58% of UK diners say they would pay more for a customised tasting menu, 55% for curated sharing platters and 47% for personalised drinks pairings (OpenTable, 2025). Experience-led bookings rose 72% year on year even before this, led by tasting menus, bottomless formats and dinner-and-show combinations. Diners are eating out less often — and paying more when the occasion earns it.
What guests will actually pay for
The willingness-to-pay data is unusually specific. Beyond tasting menus and platters, 51% would pay for commemorative menus or keepsakes and 43% for preferred seating. Around holidays the numbers climb further: 63% would pay extra for festive menus, and nearly half for live music or cooking classes. None of this requires a concept overhaul. It requires taking things a restaurant already has — the chef's counter, the corner table, the wine cellar — and packaging them as products with prices.
The window-seat lesson
The sharpest example in the report is Darwin Brasserie in London, which sat on a skyline view for years and gave the best tables away first come, first served. In 2023 it moved seat upgrades into its booking flow as a paid option — and digital sales rose 626% within two months. The asset already existed; the only change was letting guests pay for it at the moment of booking, when anticipation is highest and the upgrade feels like part of the plan rather than a surcharge.
Start small, measure, extend
Experience revenue compounds from modest beginnings: a monthly chef's table, a wine-pairing supplement, a pre-bookable celebration package with a set price. Because these products are sold at reservation time, they also improve the economics of the booking itself — pre-committed spend arrives with a deposit attached and rarely no-shows. The operators doing this well treat every step from booking to bill as one designed journey, then read the sales data to see which upgrades guests actually choose.
Operator takeaway
List three things in your restaurant that guests already compete for — the view, the counter, the quiet corner — and put a price and a booking button on one of them this month. The demand curve says a meaningful share of your guests wants to spend more; the only question is whether you have built anything for them to spend it on.