France’s Big Mamma group opens its latest cartoon-Italian extravaganza in London today – Edmondo, a 200-cover Milan-inspired osteria close to Bank station in the Square Mile. Billed as ‘Piazza Duomo meets the City’, Edmondo’s lavish interior is modelled on the Villa Necchi Campiglio, a 1935 villa built for a family of industrialists in central Milan […]
Gennaro Contaldo, best-known as Jamie Oliver’s mentor, has opened his latest restaurant near Piccadilly Circus – at the mature age of 77. Named Bolo after his signature Bolognese ragu, the 32-seat trattoria in Air Street serves a tight menu that revolves around seven pasta dishes – including the ‘Jamie’ (mezze maniche with sausage, Calabrian chilli bolo & […]
Dean and Anna Parker have reopened their highly rated Italian restaurant Celentano’s in Glasgow’s Arthouse Hotel, six months after losing their previous premises in the city’s Cathedral Square. Celentano’s has won consistent praise in the Harden’s guide in recent years for “getting it just right” with an Italian menu that puts an original twist of […]
Adam Byatt of Trinity in Clapham is to open an Italian neighbourhood restaurant overlooking Wandsworth Common, called Rosina after his daughter Rosie. Rosina has taken over the corner site formerly occupied by Brinkley’s Kitchen – just a few doors along Bellevue Parade from Chez Bruce, which has for many years jousted with Trinity for the title […]
The trio behind Highbury restaurant Lupa – restaurateur Ed Templeton, chef Naz Hassan and actor Theo James – have followed it up just nine months later by opening Ornella in Hackney’s Wilton Way. While the menu at Lupa is inspired by Rome, Ornella takes its culinary cues from Milan – where Naz grew up – and its name […]
Chef Conor Gadd, co-owner of Italian neighbourhood trattoria Trullo in Islington, has opened his first solo venture, taking over the venue previously occupied by Petersham Nurseries in Covent Garden’s Floral Court. Burro (meaning ‘butter’) is billed as a “part Irish country house kitchen, part Italian fifties bistro“, serving “warm, evocative and creative food” that expresses […]
The prolific Public House Group opened its latest venue this week – CeCe’s in Notting Hill, billed as a classic Italian restaurant with “a hint of Hollywood”. Taking over the former site of celeb hangout Casa Cruz in Clarendon Road, the launch has been kept quiet until this week. It follows hot on the heels of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Chef Dara Klein launches her first standalone venue this week, opening Tiella Trattoria & Bar in a traditional mid-Victorian pub near Columbia Road flower market in east London – a follow-up to her extended residency at the Compton Arms in Islington, where Dara’s rustic Italian cooking earned widespread acclaim. She has teamed up for the new […]
