The trio behind Taiwanese steamed bun specialist Bao are to open a more upmarket restaurant, bar and tea house called Xu in Soho this spring. Bao, which has branches in Soho and Fitzrovia, has been a runaway success for founders Shing Tat Chung, Wai Ting Chung and Erchen Chang, with customers enduring long queues to sample […]

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Donal Doherty, who struck gastronomic gold with his hit Northern Ireland seafood restaurant Harry’s Shack, on the beach at Portstewart, has opened a new high-end city bistro, Harry’s Derry. Doherty (right in photo, with head chef Derek Creagh) is keen to catch the new wave of dining that has seen the emergence of half a dozen high-quality […]

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Lympstone Manor, the new hotel and restaurant from distinguished chef Michael Caines, who ran the kitchen at Gidleigh Park for 21 years, opens for business on April 3 and is taking bookings now. Formerly know as Courtlands House, Lympstone Manor is on the Exe estuary near Exmouth, and has been refurbished at a cost of more than £7million. It has […]

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The family behind Jamavar, the new upmarket Indian in Mayfair, has taken the lease on Claude Bosi’s former restaurant Hibiscus in Maddox and plans to open an as-yet unnamed “casual Indian concept” there later this year. Dinesh Nair, co-chairman and managing director of India’s uber-luxurious Leela Palace group, has joined forces with his daughter Samyukta (pictured) for […]

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Spanish TV chef Omar Allibhoy is to open the sixth and biggest branch of his Tapas Revolution chain in Newcastle next month. The all-day contemporary tapas bar will serve a range of classic small dishes with ingredients sourced from small artisan producers in Spain, alongside Spanish wines, craft beers and what is claimed to be the […]

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Anne-Sophie Pic, hailed as the world’s greatest female chef, opens her first restaurant in Britain, La Dame de Pic, in the City of London next Thursday, January 26. She became only the fourth woman to earn a third Michelin star when the accolade was bestowed 10 years ago on her family restaurant, Maison Pic in Valence, […]

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Chef Atul Kochhar of Benares – Mayfair’s well-known ‘nouvelle Indian’ – is turning the tables by launching his first restaurant to celebrate British food — and in a quintessentially English setting. Hawkyns opens on January 15 inside the marvellously traditional Crown Inn in Amersham. (It is named after Sir William Hawkyns, apparently a representative of the […]

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