Des Gunewardena has announced plans to open a multifaceted restaurant and bar next year at Olympia, the Victorian exhibition halls in west London currently undergoing a five-year upgrade costing £1.3bn. The announcement comes as Des, a former partner in D&D London, opens the first ventures of his new company D3 Collective – Engel and Jang, […]

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Jeremy Clarkson has bought a pub 10 miles from his Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds, which he plans to open later this year to sell his own produce and beer. Announcing the move in his Sunday Times column, the petrol-head-turned-farmer said he had bought The Windmill, a pub and wedding venue on five acres […]

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Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 30th June 2024 Evening Standard Akira Back, Mayfair Jimi Famurewa gasped when he stepped inside the extravagant new Mandarin Oriental Mayfair in Hanover Square. Sadly its headline restaurant, from Seoul-born, Las Vegas-based celeb chef Akira Back, had the opposite […]

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Mercato Metropolitano (MM) Ilford will finally open next month – five years after first being announced. The wood-framed structure (pictured above during the construction) set in a disused car park in the town’s ‘cultural quarter’ offers street-food entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase their cooking in a communal food hall – and is part of the regeneration of […]

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A Japanese restaurant that has made a big splash in Taiwan and mainland China will open its first UK site in Soho’s Wardour Street next month. Kanpai Classic specialises in yakinuku, with customers cooking meat and vegetables themselves on a table-top grill. The grilling options will be led by a choice of 10 cuts of […]

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Florentine comfort food concept Dez Amore opens its first permanent restaurant next week, on a corner site in Chelsea with a retro-modern look inspired by Italy in the 1970s. Launched by two friends from Florence, Leonardo Masi and Simone Parentini (pictured), Dez Amore lays claim to a ‘double soul’ that combines traditional Italian cooking with […]

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