Congolese chef Joyce Kudia opens her first permanent site this week at Boxhall City food hall near Liverpool Street station, having made her name as a contestant on Channel Four’s ‘Five Star Kitchen: Britain’s Next Great Chef’. Joyce, who has worked as a private chef, was also the first resident chef at Boxhall City’s rotating […]
The luxury Raffles Hotel at the Old War Office in Whitehall has quietly opened an all-day café in its grand courtyard, replacing the smart Café Lapérouse which closed earlier this year after a two-year stint in a newly installed glass pavilion. The new Café Ciel specialises in pastries, sweet treats and brunch, with cocktails and […]
A Thai restaurant whose “unapologetically spicy” cooking is based around pastes pounded by hand using a pestle and mortar opens tomorrow in Peckham, from a pair of chefs who have worked in some of London’s most exciting Thai kitchens. Kruk – a mash-up of Thai words ‘klook’ meaning to mix or stir and ‘krok’ meaning mortar […]
A vibey contemporary Japanese restaurant whose two floors are linked by a dramatic poured-concrete staircase opened in Soho this week. Moi (pronounced to rhyme with ‘boy’), in Wardour Street, is the first launch from an ambitious new company, Mad Restaurants, founded by entrepreneur Artem Login of the international café brand L’Eto. Former Gordon Ramsay chef […]
A smart and spacious all-day Italian restaurant called Campanelle – meaning ‘little bells’ – opened in the City this week, taking over the listed former London Shipping Exchange building in Billiter Street. The restaurant has 180 covers over two storeys, with a dining room, wine room and 44-seat all-weather terrace on the ground floor. Upstairs is another […]
A pair of former regulars at a pub in Queens Park have taken it over and “re-imagined” the venue, with an ambitious dining room that opened this week. The new co-owners of The Salusbury are Gareth Cooper and Alex Payne, who both have backgrounds in the music industry – so impromptu events are to be expected. […]
A ‘neo Nikkei omakase’ promising an original new take on Japanese/Peruvian cuisine called Fan has opened in Notting Hill, adding Chinese and other global influences to its culinary mix. A trio of childhood friends from Lima – Romania Parra, Jorge Sasaki and Santiago Wong – have developed their style over several years in their home city, […]
Belgian gourmet chip shop Frites Atelier is to open a branch in London, in the former Balans Soho premises in Old Compton Street. Frites Atelier was launched in 2016 by Sergio Herman, the chef behind world-famous restaurant Old Sluis, which he closed three years earlier to focus on several different projects. There are currently three […]
The Duck and Rice, the Soho pub that combines Cantonese food with British boozer, has opened a first spin-off – a full decade after its launch – in the redeveloped Battersea power station. The new branch is twice the size of the original, seating 185, and instead of looking like a spruced-up old pub is […]
Ed Templeton of Carousel (left in picture) has linked up with actor and fellow Highbury resident Theo James (right) to launch a Rome-inspired local restaurant called Lupa, after the she wolf who nursed the ancient city’s founders, Romulus and Remus. The kitchen is led by Naz Hassan (centre), the Bangladeshi-born former head chef at Pidgin […]