INTERIORS · LONDON
Reading time: 6 minPicture a steakhouse, and you imagine dark wood, red leather, brass and a faint whiff of cigars. MR PORTER, hidden beneath Park Lane, has thrown every one of those clichés out. In their place, Baranowitz + Kronenberg have built something in travertine, copper, blush pink and mirror, and then designed it to transform, as the evening deepens, from elegant restaurant into a spirited late-night lounge.
The arrival tells you this will not be a normal steakhouse. There is only a discreet copper door at street level on Park Lane, giving nothing away, and then a monochrome marble staircase that carries you down, below ground, into a room that feels at once sultry and serene.
This is MR PORTER, and it occupies the lower ground floor of the London Hilton on Park Lane, in the space that was once Trader Vic’s, the legendary tiki bar that ran for some sixty years before closing in 2022. In its place is something entirely different: the fourth outpost of an Amsterdam-born steakhouse, bar and lounge from The Entourage Group and its co-founder Yossi Eliyahoo, following the original in Amsterdam and sites in Barcelona and Ibiza. The interiors are by the acclaimed studio Baranowitz + Kronenberg, and what they have done here is genuinely interesting, because it amounts to a quiet act of demolition. They have taken the most stubbornly traditional room in all of dining and dismantled it, piece by piece.
The steakhouse, subverted
To appreciate what MR PORTER is, you have to remember what a steakhouse usually is.
The classic grill room is the most reliably macho space in hospitality: heavy wood-clad walls, a dark and masculine palette, leather booths, brass, the whole cigar-lounge language of excess. Baranowitz + Kronenberg set out to remove all of it. Gone is the wood. Gone is the gloom. In their place is a restrained composition of copper, travertine, velvet and glass, a deliberately limited palette that trades heaviness for calm across the 700-square-metre space. Earthy travertine grounds the room, soft blushes of pink and copper stand in for the usual dark leather, and every surface feels considered rather than piled on. It is a steakhouse that has been put on a diet of colour and clutter, and it is all the more elegant for it.
This is not just an aesthetic preference. Eliyahoo has spoken about the importance of evolving the steakhouse for a changing world, of reflecting shifting attitudes to dining, gender and inclusivity, and moving the genre away from its old, exclusive, masculine image. The design carries that argument. By stripping out the macho signifiers and replacing them with warmth, softness and restraint, MR PORTER quietly reimagines who a steakhouse is for. That is a more thoughtful piece of work than the beautiful surfaces alone suggest.
The room that changes with the night
The second idea is the one that makes MR PORTER feel alive, and the studio has built it into the architecture.
MR PORTER runs on a concept it calls “Dinner to Sinner,” and it means it literally. Early in the evening, the space behaves as an elegant restaurant: softly lit, quietly confident, defined by its minimalism. As the night wears on, the mood is engineered to shift. The lighting deepens, the music builds, funk and soul rhythms fill the air, and the same restrained dining room evolves into a charged social lounge with the energy of a young club. Crucially, the design does this work. The mirrored ceilings and copper details come alive as the light changes, so the transformation is not just a matter of turning the music up but of the room itself performing a different version of itself after dark.
Baranowitz + Kronenberg give the space the flexibility to pull this off. The mirrored ceilings manipulate scale and perspective, amplifying the depth of the underground room and blurring the line between ceiling and floor until the space feels far larger than it is. And fabric curtain walls, in velvet and linen, introduce a softness almost unheard of in a steakhouse, diffusing sound and light and acting as movable dividers that let the room shift from open and social to cocooned and intimate as the evening asks. It is a room designed to flow rather than to sit still.
A conversation of materials
Up close, the pleasure of the interior is in its contrasts, and Baranowitz + Kronenberg are careful to let the materials speak for themselves.
Natural stone meets polished metal, hard lines meet soft curves, matte finishes sit beside reflective planes. Brushed copper runs throughout, catching and softening the light in a way that reads as both industrial and glamorous. Velvet upholstery keeps the minimalism from ever feeling cold, adding comfort and tactility. There is almost no ornament, because none is needed: the design trusts the inherent qualities of each surface, the smoothness of marble underfoot, the glimmer of light on copper, the whisper of a curtain shifting, to do the talking. Light and reflection are treated almost as materials in their own right, sculpting the low, warm, shadowed space and guiding the eye through it. The result is immersive but understated, a demonstration that in a genre built on excess, real luxury can lie in control.
The plate echoes the room
The kitchen speaks the same language as the interior, which is part of why the whole thing coheres.
Where the design champions minimalism and precision, the menu champions simplicity done well, letting the quality of the ingredients lead. Signature dishes such as the roast beef carpaccio and the Japanese wagyu ribeye arrive with the same clarity and restraint as the room around them: clean, balanced, textural, plated on understated, sculptural serveware that could almost be part of the interior. The open kitchen is integrated sleekly into the layout, showing craft and transparency rather than theatre. Food, form and feeling are pulling in the same direction, which is exactly what lets MR PORTER slip the label of “steakhouse” and become something closer to a complete sensory experience.
Frequently asked questions
What is MR PORTER London? A steakhouse, bar and lounge on the lower ground floor of the London Hilton on Park Lane, in Mayfair. It is the fourth MR PORTER from the Amsterdam-based Entourage Group, after Amsterdam, Barcelona and Ibiza, and opened in 2024.
Who designed the interior? The acclaimed studio Baranowitz + Kronenberg, long associated with The Entourage Group’s venues. Photography is by Stevie Campbell.
How is it different from a traditional steakhouse? It deliberately removes the genre’s clichés, the dark wood, leather and masculine excess, and replaces them with a restrained palette of travertine, copper, blush pink, velvet and mirror, reimagining the steakhouse as calmer, warmer and more inclusive.
What is “Dinner to Sinner”? MR PORTER’s guiding concept. The space works as an elegant restaurant early in the evening and transforms into a lively social lounge as the night deepens, with the lighting, music and mirrored, copper-lined interior all shifting in mood.
What was in the space before? Trader Vic’s, the celebrated tiki bar that occupied the lower ground of the Park Lane Hilton for around sixty years until it closed in 2022.
Final thoughts
London does not lack for restaurants that reach for attention through extravagance. What makes MR PORTER stand out is that it does the opposite, and wins. It takes one of the most familiar and most conservative formats in dining, the steakhouse, and rebuilds it in the language of restraint, then gives it the flexibility to become a different room as the night goes on.
Baranowitz + Kronenberg have understood that the most confident thing a design can do in a genre defined by excess is to hold back, and to let light, material and mood carry the experience instead. The finished space feels distinctly London in its cosmopolitan self-assurance and distinctly Amsterdam in its youthful, quietly rebellious streak. It is a reminder that great design does not need to shout. Here, beneath Park Lane, it whispers with intent, and then, as the evening turns, it starts to dance.
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