Rowley Leigh returns to Notting Hill with Laylow residency

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Chef Rowley Leigh is making a return to the London restaurant scene next month with a residency at Notting Hill club and restaurant Laylow.

Called Chez Rowley, the new concept will take inspiration from Rowley’s family holidays across Europe and feature an ‘Italian leaning’ menu of sharing plates.

Dishes set to feature include seasonal tomatoes and stracciatella; raw bavette, cep toast and gribiche dressing; escalivada with girolles; cuttlefish and clams on toast; and seared mackerel with bread sauce and pickled gooseberries.

The signature dish, however, will see a whole chicken roasted with anchovies, black olives, garlic, onion, thyme and white wine, and served with hispi cabbage and pangrattato.

“The menu will slowly evolve as the seasons change,” explains Leigh.

“There are new dishes to be seen, and classics to indulge in.”

Leigh first came to prominence as head chef at Kensington Place in Notting Hill, a role he held for nearly two decades.

He subsequently ran Parisian-inspired Café Anglais in London between 2008 and 2014, and later spent time as a chef consultant working for Soho House Group and at Prescott and Conran’s Parabola restaurant.

More recently, Leigh helped oversee the launch of Sam’s Riverside as culinary director, but Chez Rowley is the first solo venture he’s embarked on since the closure of Café Anglais.

“Chez Rowley will bring forth a sense of comfort, holiday nostalgia and the dishes we like to eat,” the chef adds.

Laylow was launched by Taz Fustok and Jonathan Krauss on Golborne Road back in 2017.

The four-storey club and restaurant is known for its high-profile celebrity clientele, which has included David Beckham, Pixie Geldof, Guy Ritchie and Jack Whitehall.

Fustok and Krauss also run the recently-launched Lórian in Chelsea.