The 100-cover, two-storey restaurant at 5 White Horse Street will have Andrew Evans as head chef, who joins from his most recent role as head chef at The Colonel Fawcett gastropub in Camden.
Evans has spent the past two decades working with chefs at their Michelin-starred establishments across London, including Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing, Mark Hix, Angela Hartnett, and Fergus Henderson.
Owned by general manager Duncan Watson-Steward – who also operates the Star in Highgate and previously owned The Furnace in Hoxton and The Stag in Hampstead ‒ the site will feature a ground floor bar with cocktails, small plates and salads, while the ground floor dining room will offer a wider British-inspired menu. Bar manager will be Vanessa Ulser.
Typical dishes will include beef tartare with pickled baby girolles; chargrilled octopus with confit potatoes and saffron aioli; Devonshire crab with nectarine salad; spiced lamb sweetbreads and peas; Shorthorn rib eye with bone marrow gravy; wild sea trout with white butter sauce; and buttermilk pudding with a rhubarb and hibiscus sorbet.
The site’s décor will pay homage to the building’s history, with materials such as marble and wood panelling, Art Deco-style ceilings and wall lights, exposed brickwork, and distressed concrete flooring.
The space was originally Hatchett’s Hotel and White Horse Cellar, with a cellar bar for travellers going to the south coast and West Country. It was also reportedly referenced by the writer Charles Dickens, and London map publisher Edward Mogg, as a good meeting place for locals and travellers.
More recently, its former cellar bar played host to The Rolling Stones, Shirley Bassey, and The Beatles.