per guest every Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday, a pre-theatre menu at £22 or £25, and a monthly-changing pasta special that can be ordered alone or in a three-course menu for £28. Its Christmas hours are already posted, including Christmas Day lunch from 11am to 4pm.