Vagabond wine bars have been bought out of administration by Majestic, marking the largest UK wine retailer’s entry into the hospitality market. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, secures the future of nine Vagabond venues – eight in London and one in Birmingham – employing 171 staff. The company’s two outlets at Gatwick airport and its […]
Michael Sager of Hackney wine bar Sager + Wilde is opening a new venue near Victoria Park this month. Bar Bruno is set in a cute Victorian stable, and will serve natural wines alongside small plates with a focus on Swiss-style filled pretzels. The venture will operate as a shop by day, with everything on […]
The Vinoteca wine bar group was bought out of administration this week, removing the threat of closure that had hung over the five-strong operation. The new owners are Breal Capital, an investment firm which is understood to have paid more than £300,000 for the acquisition. Founded by financiers Brent Osborne and Alan McLaren in 2014, […]
Hip East London wine bar/restaurants Bright (pictured) and P Franco, together with the group’s bottle shop, Noble Fine Liquor in Broadway Market, have closed down at short notice. Founders Phil Bracey and Liam Kelleher launched P Franco in Clapton in 2014, and the group became influential pioneers of the low-intervention wines now found in foodie […]
This summer is a season of mixed emotions for the natural wine lovers of east London, as bar/restaurant Cadet opens on Newington Green just as Peg on Morning Lane in Hackney closes. Cadet is a combined project from natural wine importers Francis Roberts and Tom Beattie (far left and far right in photo), paté-maker extraordinaire […]
Vinoteca will open its latest wine bar and restaurant on Monday in the new Borough Yards development, adjacent to Borough Market. It will occupy two storeys in a red-brick Victorian railway arch, with views across to Southwark Cathedral. The venue will champion small, independent and innovative wineries, including its own Rodney & The Horse, which […]
Idris Elba – actor, DJ, rapper, producer, activist and self-style Renaissance man – opens his first wine bar and restaurant next week, in Coal Drops Yard at King’s Cross. With 800 wines in stock and space for 70 guests, Porte Noire is being promoted as ‘one the largest fine wine tasting rooms in London’. London-born Elba, […]
A new wine bar with connections to one of the world’s greatest wines is to open in Marylebone next month. Clarette – which could be translated as “little claret” – is the brainchild of Alexandra Petit, daughter of Corinne Mentzelopoulos, who owns Château Margaux, one of the four original premier cru wines of Bordeaux. Her partners […]
Allegra McEvedy has bought the Shepherd’s Bush wine bar Albertine, founded by her mother, and will reopen it after a spruce-up later this month. Originally opened in 1978, Albertine became a favourite watering-hole for staff from the BBC’s White City studios further up Wood Lane – it even suggested the name Albert Square to the team […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed The Holy Birds in Shoreditch, which serves duck, goose and guinea fowl, “but mostly, to be honest, chicken“. The quality of the poultry was not to be questioned, but he was far from impressed by the cooking. “Sure, the skin is dark, but only in places. Elsewhere it’s soft and floppy. […]
