Due to open at 312 King’s Road on 19 February, the new Kurobuta will offer 90-covers, with a casual lounge, bar, private dining space, events area and beer keg table.
“We simply outgrew the space we had, there were only 38 seats and we were constantly turning people away. We can definitely do a lot more business on the Kings Road – we have a pretty solid neighbourhood following now - and so we jumped at the chance of moving to a bigger site,” Hallsworth told BigHospitality.
The new site will serve a wider range of sashimi, sushi and robata grill dishes alongside existing favourites such as the Junk Food Japan’s Sashimi Pizza
“We were very restricted with space at our original site so we had to keep the menu limited, but the new venue has a much bigger kitchen with room for a wood oven, which will allow us to develop more dishes,” said Hallworth.
The restaurant will also boast a more extensive drink menu including slushy cocktails, Japanese whiskeys, barrel-aged cocktails, frosted tankard beers, ‘Growlers’ and sparkling Sake.
Joe’s Oriental Diner
Meanwhile, the Australian chef is launching a new Pan Asian diner concept – Joe’s Oriental Diner - on the site of the original Kurobuta Chelsea at 251 King's Road.
Joe’s will ‘evoke the dive bar subculture of the Orient’, serving menus inspired by the ‘bare bone, gritty roots’ of recipes consumed in ports across Asia, such as as Fire Cracker Chicken, Crunchy Sweet and Sour Fish, Coconut Short-rib Rendang, Slow Cooked Duck Red Curry with Lychees and Barbequed Scallops with Tamarind Ketchup and Sambal.
Drinks will include frosted beer tankards, Chinatown teapot cocktails and ‘evil and obscure’ spirits and libations.
The 38-cover restaurant, also due to open on 6 March 2015, will feature an open kitchen and central bar, with a secret ‘Den’ upstairs that seats a further 26 guests.
“We want to serve the kind of vibrant Pan Asian dishes you see served in Australia, which are zesty and fresh with plenty of herbs,” said Hallworth. “That is the food I used to cook and I have a huge passion for it.”
He added that if successful, the concept will be rolled out across more sites.
Further expansion
2015 is set to be another busy year for Hallsworth, who is currently looking at opening a further Kurobuta site at Canary Wharf and a second Ramusake in Dubai.
“We are also in the middle of sorting out a site for a Kurobuta in Dubai, which will be much less bling than anything else there at the moment,” Hallsworth told BigHospitality.