The River Cafe, an elegant, stylish restaurant on the Thames near Hammersmith, plays quite prominently within The Silkworm.

It’s referenced as the location where Strike and Charlotte celebrated his previous birthday, “in this wonderful restaurant by the river, and enjoyed their very last happy evening together.”

It’s where Owen Quine and Elizabeth Tassel dine just before his disappearance and have a very public and memorably rude row.

And it’s where Strike meets his well-connected brother Al for dinner so he can question one of the servers who witnessed the Quine/Tassel argument.

The restaurant is located at The Thames Wharf in a “converted brick storage facility” and has a “riverside garden that in summer would be full of diners at white tableclothed chairs.”

In front of the restaurant, “the Thames glinted darkly.”

Strike enters the building and “at once was subsumed in light, warmth and noise. There, just inside the door, leaning against the bar with his elbow on its shiny steel surface, was Al, deep in friendly conversation with the barman.”

Strike joins Al at the bar, where “they sat side by side at the crammed bar, facing glass shelves of bottles.”

“Looking down the long, packed restaurant, with its industrial steel ceiling in stylized waves, its cerulean carpet and the wood-burning oven at the end like a giant beehive…”

Strike sat “watching the white-coated chefs working in the open kitchen.”

And those chefs whip up some amazing dishes. If you’re looking for a posh place for a special dinner, here’s where you can find The River Cafe: