At Island, Tom Brown’s new restaurant in King’s Cross, the menu is divided into small, large and tiny “islands” – a playful nod to portion size that turns out to be surprisingly prescient.

“I’m on Ozempic myself,” says the chef, who closed his Michelin-starred restaurant Cornerstone last year and now runs Pearly Queen and Tom Brown at the Capital, alongside his newest opening. “I can relate to not wanting to eat too much. But we found that a lighter style of dining in general and being able to tailor your menu to what you want is really important.”

It wasn’t built with weight-loss drugs in mind, but it turns out to be the kind of menu that works for a generation of diners eating less, drinking less and still wanting to go out. “My own experience of having been on it is that you do still want to go out and eat,” Brown adds, “but you might not go out and have a five-course feast. You might just want a couple of bits.”

With more than 1.5 million people in the UK now being prescribed GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, that appetite – or lack thereof – is beginning to hit the hospitality industry. In the US, the restaurant response is already well underway. At Clinton Hall in New York, diners can order a “teeny-weeny mini meal” with a two-ounce burger, 1.5 ounces of fries and a five-ounce beer. Smoothie King has introduced a five-item “GLP-1 support menu”. Hotel bars are now serving mini martinis for people who can’t handle a full pour.

It’s not just gimmickry: in April, a Bloomberg Intelligence survey found that more than half of GLP-1 users in the US were dining out less, and a Morgan Stanley report found that 63 per cent were ordering significantly less when they did.

“This change highlights how people on weight-loss medications, feeling fuller with fewer cravings for unhealthy foods, tend to make healthier choices and eat less overall,” says Kiran Jones, a clinical pharmacist at Oxford Online Pharmacy. “Similarly, UK restaurants must adapt their menus to make them more appealing, particularly when introducing healthier food options.”

In London, the first restaurant to do so explicitly is Otto’s, where a “menu for one, small appetite” was launched in May. Not the kind of place you’d expect it: Otto’s is best known for duck press, lobster soufflé and crêpes suzette, all served with maximalist flourish. But co-owner Otto Tepasse says the decision was simple. “I knew I was on the right path when I told two of our very rich customers who came and tried it out. They were happy and have since brought others along.”

The menu is, predictably, opulent: scallops, foie gras, lobster, Bresse chicken, coconut ice cream. “Luxury ingredients only,” Otto adds. “Totally organic and naturally outdoor-raised.”

Otto’s version of restraint: light on volume, but still heavy on decadence (Supplied by Otto)

Since our conversation, he’s also adjusted his already decadent “After Death” menu, transforming it into a sharing experience “for multiples of two” – a move he calls a “small bite uber luxe menu”. The signature burger remains solo. All for £500 a head, equivalent to two months’ worth of Ozempic.

It speaks to the fact that, for all the talk of shrinking appetites, GLP-1 users still want the restaurant experience – the candlelight, the silver cloches, the tableside theatrics – just in portions better suited to their new metabolisms. That it’s working at Otto’s, a restaurant best known for its excess, suggests that the desire to dine well isn’t going anywhere. The indulgence, it seems, is still the point – it’s just calibrated differently.

Brown understands the appeal. “You just want people to come in and have whatever experience suits them,” he says. “If there are a few of you, you might just have a few nibbles or small plates and then everyone else eats the majority of the food. That kind of flexibility – not sticking to just starter, main course, dessert – is what people want in general.”

It’s a shift he’s embraced across his restaurants, including The Capital, where he initially offered only a tasting menu but soon realised not everyone wanted to commit. Now, there’s a shorter menu and à la carte too – not in response to Ozempic specifically, but to a new kind of diner: health-conscious, time-poor, often budget-aware.

I’ve been around long enough that I’ve seen several significant diet fads come and go, from the ‘olive oil with everything’ Mediterranean diet to the protein-heavy, carb-free days of Atkins and the strict calorie-control of 5:2, all of which the restaurant industry responded to in one way or another

Hugh Smithson-Wright

“A good menu in a good restaurant already offers something for all appetites,” says restaurant PR and regular diner Hugh Smithson-Wright. “Some people wanting to eat less, or less heavily, than others, predates the advent of weight-loss drugs… really all that’s needed is to look at the menu and ask whether the flexibility it should offer anyway is there already.”

And perhaps that’s the real story here. Are these drugs simply accelerating broader changes in how we eat? Brown thinks so. “People are looking after themselves a lot more,” he says. “At the weekend, I cycled from Dalston to Kensington and I was basically in a run club the whole time. In Dalston, everyone’s walking around with a yoga mat; they’ve just been to a class. So you’ve got to be considerate of it.”

But perhaps this is all a storm in a ramekin. The number of people on these drugs is still a fraction of the population. Are we really witnessing a revolution in dining habits, or just obsessing about what the rich and thin are eating in a new way?

Smithson-Wright isn’t so sure. “From some reactions, you’d think that the entire country was on GLP-1 drugs, but the reality is, it’s a minority of the population and the rest of us are still eating relatively ‘normally’. That said, it absolutely does represent a shift in how a significant number of people are eating, and restaurants need to be awake to that.”

While some chefs like Brown are already ditching tasting menus in favour of more flexible formats, Smithson-Wright is sceptical of the more overt responses. “I think ‘miniature luxury’ is possibly barking up the wrong tree, as it misses the point that people on GLP-1 drugs aren’t just eating less, they’re eating lighter,” he says. “The food you do eat still has to be healthy for the drugs to work, so I don’t think people using them are thinking, ‘Ooh, do you know what I really fancy? A little lobe of foie gras!’ But it’s clever as a marketing tool, and I’m sure we'll see a lot more of these ‘mini menus’, at least while there’s still buzz around these drugs.”

At Island, Tom Brown proves that downsizing doesn’t mean joyless (Alberto Zamaniego)

Still, if we are eating less, it will affect the bottom line. According to Jones, US consumers on GLP-1s are already opting for less take-aways and eating home-cooked meals over dining out. In the UK, Brown says he hasn’t seen a huge impact – yet. “I don’t see it becoming a problem for restaurants in a certain bracket, because if you’re on Ozempic, it doesn’t mean you don’t want to have fun and enjoy your life. It just means that, for the most part, it cuts out that feeling of hunger for the sake of it.”

He adds, “Perhaps it might be [a problem] for restaurants in that sort of mid-range that are where people go more for sustenance than enjoyment. That bracket where people are just popping in on a lunchtime because their office is nearby. Those restaurants might feel a slight pinch.”

But for others, it’s business as usual. “Yawn, yawn,” says James Robson, founder of Fallow and Roe. “I think the conversation is over.” He’s not seeing any shift in the numbers. “Fortunately, our covers and numbers are up this year, so there are no side effects on our side, unlike the unknown with these weight loss drugs…”

That said, he doesn’t entirely dismiss the impact. “I’m not sure a lot of vain people staying slimmer without exercising, which makes them feel better and drink a little less, is healthy,” he adds. “Clearly, it has helped a few good people with genuine health issues and probably more good is being done than bad if it helps overall obesity.”

Gluttony, redefined: Otto’s After Death menu goes maximal with foie gras, caviar, lobster and truffle (Otto)

Perhaps, then, it’s not the appetite that matters, but the attitude. As Brown puts it, “Ozempic as a concept is never going to take the love of enjoyment of going to restaurants and eating out away, because it’s more than just food. It’s the whole thing. It’s going out, it’s getting dressed up, it’s the experience. I don’t see it impacting that too much.”

And besides, he says: “I wish I’d gone on it 10 years ago. It’s changed my life. I look great.” Which raises a fair point – if you’re injecting yourself every week and feeling a bit grim for the privilege, you might as well have something to show for it. What’s the point in shelling out for the miracle jab if you can’t go out and enjoy the miracle?

So will Ozempic change the way we eat out forever? Perhaps a little – menus will get more flexible, portions more refined and some diners will chase indulgence in smaller bites. But it’s unlikely to topple the basic pleasure of going out for a good meal.

As Smithson-Wright puts it, “I’ve been around long enough that I’ve seen several significant diet fads come and go, from the ‘olive oil with everything’ Mediterranean diet to the protein-heavy, carb-free days of Atkins and the strict calorie-control of 5:2, all of which the restaurant industry responded to in one way or another. So I see GLP-1 drugs as just another trend that will pass.”

There will always be someone picking at a salad and someone else ordering the côte de boeuf for two. Appetite isn’t just physiological – it’s emotional, social, sometimes even seasonal. Some nights we want a scallop and a mini martini. Other nights we want cake.

“When my best friend once suggested, lovingly, to his diabetic Auntie Margaret that she might be wise to watch her weight,” Smithson-Wright says, “she said, ‘Darling, my weight goes up and my weight goes down, and when it goes up a bit too much I stop the cake and go for walks.’ I aspire to be more Margaret.” Don’t we all?

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