Former refugee restaurateur Imad Alarnab will open a new all-day deli-cafe in Somerset House next week – Aram, a follow-up to Imad’s Syrian Kitchen in Soho. Aram – an ancient name for what became Syria – will offer breakfast items such as zaatar croissants alongside cardamom coffee and Syrian mint tea, followed by more substantial Middle Eastern-inspired […]
Highly rated Newcastle chef Kenny Atkinson makes his London debut next week with the opening of Solaya, a high-rise restaurant on the 25th floor of the art’otel in Hoxton. Kenny opened the House for Tides on Newcastle’s historic Quayside 11 years ago and followed up with the more refined Solstice next door, which was immediately […]
An ambitious modern Indian restaurant opens in Putney today with the aim of providing high-end Mayfair-style dining in southwest London. Raaz is the debut restaurant from chef Imran Mansuri, who trained at Benares and Tamarind, was part of the launch team at Jamavar and was most recently executive head chef at Kalomba. He says: “We’re […]
Clare Smyth has announced plans to open a “luxury bistro” in Chelsea this autumn called Corenucopia – a play on her Notting Hill flagship, Core. The new venture will take over a site close to Sloane Square on Holbein Place, which was most recently occupied by Tabisco, a short-lived Italian steakhouse. Clare already has another big […]
Oli’s Thai, the massively popular Oxford restaurant whose closure in early 2022 upset its legion of fans, reopens today – on its original site in Magdalen Road. Owners Rufus & Ladd Thurston closed the business after a nine-year run, replacing it with Elle’s Deli to improve their work/life balance – in particular, to spend evenings with […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week to 1st September 2025 The Guardian Inis, Hackney Wick Grace Dent found a “little patch of sanity” amid the gentrification of the 2012 Olympic zone, in a new all-day venture by the canal that is “Irish in spirit” – in its […]
Fulham Football Club have signed three more top chefs to boost the match-day culinary offering at Craven Cottage – although team manager Marco Silva would doubtless prefer three new players for his football squad. The latest additions to the club’s high-powered line-up of chefs are Sally Abe, Judy Joo and Ben Murphy, who have joined […]
Leading Spanish chef Nieves Barragán this week opened Legado in Shoreditch – her highly anticipated follow-up to Sabor in Mayfair. Expectations are high for the new venture: Sabor, which opened in 2018, has registered extraordinary scores of 5-5-5 in the annual Harden’s guide – the highest possible ratings for food, service and ambience – for three consecutive years. […]
The Bridge Arms near Canterbury has relaunched under new ownership with a more casual direction as a village pub, after four years under Daniel and Natasha Smith, the chef couple who run the nearby Fordwich Arms. The couple have passed the lease on to their friend Elliot Hewitt, a former manager at the Fordwich who […]
Renowned Yorkshire chef Tommy Banks opens his latest venture today (29 August) – the General Tarleton, a historic former coaching inn at Ferrensby, near Knaresborough, that has been closed since the Covid epidemic five years ago. The reopening is the first project from Jeopardy Hospitality, a company established to rescue pubs across Yorkshire from closure that […]
