Babbo, the former Mayfair Italian restaurant with footballing connections, completes its transfer to St John’s Wood next week, while its fellow glossy Italian Bocconcino opens a seafood spinoff in the Strand called Osteria del Mare (pictured). Launching on Monday, Osteria del Mare takes inspiration from the Tuscan coastal resort of Forte dei Marmi, with ex-Barrafina […]
Sustainable York bistro Fish & Forest reopens next week in new, bigger premises, having moved from its original address on Micklegate. Founder Stephen Andrews has taken over the ground floor of the former 1331 Bar and Grill in nearby Grape Lane, which was run by his parents. A self-taught chef, Stephen launched Fish & Forest […]
Muswell Hill institution Toff’s, for more than 50 years one of London’s best-known family-run chippies, has been acquired by a national group which plans to open more branches under the same name. The business was taken over this week by The Chesterford Group (TCG), which is based in Bishop’s Stortford and operates 44 sites across […]
Radical chef Michael O’Hare is to re-brand his theatrical Leeds restaurant The Man Behind The Curtain, relaunching it next year under a new guise as the surf shack-themed Psycho Sandbar. He opened The Man Behind The Curtain in 2014, winning huge acclaim (and Leeds’s only star from the tyre folk) and a name for himself […]
Shutters, a new all-day restaurant and bar in Canary Wharf improbably combining Cornish produce with Mexican-inspired cocktails, opens its shutters for the first time next Wednesday, 1 December. The menu will be led with fish from the far southwest, supported by meat and vegetables also delivered from Cornwall – even the coffee served alongside pastries […]
Bucket, a new seafood restaurant and bar, is to open on Westbourne Grove in late May. Sustainably sourced prawns, whitebait, calamari, mussels and more are served in (you guessed it) buckets at this seafood shack on the Bayswater/Notting Hill border. The mid-priced, social dining concept has been developed by a team led by husband and wife […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer hit the jackpot with a visit to Riley’s Fish Shack, “two full side-access shipping containers fitted out steampunk-style” overlooking St Edward’s Bay in Tynemouth, near Newcastle, which he declared “the eating experience of the year”. “It is the pristine quality of fish cookery you always hope to find in one of those fancy, raised […]
We don’t often report on the comings and going of chefs, but news that J Sheekey are bidding farewell to head chef Richard Kirkwood after five years seemed particularly noteworthy. Richard Caring’s restaurant and oyster bar has long been a favourite with our reporters, consistently London’s most commented on restaurants with top ratings for its […]
Flush with its success in Fitzrovia, Bonnie Gull Seafood Shack opened its branch in Exmouth Market today (22 April). Like the original operation (“small but perfectly formed”), the new outlet serves up the catch of the day, using only sustainable seafood. The menu, available to eat-in or take-away, includes oysters, cockles, smoked mussels and langoustines served […]
