Part of the pair’s recently established Creative Restaurant Group, 20 Berkeley follows the success of wood-fired cooking restaurant HUMO, which launched just down the road on St George Street late last year.
The 120-seat restaurant and bar is billed as ‘a true celebration of artisans and the most exceptional produce available from around the British Isles’.
It will be helmed by executive chef Ben Orpwood, who was most recently executive chef at Mayfair private members club Maison Estelle.
Prior to this, he launched Gordon Ramsay Group’s Lucky Cat as executive chef. His CV also includes Caprice Holdings and Roka and Zuma owner Azumi Group.
On the corner of Berkeley Street and Hay Hill, the space has been designed by interior architects Pirajean Lees and will be reminiscent of an English manor house.
There will be four distinct spaces within the site: The Pantry, Drawing Room, Orangery and The Nipperkin bar.
A single a la carte menu will be available throughout the venue and will change regularly to allow Orpwood and team to make use of seasonal produce that is only a available for a very short time.
Example dishes have yet to be revealed, but produce will include jigg-caught squid and mackerel from Cornwall’s Wild Harbour, Essex-grown saffron, Ealing-produced burrata, fermented hot sauce from Eaten Alive and venison from The Ledbury chef Brett Graham.
“Coming back to the UK in 2015 having cooked in Australia led me on a journey to fall back in love with the variation of seasonality and British produce,” says Orpwood. “Here in the UK, we have the best asparagus, the best lobster and the best scallops in the world. 20 Berkeley will be an ode to the farmers and suppliers who have made this project possible”.
Alex D’Aguiar, managing director of Creative Restaurant Group, added: “When we had the opportunity to take on this particular site, we were so excited as no hospitality venture has ever sat on 20 Berkeley Street previously. The space has the feeling of walking into a manor house and it felt fitting that, given this restaurant will be a celebration of British produce that the atmosphere would capture the feeling of being in a home, and that the British Isles would serve as our back garden.”
Creative Restaurant Group was formed last year by Zelman (founder of Goodman, Burger & Lobster, Beast, Zelman Meats) and Kazutoshi (Endo at the Rotunda).