Nicholas Balfe, Mark Gurney and Matt Bushnell will open Larry's in Peckham this March, next door to their Levan restaurant.
Open throughout the day, Larry’s is described as Levan’s “naughty little brother” and will take cues from the corner bars, diners and cafes of New York. As with its neighbouring restaurant Levan, Larry’s is named for 1970s dance music pioneer and DJ Larry Levan, and will stay open late into the night.
Menu items will include breakfasts inspired by New York’s Italian-American and Jewish delis, with dishes to include lox, potato latkes, sour cream, dill pickle; and soft boiled eggs, mortadella, emmental and focaccia. Lunch options will include sandwiches on focaccia such as a meatball melt with pickles and aged gouda, and salads.
The dinner menu, meanwhile, will list snacks of potato latkes with smoked cod’s roe; salt beef beignets; and ‘nduja soaked focaccia as well as sharing plates of devilled crab, brown crab mayo, pickled fennel and bruschetta; XO cabbage with clams and house-made XO chilli sauce; and pig’s head ragu with pappardelle and szechuan pepper.
“Larry’s is somewhere we’d expect Larry Levan to go to after playing one of his sets”, says Balfe. “We’ve cherry-picked everything we love about eating in New York, and combined them into the kind of place we would want in our neighbourhood.”
Its interiors will pay homage to Larry Levan’s 1970s heyday with tables topped with orange laminate and reclaimed green Eames chairs. The restaurant will feature a central bench made from Carrara marble, which will be used for pastries and baked goods in the morning, rolling pasta in the afternoon, and communal dining in the evenings