Direct Booking Done Right: Best Restaurant Websites Inspiring Reservations
- LIKAA
- Apr 13
- 8 min read
When every click can mean the difference between a booked table and a missed opportunity, the 2024 Global Restaurant Digital Booking Trends Report delivers a striking revelation: website booking forms now outperform Google, social media, and email as the top-performing booking channel. This isn’t just a statistic, it’s a wake-up call for restaurateurs to rethink their direct booking strategy.
But what separates a basic restaurant website design from one that converts casual browsers into loyal guests? And with endless website builders and design trends flooding the market, how do you choose the right tools to craft a site that’s both visually stunning and functionally irresistible to increase restaurant sales?
To answer these questions, we turned to the industry trendsetters: the world’s most sought-after restaurants.
From Michelin-starred icons to culturally influential hotspots, we explored the globe’s top 50 dining destinations, then narrowed the playing field down to 10 elite establishments renowned for their sky-high reservation demand.These restaurants don’t just attract diners; they masterfully guide them, blending artistry, urgency, and seamless technology to turn website visits into bookings.
Whether you’re a fine-dining institution or an emerging eatery, the secrets of these top 10 restaurant websites will inspire you to reimagine your own digital presence, and turn your website into your most powerful reservation tool.
Ready to see how the best in the world do it?
Central (Lima, Peru)
Ranked 1st on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2023, Lima-based Central, offers a Peruvian tasting menu, requiring reservations months in advance.
Central’s website design strategically drives restaurant reservations and cultivates customer loyalty through a blend of intuitive design, persuasive messaging, and ongoing engagement.
Key reservation-focused tactics include prominently placed, high-contrast colors to highlight call-to-action buttons, to stand out against the website’s sophisticated aesthetic, paired with streamlined booking tools (Mesa 24/7) for quick, mobile-friendly reservations.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Framer Sites
Reservations:
Powered by mesa 24/7. A software that allows you to book or buy in restaurants.
eCommerce:
Powered by SiteDirect
Disfrutar (Barcelona, Spain)
Known for avant-garde cuisine, bookings often fill within minutes of release.
Disfrutar's website employs a strategically streamlined design to optimize calls to action (CTAs) for reservations and gift purchases, balancing visual appeal with functional clarity. The navigation bar immediately directs visitors to "Booking" and "Gift Shop," ensuring key fuunctions are accessible.
This tip is clearly labeled on the booking page and can indirectly be seen in their sales strategy, which has reached the gold-standard in direct booking prioritization:
“REMEMBER THAT THE ONLY OFFICIAL CHANNEL TO MAKE RESERVATIONS IS THE RESTAURANT'S WEBSITE OR TELEPHONE.”
Restaurant Website Builder:
Self-development without a website builder
Reservations:
Powered by Covermanager, a hospitality technology company that provides CRM solutions for businesses to manage customer experiences and loyalty.
eCommerce:
Powered by Cart Functionality
Geranium (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2022’s number 1 restaurant. A three-Michelin-starred experience with a seasonal Nordic menu and a strict reservation system.
A clean layout, muted earth tones, and ample white space, create a luxury yet approachable design. High-resolution imagery of meticulously plated dishes and subtle animations highlight the restaurant’s artistry, reinforcing its Michelin prestige.
Like Copenhagen’s Geranium, many of the best restaurant websites practically integrate gift cards into the hero section of the homepage; accessible via prominent, visually distinct buttons. This combination of allure and transactional ease enhances engagement and conversion, driving both reservations and gift card sales by aligning the digital experience with the restaurant’s refined brand identity.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Self-development without a website builder
Reservations:
Powered by Formitable (now Zenchef), a reservation management system for restaurants.
eCommerce:
Sell gift cards online powered by Lifepeaks, a software-as-a-service platform that enables businesses to issue gift cards, tickets, and vouchers online.
Gaggan Anand (Bangkok, Thailand)
A progressive Indian restaurant with a 25-course tasting menu. Reservations are highly competitive via online platforms.
World-class restaurants don't necessarily need custom websites to engage their audiences and drive sales. Gaggan Anand’s restaurant website design was crafted using content management system (CMS) WordPress and the drag-and-drop page builder Elementor to achieve its playful & hand-drawn vibe.
Features like an embedded menu preview, real-time reservation plugins, and social proof (awards, press highlights) build trust and urgency. Elementor’s flexibility allows for dynamic elements, such as video backgrounds of the kitchen in action or seasonal pop-ups promoting limited-time tasting menus, which create a sense of exclusivity.
We all know that Wordpress has quite a reputation for SEO optimization, meta tags, and localized keywords help the site rank higher in searches, attracting both tourists and locals.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Sevenrooms, a New York City-based restaurant technology company.
Atomix (New York City, USA)
Michelin two-star Korean tasting menu. Uses a ticketed reservation system that sells out rapidly.
Atomix’s website design stands out as the most minimalist among these restaurants. The homepage is elegantly simple, featuring just three options on a single screen.
What makes it special is the subtle sophistication of the design. Hovering your mouse over each option gently shifts the background image, creating an understated yet refined experience. The booking feature is cleverly tucked within each option, avoiding flashy ads or distractions.
The site sparks curiosity with its clean layout, inviting users to explore further without overwhelming them.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Tock, a reservation system to manage reservations, events, takeout, and delivery.
eCommerce:
Noma (Copenhagen, Denmark)
A three-Michelin-star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi, and co-founded by Claus Meyer, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Noma’s website, also built on WordPress, prioritizes simplicity in design and layout to spotlight the culinary team and their creations. The site makes sure a restaurant reservation button is available from the moment you land.
Scrolling down, visitors a shown a series of natural, yet luxurious layouts of Noma’s top-quality ingredients, eliciting stomachs to growl while learning about their mission with its origin “rooted in an exploration of the natural world, which began with a simple desire to rediscover wild local ingredients by foraging and to follow the seasons.”
Noma’s restaurant website design also emphasizes email subscriptions, a strategic choice given its substantial traffic - nearly 300,000 monthly visitors. With such high demand, the restaurant ultimately relies on a lottery system to manage reservation requests, ensuring fair access amid overwhelming interest.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Tock, a reservation system to manage reservations, events, takeout, and delivery.
Alchemist (Copenhagen, Denmark)
Features a 50-course immersive dining experience. Prepaid tickets via website are released quarterly and sell out instantly.
Alchemist is one of the very few restaurant websites we’ve seen that doesn't use a single image, which is relatively rare for the F&B industry. We often say that diners eat with their eyes first, high-quality menu graphics and eye-catching food photos normally have a significant impact and drive a restaurant's marketing and website bookings.
But the Alchemist website interface leans on a monochromatic palette with stark contrasts, using crisp typography and strategic space to guide visitors through a seamless yet enigmatic journey.
The absence of imagery amplifies focus on curated language, transforming each click into a deliberate step toward discovery. By blending restrained aesthetics with intuitive functionality, the design cultivates a sense of mystery without sacrificing usability, ensuring that the challenge of securing a booking feels purposeful, rewarding persistence with an experience as refined as the food itself.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Tock, a reservation system to manage reservations, events, takeout, and delivery.
Odette (Singapore)
Three Michelin stars and a regular on Asia’s 50 Best. Modern French cuisine with high online reservation traffic.
Unlike Alchemist, Odette’s website immerses visitors in its delicious world through stunning visuals, including photos and videos that showcase its signature dishes, meticulous food preparation, and elegant ambiance.
While the site follows a conventional restaurant website layout, it demonstrates how Michelin-starred establishments like Odette can leverage WordPress templates to their advantage.
With an abundance of high-quality content, Odette’s platform remains both visually cohesive and functionally robust, offering seamless booking features, multilingual accessibility, and a wealth of information that stays true to the restaurant’s refined brand identity.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Sevenrooms, a New York City-based restaurant technology company.
Pujol (Mexico City, Mexico)
Renowned for its tasting menu blending Mexican traditions. Reservations open months ahead and book out quickly.
Pujol’s website design shares similarities with Atomix in design, but it distinguishes itself by placing the menu at the top of the page and offering more extensive content.
They use Elementor’s website builder and go a step further by integrating WooCommerce. This addition enables seamless e-commerce functionality, allowing visitors to not only make reservations but also purchase restaurant-related items directly through the site, effectively combining dining and retail experiences in one interface.
Pujol’s menu is not only home to a reservation button, but this option coexists next to a WhatsApp button which means that if a potential guest wants to ask a question before booking they can get a personalized and real-human response, while Pujol can collect contact details for future use.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Reservations:
Powered by Sevenrooms, a New York City-based restaurant technology company.
eCommerce:
Le Bernardin (New York City, USA)
Three Michelin stars for seafood-centric French cuisine. Consistently ranked among the most sought-after reservations globally.
Le Bernardin’s website attracts up to 150,000 monthly views, and its design prioritizes simplicity and functionality. The reservation button is strategically placed directly beneath the logo, ensuring that no matter where users scroll, they can effortlessly locate the button to book a table.
While the site avoids flashy website builders or cutting-edge design elements, it stays true to the essentials of a classic restaurant website: showcasing appetizing food and highlighting the expertise of its renowned chef. This straightforward approach keeps the focus on what matters most - enticing visitors and moving guests forward to the reservation process.
Restaurant Website Builder:
Self-development without a website builder.
Reservations:
Powered by Rezy, an American online restaurant-reservation service company founded in 2014
eCommerce:
Powered by Cart Functionality
Is Your Restaurant Website Design Enough to Drive Direct Bookings?
Direct bookings empower restaurants to reclaim control over their customer relationships, reduce third-party fees, and cultivate loyal, personal relationships. But beyond transactions, restaurant websites should be a community driven effort where diners share in the joy and anticipation of good food and good company.
As the landscape of eating out evolves, investing in a website that blends functionality with authenticity isn’t just about how to increase restaurant sales, it’s the foundation for building lasting relationships and a thriving local presence. The future of dining is rooted in community, and it all starts with one click.
In the competitive world of dining, a restaurant’s website contributes to the heartbeat of a F&B brand. By prioritizing intuitive design, mobile responsiveness, and visually compelling storytelling, restaurants can create an online space that resonates, inspires, and converts.
A well-crafted website not only optimizes direct bookings but also fosters connection by weaving in elements that celebrate the community: highlighting local partnerships, showcasing customer stories, or promoting events that bring people together.
Ready to turn your website into a hub for direct bookings? It’s time to design with purpose, engage with heart, and watch your tables - and your community - flourish.
About Likaa:
Likaa makes it easy for restaurants and F&B insiders to host chat rooms, share discounts, and get honest feedback from the guests they value and want to welcome back.
