Aulis London

A Soho Alleyway and What Waits Inside

St Anne's Court is easy to miss. The pedestrianised passage connecting Wardour Street and Dean Street cuts through the heart of Soho without advertising itself, and the black-painted frontage with its discreet plaque does nothing to draw attention. That restraint is deliberate. When the London outpost of Simon Rogan's Cartmel operation first opened, the address was withheld entirely until after a booking was confirmed. The theatre began before the meal.

What exists now is a 12-seat counter around an Italian slate pass, an arrangement that positions the dining room less as a restaurant and more as an anteroom to the kitchen itself. Guests move through a small bar-lounge for pre-meal drinks and snacks before settling onto high stools that face the open kitchen directly. There is no printed menu. Dishes arrive, are explained by the chefs who prepared them, and are passed directly across the counter. The format belongs to a specific tier of London fine dining in which the conventional separation between kitchen and table has been removed entirely.

Where Aulis Sits in London's Chef's Table Scene

London's leading end has consolidated around a handful of formats: multi-room destination restaurants like Chiltern Firehouse, tasting-menu rooms such as CORE by Clare Smyth and The Ledbury, and a smaller cohort of true chef's table formats where capacity is the point rather than a constraint. Aulis sits in this last group. At 12 covers, expanded from eight in 2023, it prices at £195 per person for a 15-course progression and competes not against neighbourhood restaurants like Clipstone or 10 Greek Street but against the capital's most demanding tasting experiences.

The Michelin star awarded in 2024 formalised what repeat visitors and critics had been arguing for some time. Opinionated About Dining ranked it 151st among European restaurants in 2024, rising from a 2023 recommendation, and placed it at 231st in 2025. A Google rating of 4.9 from 178 reviews is unusually high for a room operating at this price and formality. The Star Wine List recognition adds a further credential in a format where the wine programme is as considered as the food. For broader context on where this fits in the farm-to-table British tradition, see comparable operations outside the capital: L'Enclume in Cartmel, Moor Hall in Aughton, and further afield Gidleigh Park in Chagford.

The Progression: How the Fifteen Courses Build

The meal's architecture follows a logic that has become the signature of Rogan's kitchens: snacks that establish the ingredient vocabulary, a mid-section that builds intensity through seafood and aged protein, and desserts that close with seasonal clarity rather than pastry-department showmanship.

Opening snacks function as compressed arguments for the kitchen's method. A truffle pudding caramelised in birch sap with fermented black garlic and shaved Welsh black truffle demonstrates the layering approach: one ingredient worked across multiple preparations. A nugget of Launceston lamb belly glazed in the house miso with perilla and pickled green elderberries used as capers shows the kitchen's habit of substituting foraged or fermented elements for conventional condiments.

Middle courses move into more technically demanding territory. Newlyn crab custard arrives with a sauce built around rosehip vinegar and marinated trout roe. A raw Orkney scallop is paired with wild chamomile, buttermilk, and smoked pike roe, a combination that reads as unlikely on paper but resolves into something coherent. Then there is turbot, served with a sauce made from smoked turbot bones and finished with lovage oil. A small English muffin accompanies it to absorb the cooking juices. Parker House rolls made with beef fat arrive alongside 45-day dry-aged Hereford beef. This sequencing is not accidental: the kitchen is building toward weight and umami before pulling back for the close.

Desserts maintain the seasonal logic applied to savoury courses. Frozen Tunworth cheese ice cream with London borage honey and a strawberry assembly with buttermilk custard and apple marigold were both documented from a summer service, indicating a dessert programme that rotates as tightly as the savoury menu. Nothing is carried over for comfort.

Throughout the progression, there is no menu to consult. Sommelier Charles Brown operates without one either, presenting wine recommendations or flights that match the course-by-course rhythm. The absence of a printed list is a deliberate choice about experience design: it places the diner entirely in the kitchen's hands.

The Farm Connection and What It Means in Practice

The supply chain at Aulis is not a marketing detail. Regular deliveries from Rogan's organic farm in Cartmel, referred to within the group as 'Our Farm', provide direct material influence on what appears on the counter. Produce from outside the farm is sourced from elsewhere in the UK: Newlyn for crab, Orkney for scallop, Launceston for lamb. This is a kitchen built around British geography as much as British technique.

In the context of London's wider farm-to-table momentum, this model occupies a specific position. Many tasting menus in the capital invoke seasonal British produce as a framing device while sourcing conventionally. Having a named, owned farm as the primary supplier makes the provenance claim structural rather than rhetorical. It also links the London room directly to the lineage of L'Enclume, the three-Michelin-star restaurant in Cartmel that established Rogan's reputation and which Aulis London functions as both development kitchen and urban outpost.

Readers interested in how this British seasonal approach compares internationally can look at the Modern European tradition in other markets: La Rei Natura by Michelangelo Mammoliti in Serralunga d'Alba and Oak Gent in Gent operate in similar ingredient-led territory from different regional starting points.

Soho as Context

The neighbourhood matters here more than venue choice usually does. Soho in 2025 holds a wider price range than at any point in its recent history. A few streets away, Casa Fofò and Bill's operate at entirely different price points and registers. The coexistence of a £195-per-head Michelin-starred counter and casual neighbourhood eating within the same few blocks is characteristic of Soho's current density.

What Aulis brings to this particular alleyway is a format that sits at the opposite end of Soho's dining register: small, quiet, and entirely focused. The pre-dinner drinks room, added when the space expanded in late 2023, creates a transition between the street's energy and the counter's concentration. The overall atmosphere is described consistently as serene rather than ceremonial, warm rather than formal. For the broader London eating picture, our full London restaurants guide maps the scene across price points and neighbourhoods, alongside our London hotels guide, bars guide, wineries guide, and experiences guide.

For those building a longer trip around destination dining in the UK, The Fat Duck in Bray, Hand and Flowers in Marlow, and Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton represent different points on the spectrum of serious British and French-rooted tasting cuisine.

Know Before You Go

• Address: 16 St Anne's Court, London W1F 0BF (pedestrianised alley between Wardour Street and Dean Street, Soho)
• Price: £195 per person for the 15-course tasting menu
• Seats: 12 counter seats around the chef's table
• Hours: Tuesday to Thursday, dinner only (7 PM–11 PM); Friday and Saturday, lunch (12:30 PM–3:30 PM) and dinner (7 PM–11 PM); closed Sunday and Monday
• Awards: Michelin 1 Star (2024); Opinionated About Dining Leading Restaurants in Europe #151 (2024), #231 (2025); Star Wine List White Star; Google 4.9/5 (178 reviews)
• Format: No printed menu; courses presented and explained by chefs across the counter
• Wine: Sommelier-led recommendations and wine flights available; no printed list

Frequently Asked Questions

Would Aulis London be comfortable with kids?

At £195 per person, 12 seats, and a 15-course no-menu format in central London, Aulis is not a practical choice for children.

Is Aulis London formal or casual?

If you are arriving expecting ceremony and tablecloths, the room will surprise you. The counter format and the absence of a printed menu create an atmosphere that is attentive and precise rather than stiff. That said, at £195 per head and with a Michelin star awarded in 2024, the expectation is that guests engage with what the kitchen is doing. Smart casual dress fits the room's register. If you arrive in jeans expecting a relaxed neighbourhood dinner, the 15-course progression and the kitchen-facing stools will recalibrate that within the first course.

What's the signature dish at Aulis London?

Aulis does not operate with a fixed signature dish in the conventional sense: there is no printed menu, and the 15-course progression changes with the seasons and with what is arriving from the Cartmel farm. The truffle pudding caramelised in birch sap with fermented black garlic and shaved Welsh black truffle has appeared consistently in documented reviews and represents the kitchen's approach as well as any single item can. So does the turbot with its smoked-bone sauce finished with lovage oil. Head chef Charlie Tayler, operating under executive chef Oli Marlow and within the framework Rogan established at L'Enclume, builds dishes around inherent simplicity and precise balance rather than around a fixed repertoire.