London’s National Theatre is to have a new seafood brasserie complete with a marble-topped oyster bar featuring a display fridge of smoked salmon and eel. Named after Denys Lasdun, the architect who designed the Brutalist-style South Bank arts complex, the Lasdun is scheduled to open in May. The project is a co-production between the KERB, […]
Senegalese London restaurant Little Baobab is hosting a launch party tonight to mark its permanent new perch at Peckham Levels. Founder Khadim Mane, aka Khadim Mbamba, has run the business on a more informal basis for the past eight years, offering catering services alongside pop-ups and residencies around north and east London. Originally from Dakar, […]
Historic Parisian restaurant Lapérouse is the latest culinary big name to be added to the menu at The OWO – the Old War Office building in Whitehall that opens as a hotel and residences complex by Singapore’s Raffles group this summer. Café Lapérouse will occupy a purpose-built pavilion in the central courtyard, designed by Cordelia de […]
Flamboyant chef Yuma Hashemi is to open a wine bar called Emmanuelle opposite his Persian tasting-menu restaurant The Drunken Butler in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell this spring. Emmanuelle takes its name from the X-rated 1974 French film starring Sylvia Kristel – and will feature a copy of the rattan peacock chair made famous by the film’s poster, […]
The Glasshouse restaurant in Kew, which closed down last summer after almost 25 years, re-opened under a new guise this week, under the co-ownership of former manager Patra Panas. It’s called Hawthorn, in reference – like its predecessor – to the nearby botanical gardens. Patra has teamed up with ex-Murano and La Trompette chef Josh Hunter […]
Amy Poon’s Wontoneria opens on 7 February for a three-month residency at 23 Charlotte Street in Fitzrovia, the ‘incubator space’ run by revolving-chef restaurant Carousel, in a step towards reviving the family’s famous Poon’s restaurant at a permanent site. Her father Bill Poon, a seventh-generation Cantonese master chef, opened his first restaurant in London’s Chinatown […]
Claude Bosi has been appointed chef-director of the new ultra-high-end Peninsular London hotel, which is due to open this spring near Hyde Park Corner. His rooftop restaurant, Brooklands, will serve contemporary European cuisine, and features a cigar tasting lounge with walk-in humidor. The hotel is the latest international incarnation of the landmark Hong Kong hotel […]
Parisian caviar emporium Caviar Kaspia has quietly opened a London outpost in Mayfair. The new venue, in Chesterfield Street, operates as an invitation-only members’ club: there is no joining fee, but members are required to deposit £2,000 a year in their account, from which their bills will be deducted. Caviar Kaspia was founded in 1927 […]
Fair Shot Café, the all-day venue that provides training and jobs for young adults with educational disabilities, is moving into smart new premises in Covent Garden’s development The Yards, where it will be the West End’s first not-for-profit café. Founder Bianca Tavella, previously creative director of Petersham Nurseries, opened the original Fair Shot Café in […]