Flamboyant chef Yuma Hashemi is to open a wine bar called Emmanuelle opposite his Persian tasting-menu restaurant The Drunken Butler in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell this spring. Emmanuelle takes its name from the X-rated 1974 French film starring Sylvia Kristel – and will feature a copy of the rattan peacock chair made famous by the film’s poster, […]
The Glasshouse restaurant in Kew, which closed down last summer after almost 25 years, re-opened under a new guise this week, under the co-ownership of former manager Patra Panas. It’s called Hawthorn, in reference – like its predecessor – to the nearby botanical gardens. Patra has teamed up with ex-Murano and La Trompette chef Josh Hunter […]
A new European city-style restaurant, Aqua Grand Café, opens next month in Bristol’s Whiteladies Road, from veteran restaurateur Richard Smithson and his son Ben. Richard opened Bristol’s original Aqua in 1998, growing it into the Aqua Italia group with branches across southern England. The company went into administration in 2019, with sites closed in Milton […]
Amy Poon’s Wontoneria opens on 7 February for a three-month residency at 23 Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia, the ‘incubator space’ run by revolving-chef restaurant Carousel, in a step towards reviving the family’s famous Poon’s restaurant at a permanent site. Her father Bill Poon, a seventh-generation Cantonese master chef, opened his first restaurant in London’s Chinatown […]
Albert’s Schloss, the Manchester-based Bavarian-themed beer hall, is to open in London this spring, just off Piccadilly Circus in the middle of the West End. The venue will entertain up to 700 revellers with a line-up of live music, beer and schnapps, and a menu of Alpine and middle-European classics ranging from fondue, bratwurst and […]
Claude Bosi has been appointed chef-director of the new ultra-high-end Peninsular London hotel, which is due to open this spring near Hyde Park Corner. His rooftop restaurant, Brooklands, will serve contemporary European cuisine, and features a cigar tasting lounge with walk-in humidor. The hotel is the latest international incarnation of the landmark Hong Kong hotel […]
James Martin is launching two new restaurants at the landmark Lygon Arms in the Cotswolds this spring – the Grill, in the barrel-vaulted, wood-panelled dining room (pictured), which opens next month, and the more pub-like Tavern, which follows in March. The famous coaching inn in the Worcestershire village of Broadway has origins in the 13th century […]
Parisian caviar emporium Caviar Kaspia has quietly opened a London outpost in Mayfair. The new venue, in Chesterfield Street, operates as an invitation-only members’ club: there is no joining fee, but members are required to deposit £2,000 a year in their account, from which their bills will be deducted. Caviar Kaspia was founded in 1927 […]
Jazz musician Tim Thornton this week opened a second branch of Base Face, the pizzeria he started in west London as a lockdown project in 2020 when live music was silenced by the Covid pandemic. The new site is by the River Thames in Barnes High Street – just a few doors away from the […]
Fair Shot Café, the all-day venue that provides training and jobs for young adults with educational disabilities, is moving into smart new premises in Covent Garden’s development The Yards, where it will be the West End’s first not-for-profit café. Founder Bianca Tavella, previously creative director of Petersham Nurseries, opened the original Fair Shot Café in […]
