Selfridges looks to create a buzz with honey-themed restaurant

On the department store’s third floor, Hive replaces Hemsley + Hemsley and will serve a menu focused on dishes that make use of the on-site-produced honey.   

Full details have yet to be released, but the all-day menu is described as innovative, healthy and comforting making use of quality organic ingredients.

Hive will also offer a range of honey and cheese pairings, including Comte with chestnut honey, and Fourme d’Ambert with buckwheat honey.

It will also offer a cheese and honey-based afternoon tea experience.

The ‘modernist’ interior will ‘pay homage to the key ingredient of honey through botanical statement walls, decadent golden bee structures’ and plant boxes filled with flowers pollinated by the restaurant’s own bee population – which can be viewed dwelling just outside the window.

The concept is the creation of first time restaurateur Khalid Samata. “A few years ago, I fell in love with honey," he says. "I discovered buckwheat honey and that tasting experience marked the beginning of my evolving journey.

"I enjoyed the taste of buckwheat honey so much that I became obsessed with how monofloral honeys are made,” he adds. 

The restaurant will also use honey procured by the farm Le Miel des Français.