Called The Cocochine, the restaurant, first announced in February last year, is a partnership between the Sri Lanka-born Jayasekara and art dealer Tim Jefferies, who runs Hamiltons Gallery in Mayfair, and named after an affectionate term for Jefferies’s young daughter.
Set over four floors, The Cocochine will feature a basement wine cellar; a 28-cover dining room on the ground level complete with seven-seat chef’s counter; and a two-storey private dining space able to hold up to 14 guests.
Billing itself as prioritising ‘personal connection and old-school hospitality’, the restaurant will not offer online bookings with guests needing to reserve a table over the phone. Additionally, the restaurant will offer ‘exclusive table use’ (no turning of tables) at both lunch and dinner.
Jayasekara’s menu will be fully à la carte and is described as ‘a celebration of the joy of eating’, with the restaurant sourcing nearly all of its produce from regenerative mixed farmland in Northamptonshire.
Fruit, vegetables, seasonal flowers and livestock, including game as well as native and rare-breed pigs, will come direct from the farm, which also boasts a natural spring supplying the restaurant with still and sparkling water.
“Growing up in a village in Sri Lanka, you understand from an early age how much time and commitment goes into farming great ingredients,” says Jayasekara.
“As chefs, we have access to some of the finest produce in the world, and I want to support those systems both here and overseas and celebrate them in every menu.”
Classic wines from Burgundy and Bordeaux and a selection of bins from around the world will sit alongside boutique and small production varietals.
The core of the list is from the private cellar collection of up to 1,000 references of fine wines and champagnes.
Non-alcoholic alternatives will be fermented, diffused and distilled in-house from a selection of hand-rolled, cold-brewed teas from Sri Lanka and syrups extracted from the fruit and flowers from the farm.
Jayasekara arrived in the UK in 2002 from his native Sri Lanka.
His early career saw him work at the three Michelin-starred Waterside Inn as chef de partie; Michel Bras in Route de Laguiole; and Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons.
In 2015 he joined Gordon Ramsay's Pétrus as senior sous chef. In 2016, he won the Craft Guild National Chef of the Year Award, and was promoted to head chef at Pétrus shortly after. He left the restaurant in 2018.
The Cocochine will be open for lunch from 12pm with last orders at 2pm, and dinner from 6pm with last orders at 9:30pm.