Every guide to royal shopping in London written before 2024 is now wrong, and most of them have not noticed. In May of that year King Charles III granted his first royal warrants, the first new grants in 28 years, and every warrant issued by Queen Elizabeth II lapsed. The crowns came off some very famous doors.
Harrods, for one, holds no royal warrant at all, and has not held one this century. It is still worth an hour of your morning. It is simply not where the royal family shops.
Here is who does, warrant holders first, with the oldest of them trading since the seventeenth century.
Fortnum & Mason
Two warrants, both granted in 2024: Grocers and Tea Merchants to the King, and Grocers and Provision Merchants to the Queen. No other shop on this page holds a pair. William Fortnum, a footman to Queen Anne, went into business with Hugh Mason in 1707, and the palace connection has never really lapsed since.
Buy a hamper, obviously. But the house also claims to have invented the Scotch egg, and one from Piccadilly costs a fraction of a hamper and travels better on a train.
LUXOS Recommends: the Scotch egg, invented on these premises in 1738
Fortnum & Mason: 181 Piccadilly, London W1A 1ER, Tel. +44 20 7734 8040, fortnumandmason.com
Turnbull & Asser
The King’s shirtmaker, warranted again in 2024 and first warranted by him in 1980, when he was Prince of Wales. Charles has therefore been buying his shirts in the same shop for more than four decades. You can see why. A bespoke Turnbull shirt is cut from 34 pieces of cloth and finished with mother-of-pearl buttons.
The Jermyn Street flagship has been there since 1903 with many of the original fittings still in place. Monday to Friday nine until six, Saturday from half past nine, shut on Sunday.
Turnbull & Asser: 71-72 Jermyn Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6PF, Tel. +44 20 7808 3000, turnbullandasser.com
Related: Shopping like royalty in London
Berry Bros. & Rudd
Founded in 1698 and supplying the royal family since 1760. That makes the 2024 warrant less a new honour than a renewal of a very long arrangement. Three Masters of Wine work on the staff, so the advice across the counter is worth more than the label on the door.
Go in without a bottle in mind. Say what you are eating and what you want to spend, and let them do the rest. That is the service you are actually paying for.
Berry Bros. & Rudd: 3 St James’s Street, London SW1A 1EG, Tel. +44 800 280 2440, bbr.com
Lock & Co. Hatters
Warranted by the King in 2024, founded in 1676 and trading from the same Grade II* listed shop since 1765. Few businesses anywhere can say that. The room is small, dark and lined with hat boxes, and the staff will measure your head without being asked twice. Monday to Saturday, half past nine until half past five, closed Sunday.
A hat is the one thing on this list that cannot be bought online with any confidence. Go in person or do not bother.
Lock & Co. Hatters: 6 St James’s Street, London SW1A 1EF, Tel. +44 20 7930 8874, lockhatters.com
Floris
Warranted by the King in 2023 as Manufacturers of Toilet Preparations, and first warranted in 1820 under George IV, so the house has been scenting monarchs for two centuries. Juan Famenias Floris and his wife Elizabeth opened in 1730, and the Spanish mahogany cabinets they showed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 are still in use in the shop.
Ask for the Jermyn Street Eau de Parfum. It is the house’s own address turned into a scent, and it is the one to try first.
LUXOS Recommends: the Jermyn Street Eau de Parfum
Floris: 89 Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6JH, Tel. +44 3301 340180, florislondon.com
Related: The top ten luxury shops in London
James J. Fox
No current warrant. The last one came from Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1997 and none has been renewed, and we are keeping the shop on this page anyway, because the museum at the back is one of the odder rooms in St James’s. It holds King Edward VIII’s humidor. Winston Churchill bought here for more than sixty years.
The business began in 1787 as the tobacconist Robert Lewis. Go for the history rather than the crown.
James J. Fox: 19 St James’s Street, London SW1A 1ES, Tel. +44 20 7930 3787, jjfox.co.uk
Harrods
Charles Henry Harrod opened in 1849, a good deal later than the date printed on other guides, and the motto over the door is Omnia Omnibus Ubique: all things for all people everywhere. The warrants were withdrawn in 2001 and have not been reapplied for under any monarch since, so the crowns you remember on the green bags are gone.
None of which makes the food halls less remarkable. Just do not go believing you are following the family around. Monday to Saturday ten until nine, Sunday from half past eleven until six.
Harrods: 87-135 Brompton Road, London SW1X 7XL, Tel. +44 20 7730 1234, harrods.com
One last thing. It is the difference between a souvenir and a purchase. The royal arms on a shopfront tells you the household buys there, not that the shop is good at everything it sells. Buy the thing each of these houses actually makes: the shirt, the hat, the scent, the wine. The tote bag is for the airport.