Prominent restaurants Sorrel in Dorking and Berber & Q in Haggerston (pictured) have ceased trading this week as the hospitality industry continues to grapple with tough trading conditions. Sorrel was founded by chef Steve Drake nine years ago and achieved consecutive top-20 placings on the Harden’s 100 list of the UKs best restaurants in 2023 […]
Former refugee restaurateur Imad Alarnab will open a new all-day deli-cafe in Somerset House next week – Aram, a follow-up to Imad’s Syrian Kitchen in Soho. Aram – an ancient name for what became Syria – will offer breakfast items such as zaatar croissants alongside cardamom coffee and Syrian mint tea, followed by more substantial Middle Eastern-inspired […]
An ambitious new Middle Eastern restaurant with cocktails from Mr Lyan Studio has opened in St Christopher’s Place, just off Oxford Street in London’s West End. Noreen, from Bahrain’s long-established Al Abraaj restaurant group, showcases dishes from the Arabian peninsula to the Levant. Mehdi Hani, head chef at Harrods for the past four years, has […]
A Japanese diner serving Osaka-style ‘Dad’s home cooking’ – possibly superior to its British equivalent – and a third branch of Middle Eastern vegetarian restaurant Bubala are the latest arrivals at the Coal Drops Yard development behind King’s Cross station. Oton, the Japanese option, has opened from the team behind Okan in the former County Hall […]
A new Lebanese restaurant from industry veteran Pierre Hobeika opened this week in Barnes – a part of southwest London with no other Middle Eastern cuisine available. Omm, meaning mother in Arabic, has taken over a generous corner site in White Hart Lane long occupied by local favourite Annie’s, and more recently by the short-lived Farmer’s […]
Chef Limor Chen and her husband Amir are to launch the third branch of their Eastern Mediterranean restaurant Delamina in Covent Garden next Friday (1 November). They have taken over a Grade II listed Georgian townhouse in Tavistock Street that was formerly occupied by Volta do Mar. Their first two venues, in Marylebone and Shoreditch, […]
Tel Aviv-based restaurant Claro makes its European debut with tomorrow’s opening of a branch at St James’s market, off Piccadilly Circus. It has taken over an ex-Villandry site with an outdoor terrace in what was once a bank building in Waterloo Place. Featuring ‘contemporary, sophisticated Eastern Mediterranean cuisine’, Claro was founded in Tel Aviv 10 […]
Chef Selin Kiazim returns to the London food scene next week with the opening of Turkish restaurant Leydi in the new Hyde hotel near the Old Bailey in Farringdon – 18 months after the closure of her Shoreditch spot Oklava. Selin has vowed to “put Turkish food on the map” with the new venture, saying that […]
The Barbary is to open a new flagship on Westbourne Grove in Notting Hill in September. Inspired by the cooking of North Africa, the original was launched by Zoë and Layo Paskin in Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, eight years ago, and was followed by The Barbary Next Door. The new venue, formerly the Maddox Gallery, is […]
Dubai-based British-Nigerian chef Izu Ani opens his first London restaurant under his own name tomorrow – a French-inspired operation in Knightsbridge. La Maison Ani, in the Carlton Tower Jumeira hotel, is the second branch of a brand he launched in Dubai last year with Russian restaurateur Evgeny Kusin. It marks the second London opening from […]
