John Lewis has opened its flagship Platter restaurant at Oxford Street this week, launching a new format that will replace restaurants across 32 stores by the end of 2027 as the retailer responds to growing demand for in-store hospitality.

The Oxford Street site has 300 seats, including 50 outdoor covers on a fifth-floor terrace, making it one of the largest restaurants on the shopping street. It features an open kitchen serving hand-stretched pizza, a made-on-site deli, a dessert parlour and a bar overlooking the department store’s atrium.

John Lewis said the flagship also includes an in-store coffee roastery, where a master roaster oversees production of a single-origin Arabica bean sourced exclusively for the retailer. Customers can drink the coffee at the Oxford Street site or buy it to take home as beans or ground coffee.

The restaurant houses The Residency, a rotating pop-up space launching with London patisserie The Eclectic Collection, which is offering its fruit-shaped desserts at the site. Each Platter restaurant will be designed around the size and character of its host store, meaning the format will vary across the estate.

John Lewis said hospitality now accounts for more than 20 per cent of its in-store transactions, while sales in the category have increased by nearly 10 per cent over the past year. The retailer said customers are spending longer in its shops and increasingly incorporating eating and drinking into their shopping trips.

Katie Papakonstantinou, director of services and hospitality at John Lewis, said: “This is a real investment in something customers told us mattered.” She added that “sitting down for something to eat and drink has become part of how people shop” as the retailer expands the concept.

Platter has already reopened at John Lewis stores in Bluewater, Chichester and Reading, with the wider rollout running from Exeter to Edinburgh. The retailer said all 32 restaurants are expected to be replaced with the new format by the end of 2027.

The programme forms part of an £800 million multi-year investment in John Lewis’ shops and digital experience. The retailer announced a further £50 million investment across five stores this summer, including a £20 million refurbishment of its Glasgow branch, its largest single-store investment in recent years.

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