Easter Sunday has emerged as the single most-booked day in London restaurant history according to data released this morning by OpenTable, which recorded a 22% year-on-year increase in covers confirmed across Greater London for today's date. Resy, whose UK restaurant network skews toward independent and higher-end operators, reported a 19% uplift in the same comparison period.
The figures reflect a sustained shift in how British families mark Easter, with eating out — particularly at restaurants offering a dedicated Sunday roast or set Easter menu — increasingly displacing the traditional home-cooked lunch as the centrepiece of the holiday. Industry analysts at CGA by NielsenIQ flagged this trend in their Q1 2025 outlook report and noted then that Easter Sunday was on course to overtake Christmas Day bookings as a percentage of annual cover volume within two years.
Where the Demand Is Landing
The busiest reservation categories, according to OpenTable's segmentation data, are gastropubs and casual dining venues with a strong Sunday roast offer, followed by hotel restaurants and, at the premium end, neighbourhood restaurants running ticketed set menus with pre-paid deposits.
The deposit-required model has become notably more common this Easter than in previous years. Operators across London report that the introduction of pre-payment or card-hold systems — accelerated by the post-lockdown no-show crisis that pushed many venues to adopt stricter booking terms — has reduced Easter Sunday no-show rates to below 3% for venues that have implemented them, compared to historic seasonal averages of 8–12%.
"The deposit model changed how people think about a booking," says one operations manager at a south London restaurant group with three sites. "It made it feel like a ticket rather than a suggestion. On Easter Sunday that matters — you've prepped, you've staffed, you've ordered a very specific amount of protein. A no-show on this day costs more than any other."
Pre-Paid Menus and Set Pricing
Across the capital, the dominant Easter Sunday format is a fixed-price set menu, typically running between £55 and £95 per adult with a reduced rate for children. Several operators introduced children's menus specifically for Easter this year, a development driven partly by the increase in average party size — OpenTable data shows average Easter Sunday parties in London running to 4.2 covers, up from 3.6 in 2024 — and partly by an explicit effort to recapture the family dining market from casual dining chains that have historically been stronger in this demographic.
The Ivy Collection, Hawksmoor and D&D London all launched dedicated Easter Sunday set menus this year, as did several independent neighbourhood venues including Nest in Hackney, Brunswick House in Vauxhall and Brat in Shoreditch, which is offering a wood-fired whole lamb carved at the table — consistent with the broader lamb narrative that has dominated spring menus across the capital this year.
Beyond London
The surge in Easter Sunday restaurant bookings is not confined to the capital. OpenTable UK data shows similarly strong year-on-year increases in Edinburgh (up 31%), Manchester (up 24%), Bristol (up 27%) and Leeds (up 18%), with hotel restaurants and town-centre gastropubs the primary beneficiaries in each market.
UKHospitality's Easter trading tracker, updated weekly through the bank holiday period, is forecasting Easter weekend 2026 as the industry's strongest since records began, with total consumer spend across the four-day break projected to exceed £2.8 billion.