Hot New York chef Marcus Samuelsson is bringing his Scandified soulfood joint Red Rooster to London with a double opening in May. Red Rooster Shoreditch will be in The Curtain hotel and members’s club, with the adjoining Rooster Taqueria serving Mexican-inspired breakfasts, tacos and cocktails. Born in Ethiopia, Samuelsson was adopted by a Swedish family and grew up […]

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Petersham Nurseries, the plant centre café that became one of London’s must-go dining destinations under former chef Skye Gyngell, is opening a two-restaurant showcase in the heart of Covent Garden this summer. The project has been masterminded by Lara Boglione, who took over the business in Richmond, southwest London, from her parents Gael and Francesco Boglione […]

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⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed The Other Naughty Piglet, a branch of Brixton’s Naughty Piglets inside Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new theatre in Victoria, The Other Place, where he found “a kind of modern British cooking with wallops of umami”. “Sometimes the cleverness is textural. A pile of white crab meat sits atop a heap of […]

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Zuma, the super-glossy Japanese-fusion haunt that’s a magnet for Knightsbridge eurotrash, has won its High Court battle against a dog-food brand of the same name. Chef Rainer Becker, who founded the restaurant in 2002, initiated the action against the “luxury” pet-food range launched in 2014 by Kingston-based Zoe Vanderbilt. She told the court that the brand was […]

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Tapas master José Pizarro is opening his fourth and smallest venue in Canary Wharf. Little José launches on April 6 at Street Feast’s new rooftop venue in Crossrail Place. Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week, Little José will offer plates such as an Ibérico pork meatball sub with manchego; crispy fried squid ‘boca’ with aioli; spicy prawn fritters […]

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The Salutation, a spectacular country house with restaurant opening in Kent this summer, is hosting a trial-run pop-up with a spring tasting menu over Easter. Built by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1912 in medieval Sandwich, the Salutation was the first 20th-century building awarded Grade I listing by English Heritage. It also has a 3.7-acre garden by Gertrude Jekyll. […]

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Ana Ros, newly crowned as top female chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants (see Harden’s report), will be cooking in London on June 14. Ros, chef-patron of Hisa Franko in Slovenia, heads the line-up at Chefstock, the annual festival hosted by Alyn Williams at his restaurant in Mayfair’s Westbury Hotel. Williams said this year’s Chefstock will […]

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Ben Tish, the chef behind the success of London’s Salt Yard group, is leaving after 11 years to pursue a new solo venture. He will be replaced as executive chef by Dan Sherlock, who has been head chef at Salt Yard’s Fitzrovia flagship for three years. Salt Yard opened in 2005, offering what was then […]

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West African cuisine will gets its most prominent central London showcase when Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen opens a six-month residency at the Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho on April 4. Zoe Adjonyoh has been cooking at supperclubs and pop-ups in London and Berlin since 2011, and is well established at Pop Brixton. Her first book, […]

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GBR – for Great British Restaurant – is the straight-to-the-point name of a new all-day dining venue opening in Dukes, the St James’s hotel, in May. Chef Nigel Mendham, who has worked in country house hotels including the Samling in the Lake District, South Lodge in Sussex and the Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds, has […]

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