The new site, which will open on 24 November, will offer a programme of guest chefs from 28 November onwards, with each chef operating from Monday to Saturday during the evening.
Rowley Leigh – of D&D London Notting Hill site Kensington Place and Bayswater’s now-closed Le Café Anglais ‒ will kick off the event from 28 November to 28 January, followed by TV chef and food writer Valentine Warner from 6 February to 31 March.
Other forthcoming chefs include Jeremy Lee, head chef of Quo Vadis and former head chef at the Blueprint Café, which was inside the previous Design Museum; James Ramsden, co-owner of Michelin-starred Hackney restaurant Pidgin; Martin Morales, Peruvian chef and restaurateur at Ceviche, Andina, and Ceviche Old Street; and Marianne Lumb, executive chef at Marianne in Notting Hill.
Top “culinary development”
All the guest chefs will work alongside Parabola’s head chef Graham Blower, who has spent the past four years working with Mark Hix to open Tramshed and Pharmacy2, and who also worked at the Gordon Ramsay Restaurants group’s Michelin-starred Petrus, and with Angela Hartnett at her Michelin-starred site Murano.
Blower said: “To have the chance to spend time with and learn from some of the country’s best loved chefs and cooks, as well as those from further afield, is fantastic for these young chefs and will be a key part of their culinary development.”
Prescott comments: “The new Design Museum is such a significant project for London, and I hope our bar, café and restaurant will add to the appeal of the location. The guest chef series is particularly exciting and I’m looking forward to working with a wide range of great chefs and food writers. I think this element of the project will make it a destination that you’ll want to keep returning to.”
Museum relocation
Parabola was first officially announced in September, and will also serve the Museum’s Members Room. The new building is also set to feature an all-day cocktail bar, serving drinks inspired by botanicals and Japanese plants in the nearby Holland Park, plus a juice counter and coffee bar.
The Design Museum was previously located on Shad Thames, but will reopen in its new Universal Design Studio-designed building in Kensington in November.
The Prescott & Conran group also operates cafés, restaurants, and members’ clubs, plus The Boundary hotel in Shoreditch, across London. Its first restaurant, Boundary, was launched in 2008.