Raz Helalat to open second The Coal Shed restaurant, at One Tower Bridge

Raz Helalat expects the 100-cover restaurant to open in October. The upmarket steak and fish restaurant will trade alongside The Ivy Café, Welsh fine dining restaurant Tom Simmons, and several other high-profile food businesses that have yet to be announced by developer Berkeley Homes.

“We already have two restaurants in Brighton so it would have been tough to do anything else there,” says Helalat. “As much as everyone talks about it being London-by-the-sea, it's a seasonal location with peaks and troughs.

"The idea of being consistently busy in London appeals, but obviously for that to happen we need to get it right. It's very exciting for a small Brighton restaurant group to be going up to London - we have a lot to prove.”   

The Coal Shed at One Tower Bridge will continue to source seasonal, sustainable meat and seafood, including its range of 35-day, dry-aged Scottish steaks. Like the Brighton site, much of the menu will be cooked on hot coals. 

Current The Salt Room head chef Dave Mothersill will be promoted to executive chef of the group and will oversee the opening.

A head chef for the London site has yet to be named but Helalat says his group is likely to promote from within. The dining room will be initially run by Fiona Warde, who heads front of house across the group. 

Conceived by the Hove-based Design LSM, the restaurant will be a more grown-up-version of the original.

"The London site is a glass box but a very high spec one, Berkeley has not cut any corners,"  says Helalat. "We have full control over the layout of the space at the new site, which will make it much easier to run."

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