Quirky North London Nigerian tapas bar Chuku’s has won an £8,000 grant and – possibly more valuable in the long term – endorsement from the world’s biggest name in entertainment, Beyoncé. The Tottenham restaurant was one of 10 London businesses chosen to receive a grant from the singer’s BeyGOOD foundation, which has pledged to donate $1 million […]
Sexy Fish, Richard Caring’s ultra-glitzy seafood venue in Mayfair, is to spawn an offshoot in Manchester this autumn – appropriately, perhaps, in a glass-fronted former Armani shop on Deansgate in Spinningfields. The venture’s website has announced: “With our high-end glamour, surrealist décor, and opulent culinary majesty inspired by the oceans of Asia, Sexy Fish will also […]
The team behind ‘tongue-tingling’ Thai restaurant Som Saa in Shoreditch are to open a new venture in Borough Market later this year. Kolae, which will accommodate 80 guests on three floors of an old coach house, will focus on grilled dishes including whole fish and marinated half chickens, cooked in the style of southern Thailand. […]
Amsterdam-based vegan ramen outfit Ramen Impossible makes its UK debut today, 16 June, in a summer-long pop-up at Mercato Metropolitano in London’s Elephant & Castle. Ramen is famously made with a meat-based broth, but Ramen Impossible’s founder, Japanese chef Atsushi Ishida, has developed an alternative using miso, cashew nuts and nutritional yeast. The brand only […]
An idyllic village inn in southwest Scotland has been brought back to life as a gastropub on the strength of a £1million donation from the renewable energy company behind a local wind farm. The Kenmuir Arms near Stranraer in Dumfries and Galloway closed down five years ago, before being taken over and refurbished by the […]
Amethyst in Mayfair, which had seemed to be one of the most successful launches of the past year, has closed following a falling out between chef Carlo Scotto (pictured, above) and his backers. The restaurant, with its distinctive jagged communal dining table, won high praise from critics, with the Guardian’s Grace Dent drawing attention to […]
The first of three new beer palaces scheduled for London’s West End opens this month. The Munich-style beer hall Bierschenke Bierkeller spent a decade in the City near Liverpool Street until its lease came to an end, and has now taken over the former Belgo site in Covent Garden. Bierschenke serves six types of sausage […]
Aynhoe Park, a Grade I listed Palladian mansion with a 73-acre park by Capability Brown near Banbury on the Oxfordshire-Northants border, has opened to the public for the first time, in the guise of a grandiose home-furnishing emporium complete with five restaurants and bars. Built in 1615 and later redesigned by Sir John Soane, Aynhoe […]
A Japanese restaurant with a monorail service system said to be the first of its kind in Europe pulls into Shoreditch in the next few weeks. Chuo, in Paul Street, will serve sushi and izakaya-style dishes made to order and delivered by a monorail from the kitchen – unlike the more familiar conveyor-belt counters, where dishes […]
Tatale, the restaurant showcasing African cuisine at the new Africa Centre in Southwark, is to close next Sunday, 18 June, after just a year in operation. Ghanaian-British chef Akwasi Brenya-Mensa said at the time of Tatale’s launch last year that he “hoped to change people’s perception of African cooking”, and his cooking gained plaudits from […]
