The story
In the heart of Mayfair, Apricity brings a thoughtful, regenerative approach to British contemporary cuisine. The name, meaning "the warmth of the winter sun," sets the tone for a restaurant built on principles of regeneration, rejuvenation, and generosity. This is the vision of multi-award-winning chef-owner Chantelle Nicholson, whose cooking is as joyful as it is intentional.
Originally from New Zealand and formerly a lawyer, Nicholson has become one of the UK's most respected voices in sustainable gastronomy. At Apricity, she and her team champion seasonal British produce at its peak, sourcing from small-scale farms and foragers. The kitchen operates on a low-waste philosophy, using creative techniques that redefine flavour while nourishing both guests and the planet. This deep commitment to sustainable practices earned Apricity the Michelin Green Star, an award recognising leadership in sustainable gastronomy.
The menu celebrates the best of each season. The tasting menus, which contain more than 30 servings of plants, offer a dedicated plant-based option for every course alongside the option to mix in regeneratively farmed meat and sustainably-caught fish. From a starter of marinated tomatoes with sunflower seed milk to a main of Otter Valley Farm hogget shoulder, the cooking is ingredient-led and precise. The bar mirrors the kitchen's ethos, creatively using peelings, trims, and stalks in cocktails that form a closed loop between food and drink. An extensive list of low-intervention wines from growers who care about soil and biodiversity, including a curated selection of English wines, completes the experience.
For a deeper look behind the scenes, the Chefs' Table on the lower ground floor offers an immersive, semi-private dining experience with views into the kitchen. The light-filled dining room itself, designed with a restorative framework, provides a warm and welcoming setting for both private celebrations and everyday meals. With a people-first ethos that extends from how the team is treated to the sourcing of every ingredient, Apricity is a restaurant where conscious cooking and joyful dining are one and the same.
Recognition
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Details
History
A little south of Oxford Street, Chantelle Nicholson's Apricity might one day come to define London dining in the new 'twenties'. Amid the plutocrats' boutiques of Duke Street, it styles out its defiant scruffiness, with scoured, undecorated walls, small café tables and light fixtures that look artfully dusty. Low-waste, vegetable-based cooking is the wave of an ecologically anxious future, and if it comes out as innovative and interesting (as it does here), nobody need feel deprived. Artisan farms supply much of the produce, as in a first-course of miso-roasted cabbage with pickled kale in a smoked emulsion. Not everything is vegetarian, however: a generous starter of pollock tartare with pickled kohlrabi, topped with broken linseed cracker, was full of freshness and bracing bite. To follow, there might be something earthy and carb-heavy such as discs of baked celeriac on a carpet of Black Badger peas, given a nice kick with a seasoning of cultured gochujang, or you might go full carnivore with a cutlet and rib serving of excellent lamb, alongside hunks of beetroot and a gentling splotch of labneh (though nothing of the promised mint salsa). Desserts expect you to have left your sweet tooth at home. Rhubarb with raspberry granita and cashew cream goes full-on with vegetal flavours, while the little plum and rapeseed tart, garnished with underripe plum, has little of the almond richness of traditional frangipane. Wines by the glass could do with broadening their horizons – the textures and fruit flavours fall within a fairly narrow band for each colour – but the selections themselves are good. We won't gag at Ferraton's St-Joseph in a month of dreary Sundays. Staff run the place with impressive coolness, not writing anything down. Don't turn your phone off, whatever you do: the menu is accessed via a QR code on a stone, or by navigating to the website.
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