Chef Leandro Carreira to head up Chelsea's The Sea, The Sea

Chef-Leandro-Carreira-to-head-up-Chelsea-s-The-Sea-The-Sea.jpg

Leandro Carreira has been named executive chef at The Sea, The Sea, the upcoming London fishmonger and seafood bar from Bonnie Gull co-founder Alex Hunter.

It follows the closure of Carreira’s first solo venture, Londrino, which shut its London Bridge site in March after less than two years.

Carreira boasts an impressive CV, having worked for three years at Mugaritz in northern Spain – currently ranked ninth in the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list – before coming to London to cook alongside Nuno Mendes at Viajante and James Lowe at Lyle's.

The Sea, The Sea will open in Chelsea on 26 April with Carreira set to create dishes for the evening seafood and champagne bar, with a sample menu including Cornish seabass crudo with crispy parsley sweet cicely; squid with pine nuts, sake and beach herbs; and poached Scottish lobster with olive oil and pepper.

By day the site will trade as a deli and fishmonger, and host masterclasses in skills such as oyster shucking and filleting fish.

Combining a fishmonger and eat-in concept is not a new idea, but can be a difficult one to get right. Fishworks expanded at pace in the mid-noughties but now only operates two sites, though a third is set to open in Covent Garden this spring amid a wider rebrand.

Hunter also runs London's two Bonnie Gull restaurants, as well as fish and chip brand Salt ‘n’ Sauce at the Oxford Westgate shopping centre.