Victor Garvey’s highly rated Californian-style restaurant SOLA has closed for two months while builders transform the interior, doubling its capacity. The four-year-old venue in Dean Street, Soho – hailed in the 2023 Harden’s guide as “one of London’s finest gastronomic experiences” – is scheduled to reopen “in time for Thanksgiving”, which falls on Friday 24 November. The […]
Bob Bob Ricard, the decadently fun Soho restaurant famous for its ‘press for Champagne’ buttons on each table, is to open a spin-off rotisserie chicken specialist next month. Bébé Bob, in Golden Square, will offer ‘affordable’ wines and Champagnes, although a £75 mark-up limit indicates that some prices will be pretty high, while the chickens […]
A new Italian restaurant with a retro New York theme declaring itself “proudly gay-owned” opened in the heart of Soho’s ‘gay village’ this week, coinciding with the annual LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations. Nima Safei (pictured) launched 64 Old Compton Street as a sibling to his 40 Dean Street just around the corner, which he opened 15 […]
Anglesey-born chef Tomos Parry opens his new restaurant Mountain next week, bringing together his love of robust Spanish cooking with ingredients from his native Wales. The restaurant, a former Byron just off Regent Street in Beak Street, Soho, is the chef’s follow-up to Brat in Shoreditch, where he refined his approach to cooking over wood […]
A dream team of pub landlord Oisin Rogers (right in photo) and Flat Iron founder Charlie Carroll (left) have teamed up to open their “dream pub” in Soho. The Devonshire, just off Piccadilly Circus in Denham Street, is scheduled to launch this autumn. Oisin ran the Guinea Grill in Mayfair for six years, turning it […]
Alexis Gauthier, the classic French chef who has gone vegan, is to launch two new ventures from one site next month – 123V Bakery and Studio Gauthier, in the BFI building north of Oxford Street in Soho. Alexis opened his flagship, Gauthier Soho, in 2010 and announced the transition to meat-free menus eight years later, […]
Three high-profile but very different London dining destinations whose futures have all been in doubt are set to reopen in the next few weeks: Soho’s historic L’Escargot, smart Islington brasserie Bellanger, and Clapton’s funky wine bar P Franco. L’Escargot in Greek Street, the city’s oldest French restaurant (est. 1927), is to open on Wednesday 24 […]
A newly opened Korean barbecue restaurant in Soho is bringing the pyeon beak steambox to London – a three-tiered box made from hinoki wood, a type of cypress. Chungdam has taken over the site formerly occupied by Chinese restaurant YMing in Greek Street, and is named after Cheongdam-dong, an affluent – and foodie – district of Gangnam in […]
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen, the tiny West End restaurant founded by a refugee from war-torn Damascus, is expanding into bigger premises to offer a wider range of dishes. Imad Alarnab fled his home in 2015, leaving a flourishing restaurant business behind, and cooked for fellow refugees before rebuilding his career as a restaurateur in London. His […]
Veteran Soho restaurant Quo Vadis is to double in size following a major refurb in January. Owners the Hart Brothers say the work will provide a “grander and more spacious restaurant” befitting the cooking of acclaimed chef-partner Jeremy Lee (pictured). Having opened in 1926, Quo Vadis is rare among older restaurants in that it trades […]
