Quo Vadis, London, UK

As renovations go, Quo Vadis’s blink-and-miss-it closure this past August doesn’t quite prepare you for just how extensive the spruce up – completed in time for the restaurant’s 90th birthday celebrations in November – has been. 

The ground floor bar has moved out, enabling the dining room to spread out to its original proportions, alongside plans to open another outpost of Barrafina, as a separate restaurant, later in the year. The menu remains reassuringly regional British with French and Italian inflections – to whit, crab soup, chickpea pancake with spiced chickpeas, and a tart of pear, ginger and almond paired with a lemon and ginger custard.

Upstairs, the first floor now houses the members’ restaurant designed and furnished by Now London, and Irving and Co with deep green wallpaper, orange leather dining chairs, black marble, and an exuberant pen on paper tapestry if Soho. The members’ bar and club area have also been reworked, this time with velvet banquettes, dark navy barstools, and a wood burning stove – all of which is anchored by grey marble-topped bar.

Go up another level to the new library bar, its expansive space held in check by blue paneled walls, deep blue carpet, and blue upholstery.