Parillan
The first new concept from the Barrafina stable, Parillan will feature table-top parilla grills where diners can cook their own dishes when it opens outside the newly-opened Barrafina in Coal Drops Yard in early May.
Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross, London
Nathan Outlaw at The Goring
Seafood supremo Nathan Outlaw will open a brasserie-style restaurant at The Goring hotel in Belgravia in late spring. Joining the hotel’s flagship Michelin-starred restaurant The Dining Room, the as-yet unnamed restaurant will serve “create simple seafood dishes of understated brilliance, that showcase the best of Cornish seafood and produce”.
15 Beeston Place, Westminster, London
Allegra at The Stratford
Patrick Powell, former head chef at Chiltern Firehouse, is heading up a new restaurant on the seventh floor of the new 145-room east London hotel The Stratford in April. It will serve a seasonal menu of modern European cuisine with the restaurant having doors that open out onto one of the development’s sky gardens.
Orasay
The third restaurant from chefs Jackson Boxer and Andrew Clarke is inspired by the western isles of Scotland. Opening in London's Notting Hill in the coming months, the 50-cover venue will serve a seafood-focused menu of ‘simple, approachable dishes’.
31 Kensington Park Rd, London
Kala
Prolific chef/restaurateur Gary Usher will open his burgeoning bistro group's sixth restaurant, in central Manchester new month. Kala will have a modern feel and serve usher's trademark 'humble bistro food'.
55 King Street, Manchester
www.kalabistro.co.uk
Pensons
Former Typing Room chef Lee Westcott opens his 46-cover restaurant on the Netherwood Estate on the rural Herefordshire-Worcestershire border on 24 January. Joining forced with Netherwood Estate’s Peta Darnley, the restaurant aims to cook with ingredients as seasonally, locally and as sustainably as possible, with many grown on the estate.
Pensons Yard, Stoke Bliss
www.pensons.co.uk
The Oyster Club
Chef Adam Stokes is doubling up in Birmingham with his British seafood restaurant. The 30-cover restaurant will open in February serving dishes such as his take on fish and chips and, as the name suggests, fresh oysters, which will be shucked in front of diners.
43 Temple Street, Birmingham
www.the_oyster_club.co.uk
MEATliquor W1
The flagship site of the burger-van-turned-casual-dining-sensation is closing its doors in February to make way for the construction of a luxury hotel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that MEATliquor is departing W1. Plans are afoot to relocate to a new bigger - and better - site not a million miles from the original, so watch this space.
meatliquor.com
Angelina
Former Bocca du Lupo chef Daniel Cerofo is opening what is described as a ‘surreal’ Japanese-Italian restaurant in Dalston in January. The 40-cover restaurant will ‘poke fun at pretension and challenge the way we think about native cuisines’ with launch dishes expected to include cavolo nero with tonkotsu, egg and keta caviar; and black sesame and milk chocolate pannacotta.
56 Dalston Lane, London
www.angelina.london
Xier
Chef Carlo Sotto will launch two restaurants in one this year, 62-cover casual restaurant XR and the more ambitious 38-cover Xier above, in Marylebone. Drawing inspiration from Sotto’s upbringing and travels through Europe and Asia, and having trained with Angela Harnett, the cuisine will be a take on modern European with a global influence. Xier will serve a tasting menu, with dishes including Obsi blue prawns served with wild fennel, wasabi caviar and fresh raspberry.
13-14 Thayer Street, London
www.XierLondon.com
Bob Bob Cite
Fourteen months after originally planned, the follow up to Bob Bob Ricard will finally open in the City in March, with Eric Chavot at the helm. Suspended above the 30-metre high open-air atrium, Bob Bob Ricard’s French-themed sibling will have space for 190 covers across two dining rooms and feature ‘pressez pour le champagne’ buttons.
The Leadenhall Building, 122 Leadenhall St, London
Eleven Madison Park at Claridge’s
Bit of a punt this one, as nothing has been confirmed, but with the closing of Fera at Claridge’s on New Years Eve there is now a vacant spot at the five star hotel. The Eleven Madison Park team were believed to be close to signing on the restaurant space four and a half years ago and sources suggest that they are set to take over the dining room this time round. Watch this space.
Brook Street, Mayfair, London
Peter Sanchez-Iglesias at The Standard
The Casamia front man is making a move into the capital, taking on the top floor of the upcoming 266-room Standard Hotel in King’s Cross. The rooftop restaurant’s menu will be similar to the food served at Sanchez-Iglesias’s Paco tapas restaurant in Bristol, with the food taking influence from Spain and Mexico.
10 Argyle Street, London
www.standardhotels.com
Endo at Rotunda
Master sushi chef Endo Kazutoshi will open a sushi restaurant at the site of the former BBC headquarters in London. Very little is known about the menu at the new restaurant, but at a preview dinner last year, Kazutoshi served an omakase menu that included signature dishes such as Scottish scallop oshinogi; lemon sole usuzukuri; and wagyu beef agemono.
101 Wood Lane , London
Arros QD
Three-star chef Quique Dacosta is coming to Fitzrovia for his rice-focused restaurant that will showcase his “unique style of cooking and highlight premium Spanish ingredients”.
Eggslut
The ‘chef driven, gourmet food concept’ with the ridiculous name that has taken California by storm is opening on these shores later this year. As site is yet to found, but the company hopes to make an announcement of its chosen London location in early 2019. On the menu will be its popular dishes, including the Slut, made with a coddled egg on top of a smooth potato purée, poached in a glass jar, topped with grey salt and chives and served with slices of baguette; and the Fairfax, a sandwich made with soft scrambled eggs and chives, cheddar cheese, caramelized onions and sriracha mayo served in a warm brioche bun.
www.eggslut.com
Adam Handling Chelsea
The Frog founder will make the leap into hotels when he opens in the Cadogan Hotel in west London. Initially due to open in December, it will now launch in the new year, with Handling overseeing the food at the restaurant, tea room and bar, as well as the room service and banqueting menus.
75 Sloane St, Chelsea, London
www.belmond.com/hotels/europe/uk/london/belmond-cadogan-hotel
IT Ibiza London
Two Michelin-starred Gennaro Esposito is bringing his Ibiza-based restaurant to Mayfair. Promising ‘art on a plate’, Esposito’s cooking is described as gently combining the essence of southern Italy with haute cuisine techniques, with his signature glass ball ‘showstopper’ that features raw seabass, red prawns and tuna set to be on the menu
IT Ibiza, 28-29 Dover Street, London
www.it-ibiza.com
The Woodsman
Harwood Arms co-owner Mike Robinson is will open The Woodsman in boutique Hotel Indigo Stratford-upon-Avon in the spring. Working alongside head chef Jon Coates, the menu will feature meats such as British deer, wild boar, beef and Hebridean lamb cooked over a large wood-fired oven and charcoal grill.
4 Chapel Street, Stratford-upon-Avon
Caviar Kaspia
The caviar-focused restaurant us returning to the capital in April to take on the site of the former Chess Club private member’s club in Mayfair.
Darby’s
The Dairy’s Robin Gill forthcoming restaurant in London’s ‘eco world’ Embassy Gardens towers in Nine Elms will be located underneath a glass-bottomed skypool suspended 35 metres up in the air. Dishes will make use of Irish produce, with live fire cooking a feature of the new restaurant.
New Union Square, 5 Nine Elms Lane, London
www.embassygardens.com
Tayer + Elementary
World-renowned bartenders Alex Kratena and Monica Berg are teaming up with TÁ TÁ Eatery founders Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng to open a multifaceted venue in Shoreditch in spring 2019. The building, which will comprise two bars and a creative workspace will serve a modern Asian menu that uses European ingredients and techniques.
152 Old Street, London
tayer-elementary.com
And watch out for the three Mark(c)S
Chefs Mark Poynton, Mark Greenaway and Marc Wilkinson all shut their hugely popular restaurants last year, with plans to either relocate them or start afresh this year with a new project. None has yet to announced further any concrete plans, but you can expect to see something new from this trio of chefs this year.