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Wine List of the Week: Cooper’s Cut, Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge

08 June 2026 By Douglas Blyde

A steakhouse in name, a wine lover’s destination in practice. Douglas Blyde visits Cooper’s Cut, where Gonzalo Rodriguez Diaz’s cellar, Château Haut-Brion’s legacy and a remarkable historic setting make for one of London’s most compelling dining experiences.

Named after Sir Edwin Cooper, architect of both Marylebone Town Hall and the colossal former Port of London Authority HQ which now houses Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge, Cooper’s Cut occupies a building forged through trade, bombing and reinvention. Opened in 1922 by Welsh Liberal prime minister, David Lloyd George, the Beaux Arts giant once processed the financial machinery of Britain’s maritime empire beneath a domed rotunda lined with marble, brass and walnut, before the Blitz tore through its core.

Acquired and overhauled by China’s Reignwood Group – whose interests range from aviation and property to the ever-present VOSS stationed throughout the hotel – the building reopened in 2017 after a vast restoration as a Four Seasons with rooms, residences, spa, the Ten Trinity Square Private Club in partnership with Château Latour, and a duet of restaurants. Archaeologists working on the conversion uncovered remnants of Roman London, including first century amulets, on display, while upstairs survives the restored walnut boardroom which hosted the reception tied to the inaugural meeting of the United Nations in 1946. Outside, the façade has doubled as shorthand for establishment power in Skyfall and The Crown.

Cooper’s Cut itself marks what Harden’s calls “a big change of gear”, replacing the hotel’s former two Michelin-starred restaurant led by Anne-Sophie Pic. “Is it a sign of the times,” asked Hot Dinners, “that [the] luxury hotel has decided to replace its two Michelin-starred restaurant with a steakhouse?” Olive Magazine, however, found “the wagyu is the dish that made our eyelashes flutter.”

Drinks

Before dinner came a tour of the sun-filled Ten Trinity Square Private Club with Gonzalo Rodriguez Diaz. The Club represents a unique partnership between Reignwood, Château Latour and Four Seasons, though Latour’s presence also travels across restaurants, and even in a vitrine facing the lifts. Clarence Dillon provides another great pull, from rooms and suites to Cooper’s Cut and the Ho Bryan private dining room. In the Club, Jonathan Wright, formerly of Pollen Street Social and now head sommelier, poured two pristine 2015s: Eisele Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc from half bottle, startlingly fresh and rich, followed by Château-Grillet Côtes du Rhône, gentler and still moving. With them came a crisp asparagus and curry tart and magnificent foie gras-stuffed, gilded “Ferrero Rocher”. Then came Les Forts de Latour 2000 from magnum. “This is what the doctor recommended,” said Rodriguez Diaz, with the air of a man for whom cellar discipline is common sense. The Club also holds Marc de Clos de Tart, one of those bottles which makes a private members’ club feel like a door into the deeper building.

Formerly of Azurmendi and Seven Park Place, where he opened the port-led 1857 The Bar and built an illustrated Wine Book good enough for bedtime reading, Rodriguez Diaz now oversees one of London’s most exciting hotel lists. Uruguayan by birth, he brings the appetite of a collector, the pace of a dealer, and the faith of a pilgrim of characterful wine. The list begins, pointedly, with Haut-Brion. This is not trophy Bordeaux as wallpaper, but a London story. Cooper’s Cut sits on ground associated with Samuel Pepys, who in 1663 wrote of drinking “Ho Bryan”, an early English rendering of Haut-Brion. Rodriguez Diaz has turned the reference into the Ho Bryan private dining room for 12 guests, an exclusive collaboration with Château Haut-Brion, created with Prince Robert of Luxembourg, and now fitted with new fridges.

The opening pages carry an exceptional ex-château selection from Domaine Clarence Dillon, spanning Haut-Brion and La Mission Haut-Brion, red and white, alongside Quintus from Saint-Émilion. Provenance is the luxury: bottles which have remained at the estate since release, rather than making the usual grand tour of auction rooms and bonded warehouses. Rodriguez Diaz is candid about the list being on the young side by old-school hotel standards. He prefers younger, traceable stock to older bottles with murkier journeys. “Provenance is the most important thing,” he says. “When the wine is bought correctly, you have a different product.”

The list could have become a predictable grand-hotel steakhouse inventory – Bordeaux, Burgundy, Napa Cabernet, Super Tuscans, Champagne, applause. Instead, Rodriguez Diaz gives it historical force, then builds outwards with appetite and scholarship: grower champagne, Jura, Savoie, Loire, northern Rhône whites, English sparkling and still wine, and direct relationships with producers without UK representation. Canny. Spain gives it one of its strongest pulses, from López de Heredia, Vega Sicilia and Basilio Izquierdo to Forjas del Salnés, Guímaro, Dominio del Águila, Cota 45, Tamerán and Comando G.

Cocktails are not an afterthought. Head of Bars, Michele Lombardi presides over the vast Rotunda bar, where a cabinet devoted to indie spirits hints at a programme with more curiosity than the usual hotel inventory. He also left the CC Gimlet on ice in our vast Lloyd George Suite – No. 3 London Dry Gin, curry leaves, white port, Vetiver Gris and verjus – a punchy, tailored footnote to a room where even the ceilings seem to expect a Cabinet meeting. At Cooper’s Cut, martinis may be ordered as two- or three-course pairings, including lower-ABV versions.

Dishes

Led by Australian executive chef, Luke Armstrong, though he was called away at short notice on our visit, Cooper’s Cut draws on a career spanning L’Autre Pied, Pied à Terre, Oud Sluis, The Ledbury, Signature at Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, TRB Beijing, Regent Shanghai on The Bund and L’Envol, Hong Kong. His absence did not appear to trouble the kitchen. The restaurant hasn’t changed much since Anne Sophie Pic’s tenure – mirrored pillars, darkly handsome tones, though with a soundtrack which seemed to have escaped from the theme to The Clothes Show. Julien Arribillaga, F&B manager, formerly of Geranium and Muse by Tom Aikens, brings additional fine-dining voltage to a room which could easily have leaned on beef alone.

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It does not. The first dish at Cooper’s Cut was not one we would normally have ordered: red watercress with crapaudine beetroot, lightly poached, prescribed by the waiter and sharpened by mustard. It was a clever start, earthy without heaviness. Inama’s I Palchi Foscarino 2022 Soave brought volcanic breadth alongside it.

There was stout soda bread, then langoustines I wanted to eat again at once: lightly torched, set in orange and saffron sauce, the sweetness of shellfish stretched rather than smothered. Basilio Izquierdo’s Rioja Blanco 2014, from very old vines and led by Garnacha Blanca, met the saffron with exceptional freshness and depth. Gonzalo loves saffron; the wine seemed to know why.

The asparagus course, with white spears cooked in white wine and green in salt water, was handled with care. Piment d’Espelette gave mild heat; wild garlic gave length. Gautheron Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 2023 cut through it with grand cru confidence, turning a vegetable course into a case for Chablis in a steakhouse. La Clarté de Haut-Brion 2016 then bridged white Bordeaux precision and the dinner’s move towards beef.

A4 Hokkaido Wagyu with spinach gratin was more refined than many a steakhouse dares to be. Each diner is presented with a personal steak knife, with the waiter explaining its provenance. One of ours hailed from Barcelona, another from Peckham, by way of Blenheim Forge. A dedicated Wagyu knife was also offered, a detail which could have been daft yet worked because the meat merited the fuss. Homemade piccalilli sharpened the plate, though the pots themselves looked a little too functional for the surrounding ambition.

With the Wagyu came La Mission Haut-Brion 1993 and Château Haut-Brion 1986. The latter had authority and a lifted eucalyptus note, though the 1993 was the more touching bottle, less self-conscious, more available. “Everyone wants the Instagram vintage,” said Rodriguez Diaz, “but when the wine is kept correctly, it can be like this.” It was less a pairing than a small seminar in storage, patience and the folly of label-chasing.

Dessert did not try to out-muscle the cellar. Granny Smith tarte Tatin with yoghurt ice cream gave Dr. Hermann Erdener Prälat Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese Alte Reben 2018 the acidity and cream it needed. From the Mosel’s red and blue slate, bought at a dedicated auction, 8% alcohol, minuscule production, “twice the sweetness and twice the price of Yquem”, said Rodriguez Diaz, it tasted like apricot jam, wax and sunlight slowed to a crawl. Bakewell tart closed matters with British familiarity, a useful landing after Haut-Brion, La Mission, TBA and the full force of Rodriguez Diaz’s cellar velocity.

Last Sip

Cooper’s Cut is a steakhouse only in the way a Savile Row suit is clothing: the category is recognisable, but the execution is far more serious than the word usually allows. The food has precision, the room has intimacy, and the service is alert enough to carry the building’s grandeur without being flattened by it, though the real reason to come is wine, because Gonzalo Rodriguez Diaz has made Cooper’s Cut one of London’s most compelling hotel restaurant lists: historically rooted, personally argued, commercially awake and full of bottles which do not feel bought by committee. He is a pilgrim of characterful wine, not a custodian of trophy labels, and the Ho Bryan private dining room may become the most persuasive 12-seat argument in London for drinking Bordeaux with beef.

Best for: Haut-Brion with beef; the Ho Bryan private dining room; Latour before dinner; three-martini architecture; Gonzalo in full flight.

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