Long-running Italian restaurant Sale e Pepe is launching its second venue next week – a seafood specialist at The Langham hotel in Portland Place, just off Oxford Circus. Sale e Pepe Mare has taken over the hotel’s main restaurant space, which operated as Roux at the Landau until 2023; that was followed by a French restaurant […]
The highly anticipated reopening of Simpson’s-in-the-Strand under Jeremy King begins to take shape next week with the soft launch of its signature restaurant, the Grand Divan – famous for roast beef carved tableside from silver trolleys. Founded in 1828, Simpson’s became famous as the most quintessentially English of the capital’s grand dining establishments, but its closure […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 22nd February 2026 The Guardian Sông Quê Pho Bar, Shoreditch Grace Dent hailed the new canteen offshoot from a 25-year-old Vietnamese institution that serves “the best phở in town” – al-dente noodles in a “very meaningful broth”, topped with a […]
Chef Jackson Boxer has stepped in to help veteran Notting Hill cantina Taqueria “get its mojo back” as it enters its third decade. The Westbourne Grove venue will close on Monday next week (23 February) for a brief make-over before reopening on Tuesday 3 March as TAQ. Originally a street stall, Taqueria moved into its […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 15th February 2026 The Times & Sunday Times Materia Prima, Notting Hill Following her debut review of London’s oldest restaurant (Rules), new Sunday Times restaurant critic Camilla Long turned her attention to one of its newest, a “high-concept, Japanese-adjacent” […]
Three-and-a-half years after closing his Hackney wine bar the Laughing Heart, Charlie Mellor is back with Osteria Vibrato, an old-school Italian restaurant in Soho that opens on Valentine’s Day. Charlie (left in photo) is joined by fellow bearded sommelier Cameron Dewar (ex-Luca and Burnt Ends; right in photo) in the new Greek Street venture, which […]
An Indonesian celebrity couple are bringing a French-accented take on their national cuisine to London with the launch of Le Nusa restaurant in the Strand. Actor/singers-turned-entertainment entrepreneurs Raffi Ahmad and Nagita Slavina own several restaurants in Jakarta and beach clubs in Bali and Sumatra. They opened their first international restaurant in Paris three years ago, […]
An Asian restaurant that changes not just its menu but its cuisine every six weeks launches in Edinburgh later this month – with street food from Hong Kong its first culinary inspiration. Uncle Tiger, in Bristo Place on the edge of the Old Town, is the fourth venue from the Òir Group, who also run The […]
The team behind Wild Tavern in Chelsea and Wild in Notting Hill have opened their first Japanese venture – Wild Izakaya on Old Jewry Street in the City, fronted by former Koyn and Nobu head chef Satoru Hashimoto. The izakaya has taken over the former Browns premises opposite Goodman, the steak house opened 16 years ago […]
Ed and Ollie Templeton, the brothers behind influential chef residency showcase Carousel in Fitzrovia, will next week open an ambitious Mexican seafood restaurant on the same site. Cometa – pitched as a “contemporary take on Mexican seafood, seen through a distinctly British lens” – is taking over the space currently occupied by the Carousel wine bar. Ed […]
