Two well-known London restaurants closed temporarily this week following fires in their kitchen extraction systems – Som Saa in Spitalfields and Straker’s in Notting Hill. Straker’s will reopen as soon as possible, initially as a cold bar, following a fire that damaged parts of both the kitchen and restaurant. No injuries were reported. “We’re still investigating […]
A new ‘wine pub’ and restaurant with ten wines on tap (and just a couple of beers) opens in Spitalfields Market next week. Alfi’s ‘draught’ options range from an organic biodynamic Riesling and an orange wine to several fizzies including a pet nat. The operation is being launched by Ben Hodges and Alex Lewis in […]
A new Franco-Irish brasserie has launched in Old Spitalfields Market. 65A Spitalfields officially opens next Tuesday, 12 September, but diners can sample it today with food at a 30% discount during the soft launch. The restaurant is owned by Irish-born entrepreneur and publican Patrick Frawley, with executive chef Maura Baxter running the kitchen. It takes […]
Chelsea winger Hakim Ziyech is the latest high-profile footballer to invest some of his earnings in a restaurant – a halal-friendly Mexican joint called Taco Taco that launches this month in Spitalfields. After his starring role for Morocco in the World Cup last year, Ziyech – like everybody else at Chelsea – had a less successful domestic season, […]
A sister bar and restaurant to Hackney hangout Wringer & Mangle will open a stone’s throw from Old Spitalfields Market on 11 September. The original launched two years ago in London Fields in a disused former laundry. Wringer & Mangle Spitalfields is spread over two floors offering dining upstairs, a lunchtime deli counter and cocktails […]
When our reporters praise Bray’s Hind’s Head it is because the picturesque pub is “thankfully not over-Hestoned” but The Sunday Times’s Lisa Markwell has the opposite problem – she can’t find any evidence of Blumenthal’s pseudo-scientific cooking at all, nor the influence of his trusty lieutenant Ashley Palmer-Watts – and it leaves her disappointed… “I […]
