Appalachia, a restaurant inspired by cooking from the mountains of eastern USA, launches in Shoreditch next week – with former Smoking Goat head chef Ali Borer running the open kitchen. Set in a converted traditional pub near Old Street with a smart marble chef’s counter, Appalachia has replaced Counter 71, where chef Joe Laker served […]
New York celeb chef Jody Williams is opening a branch of her French-inspired Buvette in Covent Garden next week. She has taken over and extended the former St John Bakery in Neal’s Yard to create an 80-seat space that will be open from 8am every morning until 9pm (Sun-Wed) or 10pm (Thurs-Sat) – so not quite […]
Portfolio, the pioneering Champagne venue bringing top-class bubbles to Manchester, opens an ambitious restaurant next week as it completes a staged launch that began before Christmas. Billed as the UK’s first ‘Champagne boutique’, the city-centre venture is the brainchild of a quartet who want to change perceptions of the world’s most famous fizz: Cameron Foster […]
A 1930s Lloyds bank in Notting Hill Gate has been converted into an all-day Lebanese brasserie with a dramatic triple-height dining room. Opening on 1st June, it is called Kinz – appropriately, ‘treasure’ in Arabic. The team behind the project includes Rasha Khouri Bruzzo (co-owner of the highly regarded Palestinian restaurant Akub, around the corner […]
Chef Daniel Rogan has relaunched his Southampton restaurant AO with a new open kitchen, refurbished dining room, refreshed menu – and enhanced backing as part of his father Simon Rogan’s Umbel Hospitality group. AO – which takes its name from Daniel’s children’s initials – originally opened in Hampshire in 2022, transferring into Southampton last year. The chef trained […]
Franklin’s in East Dulwich, one of south London’s longest-serving neighbourhood restaurants, has been relaunched this week under its original name as The Victory – a dining pub run by local hospitality veterans Jamie Younger and his wife Rema Waterhouse. Former owner Rod Franklin bowed out last month after 26 years at the helm, saying “a small […]
Our round-up of what the nation’s restaurant critics were writing about in the week up to 17th May 2026 London Standard Le Garrick, Covent Garden David Ellis revisited a 40-year-old classic French restaurant he has known since his teenage years and still relies on as a refuge, sanctuary or asylum – “depending on the crisis”. Then he […]
Double-winning TV chef Nikita Pathakji (centre in picture) launches her debut restaurant next week – MAAI by Nikita in Clapham, south London, a family- and female-run business with her mother Rima (left) and sister Isha (right) at her side. Nikita, now 28, won MasterChef: The Professionalsin 2022 and followed that up by being crowned Great […]
Prolific chef Nick Molyviatis (right in picture) unveils his debut Greek taverna Zylia in London this week as the headline act at Covent Garden’s Arcade food hall – one of three new food halls opening this month as operators gear up for the summer. South of the Thames, Manchester’s Freight Island launched a southern outpost […]
