Kibako, billed as a ‘modern Japanese restaurant’ featuring presentation boxes of exquisite small dishes, opened this week in Windmill Street, Fitzrovia. Taking over the site formerly occupied by Rai, Kibako is from the team behind Hot Stone in Islington’s Chapel Market, highly praised in the 2023 Harden’s Guide for its “high-quality Kobe beef, sushi and […]
An ambitious new dining pub fronted by two former Brat chefs and operated by the team behind Camden’s Jazz Cafe opens next Thursday (23 March) in Kentish Town. The Parakeet has taken over the premises of the landmark Oxford Tavern in Kentish Town Road, and will feature seasonal British ingredients cooked over wood fire on […]
High-flying chef Tommy Banks is to launch a new pub-restaurant with rooms this spring close to his North Yorkshire headquarters, the Black Swan in Oldstead. There is no word yet on the exact location and name of the venture, although it said to be a “historic” site and will adhere to the “hyper-local, sustainably focused […]
Long-heralded Sri Lankan restaurant Rambutan opens today (17 March) on the edge of London’s Borough Market, from chef and food-writer Cynthia Shanmugalingam (above). Rambutan was first announced last summer, when Cynthia introduced the concept with a soft-serve ice cream pop-up featuring such flavours as mango; jaggery; watermelon and hibiscus; and buffalo curd. Her first book, […]
Liverpool chef Daniel Heffy, who has returned from a sojourn in Stockholm with a new repertoire of Nordic influences, is to launch a restaurant in his hometown next Thursday (23 March) – named appropriately Nord . Daniel’s introduction to cooking came in galleys as a teenage sea cadet, and he went on to train under legendary […]
Our summary of what the national and local restaurant critics were writing about in the week ending 12 March 2023. ***** The Observer “Experience teaches us that more expensive does not always mean better.” Jay Rayner compared the suya (“the famed Nigerian way with smoked or barbecued beef, lamb and chicken”) from Knightsbridge restaurant Isibani […]
Chef-patron Jun Tanaka’s highly regarded Fitzrovia restaurant The Ninth has reopened, seven months after fire swept through the kitchen and forced its closure. It opened its doors again yesterday – appropriately on March 9th – with the entire front-of-house and kitchen teams still in place, alongside some new reinforcements. The enforced closure gave Jun (pictured with our […]
Esti, a Greek restaurant cooking over a wood fire with Australian ingredients and influences, is to open this Sunday, 12 March, in a former Victorian police station in Shoreditch. Founded by Kostas Vais of the 3 Little Pigs souvlaki food truck, Esti has secured a six-month residency at TT Liquor in Kingsland Road ahead of […]
A new Danish steakhouse called KöD – meat in Danish – has opened in the City of London, serving beef from Britain, Uruguay and the US along with Japanese wagyu – all with a signature swoosh of “velvet carrot purée”. Founded in Århus in 2014, KöD now has branches in Copenhagen as well as Oslo and Stavanger […]
Fenn, one of the most acclaimed restaurant openings of recent times in Fulham, is to close down at the end of next month after just two years in operation. In a message to customers on their mailing list, its management said “the staffing shortages plaguing the industry since the pandemic [mean that] keeping the restaurant […]
