Gordon Ramsay opens the second branch of his Japanese-themed Lucky Cat restaurant in Manchester next week, as his empire embarks on a year of rapid expansion. Said to be inspired by the drinking dens of 1930s Tokyo, Lucky Cat is set over three storeys in a grand Art Deco-style former Midland Bank building designed by […]

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Birmingham ramen specialist Koba-Ko is to open its first permanent shop in Kings Heath, south of the city centre, later this year following a successful crowdfunding campaign. The fundraiser sailed past its £10,000 target this month, ensuring the project’s future. Co-founder Sam Hill had already secured the venue, just off Kings Heath’s main drag, and […]

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Kibako, billed as a ‘modern Japanese restaurant’ featuring presentation boxes of exquisite small dishes, opened this week in Windmill Street, Fitzrovia. Taking over the site formerly occupied by Rai, Kibako is from the team behind Hot Stone in Islington’s Chapel Market, highly praised in the 2023 Harden’s Guide for its “high-quality Kobe beef, sushi and […]

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Ace Aussie chef Scott Hallsworth is reviving his raved-about Freak Scene pan-Asian restaurant once again – this time off Parson’s Green in Fulham. The new venture follows his Double Dragon pop-up, which ran for several months last year in Clerkenwell and also generated much enthusiasm. Freak Scene itself started out as a pop-up in Farringdon, and […]

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Luke Findlay is launching a second branch of his ‘traditionally inauthentic’ ramen concept Supa Ya today, in Peckham’s Rye Lane. The former Berber & Q head chef developed the idea as a supper club in his Hackney flat, mixing Japanese ramen with classic British and European flavours, before road-testing it as a pop-up and opening […]

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A high-end Japanese omakase restaurant with a Middle Eastern twist is scheduled to open in Marylebone by the end of September. Mayha, in Chiltern Street, is the first UK opening from Beirut’s Nothing But Love group, although chefs Jurek Wasio and Yuichi Nahayo have both previously worked in London’s Yashin Sushi and Ocean House. The […]

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An ambitious new restaurant combining Japanese izakaya-style dining with low-intervention wines and their equivalent unfiltered nigori (cloudy) sake has opened in Embassy Gardens, the development adjacent to the new US Embassy in Nine Elms which has transformed the area between Battersea and Vauxhall. Evernight is the first restaurant from Singaporean chef Lynus Lim, formerly of […]

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