Ozone to open second London site

The new 100-cover, open-plan café and restaurant will feature a pizzeria, cocktail bar and coffee roastery, with operations manager Robyn Balfour and chef Joe O’Connell hoping to position the site as a community institution.

Inspired by the Antipodean culture of respect and love for Papatūānuku (Earth Mother), food menus will focus on ‘sustainable, whole-cycle cooking’.

Acting as both executive chef and sustainability coordinator, O’Connell will focus on serving locally-sourced seasonal produce, with a minimal waste philosophy.

Breakfast and lunch options will include smoked Cornish mackerel on rye with kombu chilli jam, salted cucumber, fried egg and herbs; kaffir lime pancake with Crouch End honey, stone fruit, labneh and dark chocolate; and yellow pea falafel with hummus, beetroot kraut, shoots and savoury scroggin.

Meanwhile, the dinner menu will feature linguini with kina butter, sea herbs and cured yolk; catch of the day with crab sauce, ‘Hangi’ potatoes cooked in coffee and Tropea onion; as well as a selection of pizzas.

Ozone was founded in 1998 in the provincial New Zealand town of New Plymouth, and expanded its operation to London in 2012.

It currently operates three locations in total, having opened a second New Zealand site in the city of Auckland earlier this year.