80 Seats, 180 Covers, and a 6am Alarm
In 2024 a second Michelin star landed on Mayfair's colonial-club fantasy, and the booking window shrank accordingly. Getting a table is now the harder half of the evening.
The lamb chops arrive charred at the edges, pink at the bone, and slick with the marinade that has done more for Gymkhana's reputation than any Michelin inspector. They are the reason to be in this room. They have been the reason since 2013, and a second star in 2024 has not changed the arithmetic.
Gymkhana is the JKS Restaurants flagship on Albemarle Street, the Sethi family's dark timber-clad tribute to the sporting clubs of colonial India — hunting trophies, teal banquettes, cricket paraphernalia, jade green frontage doing the work of a lighthouse for anyone walking up from Piccadilly. The group runs Bibi, Brigadiers and Ambassadors Clubhouse in the same postcode radius, all of which matter to this review for the same reason: when you cannot get into Gymkhana, and you often cannot, they are the answer.
The 2024 second star made a hard booking harder without making the food better, and the lamb chops were already the reason to come.
Editorial Deep
The lamb chops land first, four of them fanned across the plate, edges blackened from the tandoor, the marinade thick enough to leave a mark on the linen. The meat pulls clean from the bone. This is the dish the room orders on autopilot and the dish that earns the autopilot.
Conversation works at a normal volume, which is not something to take for granted in a Mayfair room doing 180 covers on 80 seats. The dark timber cladding and the long wraparound banquette do the acoustic work; the ceiling is low enough to hold voices in and the tables are close enough that you catch the edges of the next one's order without straining for it.
Gymkhana does not take bookings so much as hold a monthly release. Reservations open on SevenRooms exactly two months in advance at 6:00am GMT — three months out for the Vaults — and the desirable dinner slots are gone within the first few minutes. Set an alarm. Be logged in. Have your card details saved. Friday evenings are effectively unbookable more than a week out and often only surrender post-10pm slots even a month ahead. The Tock listing exists but currently shows as not accepting reservations; OpenTable also lists the venue but SevenRooms is the official channel and the one that reflects real inventory.
Dinner is a different argument whichever way you order it. The tasting menu is £160, the vegetarian version £150, and the wine pairing adds £110. Either way the money is doing some work for the address and the star as well as the plate. Trishna, the JKS group's own sibling in Marylebone, delivers cooking in the same conversation at meaningfully less per head, and the bill test has to acknowledge that. The filtered water charge, the 15% service and the non-alcoholic drinks are the sort of Mayfair line items to keep in view.
The condition that is currently unmet is a lunch slot. A weekday midday booking, the £85 lunch menu, one glass, out by 2:30pm — that is the return worth building a month around, and the version that makes Gymkhana a rotation restaurant rather than an occasion one. On that basis a return is easy to argue two or three times a year.
What to eat
Don't miss.
Lamb chops; kid goat methi keema with pao; wild muntjac biryani; kulfi falooda
“Cross London for the lamb chops. Book the weekday lunch tasting while you are at it.”
Book the £85 weekday lunch, order the lamb chops and the keema, and skip the 6am dinner race unless the occasion demands it — Trishna and BiBi are the JKS-family alternatives that deserve the overflow.
The Verdict
