Jolene team to open 'more focused' Cornwall restaurant this year

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The duo behind London restaurants Jolene, Primeur and Westerns Laundry have confirmed plans to open their first site in Cornwall in June.

David Gingell and Jeremie Cometto say Fitzroy, which is to launch close to the Fowey seafront, will offer a ‘more focused’ dining experience than in the capital with ‘less pressure’.

Gingell, who grew up in Cornwall, adds that the menu will feature the same ‘uncomplicated’ cooking as the pair’s London restaurants but with ‘a touch more precision’.

As with the team’s existing sites there will be a daily changing menu, with dishes likely to include mussels escabeche and crab soup with culture cream; cod with clams, cucumber and seabeets; onglet with onions, garlic and croutons; and desserts such as orange and almond tart.

“Fitzroy is going to be a return home where my love of food began,” says Gingell. “We’re so lucky to be so close to the source of everything the kitchen will be using -  we have seaweed, flowers, herbs, roots, right on our door step, fantastic sardines available just around the corner in Mevagissey and in the spring we can go and pick wild plants, fermenting them so we can continue to them throughout the year."

Fitzroy will be split across two floors in a former Victorian bank building, with a 10-cover kitchen counter and an upstairs private dining area looking out over an open kitchen.

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The drinks menu will include ‘approachable’ wines from smaller ethical producers alongside some older vintages, as well as locally-brewed beers and ciders on draft and house-made vermouths and soft selzers.

Cometto and Gingell met while working at the Wright Brothers group and launched London small plates restaurants Primeur in 2014 and Westerns Laundry in 2017, both of which hold Michelin Bib Gourmands.

Their latest bakery and restaurant Jolene opened in Newington Green in October last year.