What: An ambitious wood-fired cooking restaurant in the Mayfair site that was once home to Anthony Demetre’s Wild Honey. Taking its name from the Spanish word for smoke, HUMO offers a tight a la carte menu that blends Japanese with a number of other international influences to create something impressively distinct. The restaurant’s USP is the effort it puts into sourcing its combustible materials: instead of putting produce in its front windows it displays a selection of artfully-lit woods. The range of woods used includes Juniper branches, Birch, Cherry, Walnut, Apple, Beech and spent whisky casks.
Who: HUMO is the debut solo restaurant project for Colombian-born chef Miller Prada, who has spent the past six years working alongside Endo Kazutoshi at his Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant Endo at the Rotunda in West London. The St George’s Street venue is the first outing for Creative Restaurant Group, which was recently co-founded by Misha Zelman, founder of Goodman, Burger & Lobster, Beast, Zelman Meats and SUMI, alongside Kazutoshi and led by managing director Alex D’Aguiar. Prada’s head chef at HUMO is the Italian-born Giacomo Tranquilli and the dining room is overseen by Martin Renshaw (Le Comptoir Robuchon and Hide) .
The vibe: Designed by Afroditi, the 34-cover site has a glam, slightly clubby feel. There are a number of tables dotted around the space but the real action can be found at the counter that surrounds Humo’s fully-open kitchen. A huge custom grill with many different levels provides the focal point, with the team doing much of the plating directly on the counter within touching distance of the customers sitting around it. HUMO’s basement is home to a wall of aging fridges and a self-contained chef’s counter-style restaurant that will eventually offer a tasting menu of even more ambitious dishes.
The food: The soon-to-launch downstairs space is the reason that HUMO does not currently offer a tasting menu, with Prada keen to create a distinction between upstairs and downstairs. The savoury menu is arranged into four sections: Ignite (raw dishes that sometimes come into brief contact with fire or smoke); Smoke (grilled vegetable dishes); Flame (proteins cooked in direct contact with burning wood); and Embers (daily-changing cuts of aged meat and fish that are designed to be eaten as a main course rather than being shared. Dishes include trout and caviar (14-day-aged ike-jime Hampshire trout with three-month aged caviar grilled in konbu kelp); scallop (hand-dived Orkney scallop cooked on a smouldering piece of Speyside whisky barrel with white konbu sabayon); and turbot (seven-day aged Brixham turbot, fish bone sauce, wild mushroom skewer and Arlington White egg yolk sauce). There are three desserts that all feature a smoky element, including Lancashire milk Crema Catalana with Colombian Granadilla (similar to passion fruit), Timut berry and citrus.
To drink: Overseen by Merlin Ramos (Elystan Street, Oblix) the wine list is expansive and arranged in an unusual yet intuitive way. There are some sections that focus on a particularly grape while others go by wine style or vineyard location (coastal, high altitude). Given the restaurant’s luxury marketing positioning mark ups and entry level prices aren’t too bad, with still wines starting at £45 per bottle and decent amount of choice between £50 and £70. The wine (and sake) list is complemented by a tight list of creative cocktails that in many cases continue the wood-fired theme, including The Kemui Gold (burnt raspberry, oak smoke, gold dusting and dark rum blend).
And another thing: Creative Restaurant Group has another Mayfair project in the works. Just down from Berkeley Square, 20 Berkeley is billed as a celebration of British craft, produce and design offering a menu that showcases ‘the freshest and most exceptional ingredients from all four corners of the British Isles’. Executive chef Ben Orpwood, who previously held roles at Mayfair private members club Maison Estelle, Gordon Ramsay Group, and Caprice Holdings, will be heading up the kitchen.