A team who met at Larry’s in Peckham have taken over the former Nest site in Hackney’s Morning Lane to launch Big Night – billed as a ‘British izakaya’ drinking den with meals cooked over a charcoal grill. Jack O’Connor and Joshua Ralphs have between them worked at some of London’s hippest spots, including Flor, Lasdun […]
A swish, design-led and Japanese-inspired Middle Eastern restaurant opens on Monday (18 December) near Harrods, under the far from glamorous name of Clap. Clap takes over three storeys of a building in Knightsbridge’s Basil Street, and incorporates a main dining room with open kitchen, a street-level café and a rooftop bar. The brand made its […]
A kebab house claiming to be the biggest in Britain opens in Oxford Street next Thursday (21 December) – just in time to feed last-minute Christmas shoppers. Kebhouze is from an Italian-based chain which also has an outlet in Ibiza, and promises “premium ingredients at a low cost [that] prioritise variety“. The menu includes chicken, beef, veal […]
Bar du Champagne, a new bar and bistro that promises fizz at accessible prices backed up by a menu of nibbles to share and comfort food, has opened in Covent Garden. The new venue is from Liana Kazaryan, who ran the former Avobar on the same Henrietta Street premises, and is designed with a retro […]
Volta do Mar, which showcases food from the trade routes of the Portuguese-speaking world, has made the short voyage from Covent Garden to Chelsea, where it opened this week in Draycott Avenue. Launched four years ago by Salt Yard group founder Simon Mullins and his Portuguese-born wife, Isabel Almeida da Silva, the original restaurant closed […]
An all-day family-run café and wine-bar that champions specialities from the city of Lecce in Puglia opens next week in Covent Garden. Capilungo’s co-founders, brother and sister Gianluca and Asia Capilungo, grew up in Lecce and are inspired by their uncle Luca Capilunga, who has run his own bakery there for more than 30 years. […]
A self-proclaimed ‘New York Italian’ restaurant, The Dover, has opened with little fanfare in Mayfair from Martin Kuczmarski, former chief operating officer at Soho House. It occupies the former site of the short-lived Moncks of Mayfair in Dover Street. Moncks closed during the pandemic in 2020 and never reopened. The Dover’s menu features a range […]
Kinkally, a new restaurant and bar inspired by the food of Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains, opens in Fitzrovia’s foodie enclave of Charlotte Street next Wednesday (6 December). Named after ‘khinkali’ – large meat-filled twisted dumplings from Georgia that are massively popular throughout the former Soviet region – the venture is a first restaurant from […]
GAIA, a ‘refined Greek taverna’ based in Dubai, opens its first London branch next Friday (8 December) on a prominent Mayfair corner site where Dover Street meets Piccadilly. Founded in 2018 by British-Nigerian chef Izu Ani, who grew up in Tottenham, and Russian-born entrepreneur Evgeny Kuzin, the concept already has branches in Monte Carlo and […]
A new ‘wine pub’ and restaurant with ten wines on tap (and just a couple of beers) opens in Spitalfields Market next week. Alfi’s ‘draught’ options range from an organic biodynamic Riesling and an orange wine to several fizzies including a pet nat. The operation is being launched by Ben Hodges and Alex Lewis in […]
