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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hospitality couple Lidia and Simone Crepaldi will tomorrow launch their first venture together – Italian restaurant Hoax with a ‘secret’ basement bar called The Devil You Know (TDYK) in Dalston. Taking over the original site of Chick ‘n’ Sours on Kingsland Road, Hoax has a semi-open kitchen run by Sardinian-born chef Riccardo Lottero, Simone’s cousin, […]
Restaurateur Martin Kuczmarski is launching two new retro-inspired Italian venues in quick succession – Martino’s in Sloane Square, Chelsea and Dover Street Counter, a few doors down from his flagship off Piccadilly. In both cases Martin has followed the low-profile but high-impact process that proved such a success last year with Dover Street, one of the […]
An ambitious restaurant in a landmark building with a large terrace overlooking the Thames opens this weekend beside Richmond Bridge in leafy southwest London. Tower House, from the team behind Gold in Notting Hill, promises ‘modern Mediterranean food with old-world Italian roots reminiscent of home, in a spirit of relaxed care and warmth’. It is […]
Chef-restaurateur Stevie Parle (right in photo) will next week open his second London restaurant in quick succession – Motorino, a “big Italian” with 150 covers in Fitzrovia, this time with Luke Ahearne (left), the chef behind the successful opening of Lita in Marylebone last year. With its mix of carefully sourced ingredients and slick interior […]
