Highly praised chef Carlo Scotto will make his comeback this spring after an 18-month break with a new, ingredient-led restaurant at the Crazy Bear hotel in Beaconsfield – and he promises it will be a “completely different beast” from the two ambitious London restaurants where he wowed critics and diners, Amethyst in Mayfair and Xier in […]
Dynamic Glasgow restaurateur Nico Simeone has closed his fish specialist Sole Club to make way for a new pan-Asian concept, Extra_Ordinary, headed by Australian-born chef Tobias ‘Toby’ Fiegel (pictured). Sole Club, which combined experimental seafood cuisine with classic fish ‘n’ chip shop fare, opened in February last year in the Finnieston premises where Simeone founded […]
Café Britaly, the hybrid British caff/Italian comfort food restaurant that opened to critical acclaim in Packham last year, has closed down after just eight months. Co-owners Richard Crampton-Platt (left in picture) and Alex Purdie (right) say they were unable to build enough momentum to generate sustainable revenue in the face of “challenging trading conditions, which were […]
Top pizza independent Santa Maria has opened a new branch in Kew, taking over the premises long occupied by Bruce Poole’s The Glasshouse. Santa Maria has expanded very slowly since its launch by Neapolitan-born founders in Ealing in 2010, with branches opening in Fulham, Fitzrovia and most recently Islington. Combining “top-quality ingredients and fabulous bases”, […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 12th January 2025 London Standard Nipotina, Mayfair David Ellis found a lot to like about the latest opening from Mayfair powerhouse Samyukta Nair – an all-day Italian that “exists to assuage stresses that exist only outside its door”. What he meant […]
An upmarket pub and restaurant boasting a Basque chef, its own branded caviar and state-of-the-art draught Guinness opens in Belgravia next week. The Prince Arthur, in Pimlico Road, also has a fishmonger counter in the bar offering seafood from Spain and Cornwall to eat in or take home. The venue is divided into ‘The Pub […]
Studio Frantzén at Harrods has closed permanently after only two years, and plans to relocate to a new address in London this summer. It will be replaced by the new in-house Grill on Fifth, which opens next week. Swedish superstar chef Björn Frantzén’s London outlet has been the marquee attraction headlining the Knightsbridge department store’s […]
Gary Usher has announced the closure of Burnt Truffle in Heswall on the Wirral, his original crowdfunded venture, just short of its tenth birthday. Almost 900 individual donors pledged £100,000 in what Gary believes was Britain’s first non-investment restaurant fundraising campaign, enabling him to open Burnt Truffle in July 2015 as a follow-up to his […]
An ambitious new West African restaurant has opened with little fanfare in Baker Street. Shakara, close to Marylebone’s Chiltern Firehouse, offers cooking inspired by Nigeria, Ghana and The Gambia accompanied by live music. Chef Ayo Adeyemi has helped curate the opening menu following a two-year stint at highly rated restaurant Akoko, while former MasterChef: The […]
Brindisa Tapas bars have just celebrated their 25th anniversary. Harden’s caught up with founder Monika Linton HARDEN’S: Monika, many congratulations on the first quarter century of Brindisa Tapas – but the bars are just the tip of the iceberg, the most visible aspect of the import company you set up in 1988 to import Spanish food. […]
