Australian-style burger café Ben’s Canteen has raised more than £400,000 in a crowdfunding campaign towards an ambitious expansion programme from its Battersea base. Ben Walton opened the original café in 2011, adding a branch in nearby Earlsfield in 2015. The next phase begins with a high-profile branch at the new Battersea Power Station development in September, the […]
A couple who met in the kitchen at St John are opening their first restaurant, Sparrow, in Lewisham at the end of March. Terry Blake and Yohini Nandakumar say they will use seasonal British meat and vegetables and cook their favourite dishes – which gives them a pretty broad canvas. Between them they have notched up experience at Bao, […]
⦿ In the Observer, Jay Rayner reviewed Skosh, in York, which he found “the ideal of what an ambitious, independent restaurant should be”. “Neil Bentinck, formerly the head chef of Van Zeller in Harrogate, is a modern British cook who also manages to riff on the flavours of Japan and the Middle East without confusing either […]
MEATliquor has launched its first delivery-only kitchen in Canary Wharf, serving nearby homes and businesses in partnership with Deliveroo. High-flying bankers in high-rise offices can now order in a Tower Block Burger (fried chicken with cheese, hash browns, jalapeños, slaw, onions and Russian dressing, pictured) to eat at their desks. Scott Collins and Yianni Papoutsis founded MEATliquor from a […]
⦿ Jay Rayner of The Observer reviewed Bundobust in Manchester, a “vibrant and cheap” combination of Indian veggie streetfood and craft beer that opened in December — and “by God, it works“. “Right now, the large, echoey basement space off the city’s Piccadilly feels like a big fat link in a chain, only one that hasn’t quite been […]
Chef, singer, broadcaster and supper club host Andi Oliver is to open her first restaurant next month in Stoke Newington – her home turf. Andi’s will serve brunch classics by day – baked eggs, French toast bacon sandwiches and Reubens with home-cured salt-beef – and transform into a more formal brasserie in the evening. She will be […]
Pembrokeshire-born chef Tom Simmons is opening his first restaurant in London this spring, with a focus on the best Welsh ingredients. Simmons, 28, appeared on MasterChef –Â The Professionals in 2011 and has worked with Tom Aikens and Mark Sargeant. His new self-named venue, with partner Lois Thomas running the front of house, is in the […]
Seafood and oyster specialist Wright Brothers will open a flagship 150-cover restaurant this summer as the first businesses move into the redeveloped Battersea Power Station. It will be Wright Brothers’ fifth restaurant since opening their first at Borough Market in 2005. The business began as a seafood wholesaler three years earlier – a role that […]
⦿  The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed The Salt Room, Brighton, overlooking the beach from the unpromising ground floor of the Hilton Metropole. “Good things are sometimes found where you least expect them, and this restaurant is a very good thing indeed.” “Most pleasing of the starters is the fish soup. A bowl arrives containing a soft, […]
An unusual “pay what you like” policy will be in place for the soft opening of a new restaurant in Victoria later this month. Rail House Café is the new venue from the team behind Fitzrovia’s Riding House Café and Village East in Bermondsey – both praised for their “lively atmosphere” in the latest Harden’s Survey. […]
