The new restaurant will be more accessible than the current offering and is described by O’Hare as having a “surf shack" feel with a brutalist design.
Announcing the news on Instagram, O’Hare said the move was in response to the changing restaurant landscape that has been hit first by Brexit, then the pandemic and then the current cost of living crisis.
“Things need to change because the world has changed and I‘ve changed, my team has changed,” he says. “Our ability hasn’t but the world has.”
Psycho Sandbar will serve a “fish heavy” menu and move away from the set menu format currently served at The Man Behind The Curtain to give diners more flexibility. “It will be a surf shacky kind of restaurant that is brutalist in design where you can eat beautifully grilled fish, pitta bread with plankton [have] champagne cocktails, whatever you want,” says O’Hare.
“You can do six plates and have whole roast duck if you want, we just want to categorise things in a way that’s like ‘this is the product, that’s what we are going to do to it and that’s how much it costs' and if you want it - and you really do.”
The restaurant is still going to be refined and offer a fine dining experience but in a much more accessible way, according to the chef.
Earlier this year O’Hare launched a ‘menu rapide’ at the restaurant to encourage more people to dine with him. Diners can choose from a four-course lunch for £40 or a six-course dinner for £60, significantly less than the £165 O’Hare charges for a Saturday dinner.
The Man Behind The Curtain’s last service will be 31 December, after which time the restaurant will close for a few weeks for a refurb before reopening as Psycho Sandbar.
“Then in comes a new baby,” adds O’Hare. “It’s the same team, the same building and company - these things don’t change. All that is changing is the name, offering and outlook.”
