Dining Out in London: Hospitality Industry Trends in 2025

To make 2025 as successful as possible, it’s essential to reflect on the previous year to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses and use these to inform your strategy for a better year ahead. 

ResDiary’s annual Beyond the Booking report is a data-driven initiative to support restauranteurs and venue operators across the UK and Ireland to assess performance against current hospitality industry trends and prepare for a successful year to come. 

At the start of the year, ResDiary consulted venues and diners across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and regions throughout England - including London, to get insight into hospitality industry trends across 2024 and into 2025.     

The full Beyond the Booking 2025 report translates these insights into actionable strategies for growth.

Dining Out in London: Under the Microscope

One standout area in the data? London.

As is often the case, the market in London is markedly different from the rest of the UK, and this is reflected in parts of the data where the British capital follows country-wide trends but to a greater degree.

For example, data suggests that there is a decline in popularity of telephone and email bookings: should a diner be forced to call or email to make a booking instead of booking online, 27% of UK and Ireland diners would prioritise a different restaurant. In London, this number increases to 41%. And, while 71% of diners in the UK and Ireland are happy to provide card details when making a booking, 77% of diners in London are happy to do this, driving the way for the positive acceptance of these tactics.

Yet, London has its own hospitality landscape entirely, with far more tourists, high venue density, and greater competition for bookings than other regions.

This makes their statistics unique for survey responses like the proportion of bookings affected by no-shows, reasons for dining out, and more. For example, one of the main reasons diners enjoy a meal in a restaurant was to have dinner prior to a visit to the theatre. 60% of respondents in London cited this, while this reason is simply not as common in other regions. 

That's why it's important for venue operators to analyse relevant data for their location, offering and target audience when putting business strategies in place.

Let’s explore how dining out in London has challenges of its own and how venues can tackle these: 

Download the infographic for a full view of Dining Out in London: Hospitality Industry Trends.

Sneak Peak

Dining Out Trends

• In 2024, 29% of respondents dined out more than they did in 2023.
  
  
• This trend continues as 27% of respondents plan to dine out more in 2025 than they did in 2024.
  
  
• The biggest reason for dining out more for those that did so, was more opportunities to spend time with friends (53%) as Londoners prioritise social activities more than ever.
  
  
• The main place that diners discover restaurants is via third-party booking platforms (56%).

Dive deeper into the stats and trends shaping hospitality across London:
Download our exclusive infographic for a complete breakdown.

What This Means for Hospitality Operators in London

What our Beyond the Booking 2025 hospitality industry report tells us is that the key challenges for venue operators in London are the rising cost of operations and the ability to entice diners to their venue.

To support you in overcoming these challenges, ResDiary have crafted three solutions:  

• Managing costs and achieving growth through streamlined systems and high impact focuses

• Attracting new diners and increasing bookings by meeting diners where they're at and diversifying your promotions and offering
  
  
• Optimising booking management to ensure you never miss a booking again
  

To read our recommendations and explore the overall UK and Ireland data that inform them, download our Beyond the Booking 2025 report now.