The veteran teams behind two of London’s most influential restaurant groups from the past 30 years – upmarket Indian group MW Eat and Smithfield-based St John – this week announced moves that herald their retirement from leadership roles. MW, comprising Chutney Mary, Veeraswamy, Amaya and four Masala Zones, has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by […]
Former Kiln chef Tom Geoffrey has popped up to replace Khao Bird in the upstairs residency at the The Globe Tavern in Borough Market, where he is presenting Barang – his take on Cambodian cooking. Khao Bird decamped this month to permanent digs in Soho, and Borough regulars now have the opportunity to compare Cambodian […]
Skye Gyngell, the Australian-born chef who found acclaim at Petersham Nurseries, has died at the age of 62 following a battle with Merkel cell carcinoma, an aggressive skin cancer. The sad news was shared in a statement released this week by her family: “We are deeply saddened to share news of Skye Gyngell’s passing on […]
Restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski is launching two new retro-inspired Italian venues in quick succession – Martino’s in Sloane Square, Chelsea and Dover Street Counter, a few doors down from his flagship off Piccadilly. In both cases Martin has followed the low-profile but high-impact process that proved such a success last year with Dover Street, one of the […]
Chef Lee Tiernan has announced his plan to “pause” – rather than permanently close – FKABAM (Black Axe Mangal), the cult heavy-metal restaurant he and his wife Kate have operated on Highbury Corner for the past 10 years. He intends to maintain the restaurant space and operate his own pop-up there next year, while floating the […]
A 100-year-old landmark Birmingham hotel abandoned for the past decade will reopen tomorrow as a Nigerian restaurant called Empress. The former Dogpool Hotel in Stirchley has been revived by husband-and-wife team Olusegun Akande and Oyetola Isla, who aim to showcase the richness of their national cuisine. Olusegun says: “We saw potential in this historic site […]
Calabrian-born chef Francesco Mazzei this week opened his latest restaurant – Mezzogiorno in the Corinthia hotel, just off Trafalgar Square. Francesco made his name in London with L’Anima, which opened on the edge of the City in 2008. He followed up by launching Radici, Sartoria and Fiume with D&D London (now Evolv), and ran a six-month […]
A new creative hub that opens next week on the Leith Shore in Edinburgh’s docks has three separate food and drink offers, including an outlet from the team behind the city’s highly regarded restaurants Timberyard and Montrose. Brown’s of Leith has taken over a late-Victorian engineering works which as George Brown & Sons was one […]
Chef Daniel Rogan today reopens his ambitious Southampton restaurant AO by Daniel Rogan, at a new address following a two-year hiatus. Daniel, the son of L’Enclume’s all-conquering founder Simon Rogan, originally launched AO in 2022 but it closed a year later. He designed the interior of the new 26-cover venue in Oxford Street himself, fulfilling […]
A theatrical live-fire restaurant with an open kitchen launched in Spitalfields this week, a few minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street station – a first dining venue from publican and music festival entrepreneur Rob Star of Electric Star pubs. Firestarter shares an entrance on Middlesex Street with its stablemate The Star by Liverpool Street pub/bar next door, […]
