London’s on-going love affair with handmade pasta has received a double boost with the launch of two new live-action operations offering slightly different takes on Italian comfort food. Spagnoletti, part of the St Pancras Hotels Group on the Euston Road, describes itself as an “Italian flour lab” over two floors, with chefs Manuele Bazzoni and […]
The Bleeding Heart Tavern in Farringdon on the edge of the City of London is relaunching next week as a wine-bar – with food at half-price for the first week to anybody who identifies themselves as a “friend”. The tavern was first recorded in 1746 in an area notorious for drunken debauchery, while Charles Dickens mentioned […]
Booking is now open for the 2023 edition of Obsession, the gastronomic festival hosted each year by Northcote hotel and restaurant near Blackburn in Lancashire’s Ribble Valley. The event runs over 17 nights from January 20 to February 5, and features 20 leading chefs. Star guest chefs include Portugal’s Ricardo Costa of the Yeatman Gastronomic […]
Diners can help alleviate homelessness by donating £1 per table at more than 540 restaurants, pubs and hotels around the UK between now and the end of the year in the charity StreetSmart’s annual fundraising drive. Chef and StreetSmart ambassador Monica Galetti (pictured), of restaurant Mere in Fitzrovia, is among the volunteers who provide daily […]
Peter Sanchez-Iglesias is relaunching his flagship restaurant Casamia – this time as an Italian restaurant called simply Casa. The new venture opens on 16 November, next-door to his Spanish tapas bar Paco Tapas in the harbourside former Bristol General Hospital building. The new Casa is to some extent a reimagining of the original Casamia, a family […]
A permanent pop-up ‘incubator space’ has opened in London’s Chinatown to promote new east and southeast Asian restaurants. The first to occupy the site, at 15a Little Newport Street, is independent Taiwanese concept Dragon Cat Café, which specialises in bubble tea and snacks. At the new space, it will focus on freshly made fluffy Taiwanese […]
Highly rated Nottingham Indian restaurant Masala Junction is to reopen on Monday, 31 October, less than three weeks after closing down – apparently for good. The surprise reprieve came about when the owner of another prominent Indian restaurant in the city, Amita Sawhney of MemSaab, came forward with a rescue offer. Naj Aziz, who founded the […]
Star chef Phil Howard will launch a specialist pasta bar in the heart of the West End next week. Notto opens on Thursday 3 November at 199 Piccadilly, a few doors along from the Royal Academy. It is the first pitch at the mid-market for a chef associated with the heights of fine dining, having […]
Chef/entrepreneur Gary Usher of Cheshire-based Elite Bistros is launching another crowdfunding campaign next week – after admitting defeat in his most ambitious fundraiser yet, an attempt to sell shares in the company to help bankroll a suite of projects. Gary will return to familiar – and highly successful – ground in next week’s new launch, aimed at raising […]
Chef Henry Harris is reviving his much-missed French restaurant Racine, seven years after it closed in Knightsbridge. The new Bouchon Racine opens in November upstairs at the Three Compasses pub in Cowcross Street, Farringdon. Henry has joined forces with former Goodman and Rockfish director Dave Strauss in the new project, which will consist of a […]
