Mercurial chef Victor Garvey is moving his Soho restaurant Sola next door to his new Notting Hill venue Mater1a – so he will almost literally be able to be in two places at once.
Sola, in Dean Street, has been his flagship for seven years and is a regular on the Harden’s 100 list of the UK’s best restaurants – where it is also the only restaurant that specialises in the cuisine of the US West Coast (the name could be pronounced ‘so LA’).
Victor locks the doors in Soho on June 6, opening in Notting Hill’s Westbourne Grove on June 17 – where he launched the Japanese-influenced Mater1a in February. He says the move seemed logical when the site next door became available: no longer having to travel between the two locations will mean he can spend more time creating, developing and cooking.
He says: “Soho is where SO|LA started and Notting Hill is where it will evolve. I have loved every minute of being in Soho and I am thankful to all those who have supported me, but, after seeing how happy interacting with all of the MATER1A guests on a nightly basis has made me, I have realised that our future lies in a more tailored, intimate experience, and a new chapter for SOLA awaits – the best is yet to come.
“We have spent the last two months building a beautiful chef’s counter restaurant where a maximum of 12 diners can eat at a time- this allows us to really stretch our culinary legs and push the boat out, creatively.”
Reducing the number of covers from 26 to 12 will also enable Victor to double down on creating an intimate experience for each diner in a venue that is “smaller in size, but larger in ambition“. The all-American wine list will almost double in length to more than 200 bottles, many from little-known vineyards.
Born in New York but brought up in Spain, Victor first trained at the legendary Catalan restaurant El Bulli, moving on to Noma in Copenhagen before spending several years working in Japan. Describing Mater1a, which only seats 16 guests, he has said: “It’s my own little world that I’d like to personally invite people into, one service at a time.”
