New British restaurant group snaps up two London sites

The group, co-founded by Sergey Men and Anatoly Parkhomchuk, opened The Crystal Palace Market - a restaurant, fishmonger and butcher – on Sunday (19 May).

The 6,348 sq.ft site on Church Road (formerly Noodle Time Chinese restaurant) offers fresh, locally sourced seafood, meat and produce which is available at the 76-cover restaurant. The Markets Group also enlisted the services of two former chefs at Sumosan restaurant in Mayfair, who will oversee the food operations across the group.

Managing director Men told BigHospitality: “The idea is to have a complete farmers market - with a fishmongers, butchers, bakery and cheese shop - all connected to the restaurant.

“We would like to do a chain of restaurants in the same style, but we need sites that are big enough. The second venue in Fulham is being refurbished for a month and will open around August.

“We’re looking for the third site already; it will most likely be in Hampstead.”

Starters at The Crystal Palace Market include salt and pepper squid with sour cream sauce (£7.50), while mains are divided into two categories of meat and fish, with respective dishes from each including T-bone steak (£25) and Langoustines (£18).

World’s End Market​

The second site for the group will see The World’s End pub in Fulham converted to The World’s End Market. The Markets Group has taken an assignment of the existing 20-year lease from November 2010, paying £100,000 a year for the 6,218 sq.ft site on King’s Road.

Mark Calder from central London leisure specialist Restaurant Property (which advised on the deal), said: “The World’s End is a lovely period building in an affluent area located next  to the Chelsea Theatre.

“Nearby operators include The Chelsea Bun Diner, La Famiglia, Bluebird, The Painted Heron and Riley’s. We would expect a quality innovative format to trade very well from this location.”

The potential third venue in Hampstead has not yet been secured.