Ed Templeton of Carousel (left in picture) has linked up with actor and fellow Highbury resident Theo James (right) to launch a Rome-inspired local restaurant called Lupa, after the she wolf who nursed the ancient city’s founders, Romulus and Remus. The kitchen is led by Naz Hassan (centre), the Bangladeshi-born former head chef at Pidgin […]

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Paris-based Big Mamma Group are opening two enormous new Instagram-friendly Italianate extravaganzas this month – Circolo Popolare (pictured) in Manchester, their first UK venue outside London, and Barbarella in Canary Wharf. Circolo Popolare Manchester, which launched last week, is themed around an al-fresco festa in Sicily and set across two floors of ex-footballer Gary Neville’s £400million […]

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Soho restaurateur Nima Safaei opens his third venue in the district next week – a quick-service pasta bar that will not take bookings. Like its sibling Italian restaurants – 40 Dean Street, Nima’s original venue, opened in 2010, and 64 Old Compton Street, which followed last year – the new venue takes the name of its address: 27 […]

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Italian-inspired supper club-turned-restaurant Forza Win is to close next week, with founders Bash Redford and Michael Lavery planning to expand their successful spinoff Forza Wine. The pair started out on a casual basis at the Truman Brewery in Whitechapel in 2012, before switching to a permanent base in a Peckham warehouse. That closed during the […]

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Giorgio Locatelli has closed his Marylebone flagship after 23 years, indicating that the decision was forced on him and that he has no plans to quit the London restaurant scene. The tousle-haired Italian chef and his wife Plaxy opened Locanda Locatelli 23 years ago in the Hyatt Regency – Churchill hotel, off Portman Square. The […]

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