A restaurant PR agency helps a restaurant earn the coverage, reviews, and word of mouth that fill tables. That means getting food and lifestyle journalists, critics, local media, and the right influencers talking about your opening, your menu or your chef, and being ready with images, facts, and access whenever a title comes calling. Good restaurant PR turns a launch, a new head chef, or a refreshed menu into stories people actually read before they decide where to book.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique, senior-led restaurant PR agency based in London, working with independent restaurants, restaurant groups, and hotel dining across the UK and Europe.
Restaurant PR sits within our wider hospitality PR work, alongside hotel PR, luxury hotel PR, and spa and wellness PR. For product-led food and drink brands rather than venues, our food and drink PR and lifestyle PR pages are the better starting point.
A restaurant PR agency manages how your restaurant is talked about in the press, online and among the people who decide where to eat. The work usually brings together the following:
For new openings, from the first teaser through opening night and the weeks after.
With the food critics, national food desks, regional press and online titles your diners read.
That turns around images, facts, menus and a chef quote quickly when a journalist is on deadline.
With credible food and lifestyle names whose audiences align with your target diners, supported by digital PR that can support your visibility across Google and AI search.
For launches, press dinners, tastings and chef collaborations.
Around reviews, closures or difficult stories, so you respond calmly and well.
Restaurant PR is the work of earning attention and trust for a restaurant through coverage you have not paid for, rather than advertising. A critic reviewing your opening, a food journalist featuring your new menu, or a trusted creator sharing a meal carries more weight than an advert, because someone independent chose to feature you.
That is the difference between restaurant PR and restaurant marketing: marketing is the channels you own, such as your website, email, and paid social, while PR is the credibility you earn from other people. The two work best together, with PR building the third-party trust that your own lifestyle and brand channels then amplify.
| Service | What it supports |
|---|---|
| Launch PR | Awareness, coverage and booking momentum around opening |
| Media relations and reviews | Critic reviews and features in the food and lifestyle titles diners read |
| Press office | Fast answers, images, menus and chef quotes for journalists on deadline |
| Influencer and content partnerships | Reach and social proof with creators whose audiences align with your target diners |
| Event handling | Launches, press dinners, tastings and chef collaborations that earn coverage |
| Reputation support | A calm, considered response when a review or difficult story lands |
Restaurant launch PR is the campaign around a new opening. It usually starts six to eight weeks before the doors open, building a story that gives journalists and diners a reason to care, then times coverage so interest peaks when you can actually seat people.
A typical launch brings together an announcement to the food press, a press or influencer dinner, early review visits, local media outreach, and a press office ready for the questions that follow. For a restaurant opening inside a four-star hotel, launch PR often runs alongside the hotel's own coverage so the two support each other rather than compete.
Agree the story, gather images and menus, brief the food press under embargo.
Confirm the press or influencer dinner and line up early review visits.
Announcement goes live, first coverage and reviews land, press office on hand.
Sustain coverage with menu stories, awards entries and reactive opportunities.
Restaurant PR earns its keep when you have a real story to tell and the right people are not yet hearing it. A few situations we see often:
Eating out is busy and competitive.
Market figures from Lumina Intelligence, UK Eating Out Market Report 2026.
That means more choice for diners and more restaurants competing for the same attention. Most people decide where to eat after reading a review, a feature, or a recommendation, or after asking Google or an AI tool for the best restaurants nearby.
Restaurant PR is how you help build the visibility that can put your restaurant in front of diners at this point, backed by coverage a diner trusts rather than an advert they scroll past.
Restaurant PR is usually a monthly retainer, with one-off openings often run as a project fee. Boutique, senior-led consultancies typically start from a few thousand pounds a month, while a big multi-site launch with heavy events and influencer activity costs more. A launch project is priced on the scale of the opening and how much event handling it needs.
Rather than quote a fixed package, we work out what will actually move bookings for you, then suggest a level that fits. A short conversation is the quickest way to get a realistic figure.
If you are weighing up restaurant PR agencies in London, the right choice depends less on size and more on fit. A few things worth checking before you sign anything:
Kitten & Shark is based in London and works with restaurants across the UK and Europe. A London base matters for restaurant PR because the national food desks, critics, and lifestyle editors are concentrated in the city, and so are many of the influencers who shape where people eat.
That said, the work travels: we help restaurants in regional cities, coastal towns, and hotel dining rooms reach the media their diners actually read, wherever they are.
Kitten & Shark is a boutique PR consultancy where our senior consultants work directly on your account. Founder Clemmie Mason-Pearson has more than seventeen years in lifestyle and hospitality PR, with long-standing relationships among the food writers, critics, editors and influencers who shape where people eat and stay. Because the team is small, everyone knows every account, so your restaurant always has a senior contact who knows the menu, the story and the goal.
Alongside the core team, we draw on a wider network across event handling, celebrity booking, social media, digital marketing and SEO, international media, media buying and crisis management, so you get the focus of a boutique agency with the reach of a larger one. We work across independent restaurants, restaurant groups and hotel dining. Our focus remains firmly on hospitality, food and drink, which keeps our media relationships concentrated where they count for you.
A restaurant PR agency earns coverage, reviews and word of mouth for a restaurant. That includes launch PR, media relations with critics and food journalists, a press office, influencer partnerships, event handling and reputation support. The aim is more of the right diners hearing about you and booking a table.
Restaurant launch PR usually starts six to eight weeks before opening. The campaign combines an announcement to the food press, a press or influencer dinner, early review visits, local media outreach, and a press office ready for opening week and the period after.
Most restaurant PR runs on a monthly retainer, with one-off openings often priced as a project. Boutique consultancies typically start from a few thousand pounds a month, and larger multi-site or launch-heavy briefs cost more. We quote on what you actually need rather than a fixed package.
Look for genuine food and hospitality experience, current relationships with critics and food desks, senior people who stay on your account, a real launch track record and honest measurement tied to bookings. Fit matters as much as a credentials list.
Restaurant marketing covers the channels you own, such as your website, email and paid social. Restaurant PR is the coverage and credibility you earn from other people, such as a critic's review or a feature in a food title. They work best together, with PR building the trust your own channels amplify.
A restaurant PR agency knows which critics and journalists cover your kind of food and your city, and how and when to approach them. It builds a story worth covering, arranges review visits and press or influencer dinners, and makes it easy for a title to say yes with the right images, facts and access.
Yes. For a group opening a second or third site, PR keeps one clear brand story while giving each location its own coverage and reviews. Consistency across sites builds recognition, while local outreach fills tables at each one.
A launch or a strong menu story can earn coverage within weeks. Building consistent reviews, features and a reliable press presence takes longer, usually several months, which is why restaurant PR works best as an ongoing programme rather than a one-off push.