Restaurant radar: September 2024
Café Francois
François O’Neill will launch a follow up to his popular St James’s brasserie Maison François in Borough Yards this month. Opening on 17 September, Café François is billed as a modern-day French canteen that will draw influences from ‘the classic cafés of Paris, contemporary delis of California and the stylish bistros of Montreal’. The project will be headed by O’Neill with executive chef Matthew Ryle overseeing the kitchen and Ed Wyand heading up front of house. The all-day menu will pay homage to ‘much loved’ affordable French classics, whilst also embracing global influences and flavours. All bread and patisserie will be created in the in-house bakery, visible to customers behind a glass wall on the first floor. Café François’s design will celebrate Borough Market’s industrial past. Entering via the ground floor, guests will be greeted by the deli counter and chicken rotisserie. Passing by the restaurant’s open kitchen, guests move through into the dining room with a steel circular staircase breaking up the space and leading diners up to the first floor, where they will find two further dining rooms.
14-16 Stoney St, London SE1 9AD
cafefrancois.london
El Bolillo
Chef Greg Clarke and his partner and front of house counterpart Matty Salvetti will launch a casual-yet-high-reaching Mexican restaurant in Hove later this month. Taking its name from a Mexican slang word for a Western person, El Bolillo will offer a tight sharing menu centred on tacos and feature a clean and minimalistic design. Among the small plates will be Porthilly oysters with pickled piparras, Peruvian marigold and sour cream; and lamb belly skewers with black garlic al pastor paste and watermelon radish. Larger items, meanwhile, will include octopus with roasted peanut butter mole, orange and eucalyptus vinaigrette; and pork cheek with ox sauce, blood mole and plum pico served in a blood taco. Spend per head on food is expected to be between £55 and £60 per person.
60 Church Rd, Brighton and Hove, Hove BN3 2FP
elbolillo.co.uk
Sael
Less than a month on from relaunching his Pollen Street Social flagship as a grill-focused bar and restaurant called Mary’s, Jason Atherton is moving onto his next opening – a new British brasserie concept called Sael. Taking over the former Aquavit site in London’s St James’s Market development, Sael will 'celebrate all things British' with a menu that features only ingredients sourced from the British Isles. The 9,088sq ft restaurant, which Atherton will run in partnership with his wife Ihra, will focus on domestically sourced furnishings that will ‘pay homage to the restaurant’s location in the heart of the Capital’. The kitchen will be led by chef Dale Bainbridge, who has worked with Atherton for a decade, most recently as executive chef at Pollen Street Social.
1 St James's Market, St. James's, London SW1Y 4QQ
saellondon.com
Leydi
This month will see Selin Kiazim return to the capital with Leydi, an all-day restaurant in Farringdon the former Oklava chef says will ‘put Turkish food on the map’. Opening within the Ennismore-owned Hyde London City, Leydi will be inspired by Istanbul, offering ‘generous, celebratory Turkish food’ that takes cues from the city’s lokantas and meyhanes. The 90-cover restaurant will feature plush banquettes, warm lighting and ‘understated’ references to Istanbul’s architecture and interiors.
15 Old Bailey, London EC4M 7EF
hydehotels.com/london-city/restaurants-bars
Wildflowers
Chef Aaron Potter is partnering with interior stylist Laura Hart to launch a neighbourhood Mediterranean restaurant in London’s Belgravia this month. Set to open within Pimlico Road’s Newson’s Yard, Wildflowers will offer ‘elegant yet uncomplicated’ dishes paired with European wines in a ‘stylish and laid-back setting’. Designed by Hart - who has a background in high-end interiors – the restaurant will be a ‘bright, elegantly decorated space’. Above the main dining room will be an intimate wine bar that will take inspiration from the cicchetti and pintxos bars of Italy and Spain, with a selection of vermouths, amaros and spritzes, alongside a list of European wines.
Unit 2, 57 Pimlico Road, London SW1W 8NE
wildflowersrestaurant.co.uk
The Barbary Notting Hill
Hitherto Soho-based restaurant operators Zoë and Layo Paskin are heading West this month with an opening under their The Barbary brand in Notting Hill. Billed as the Paskin’s new flagship and housed in a Grade II-listed building on the corner of Westbourne Grove and Chepstow Road, the 75-cover restaurant will feature an open-plan dining room with counter seating and a cocktail bar. Designed by Archer Humphryes, the interiors will provide an ‘evocative experience’, enhanced throughout with natural finishes, rich textures and warm lighting. The kitchen will be led by head chef Daniel Alt and group development chef Aika Levins and take its culinary cues from the cuisines and countries of the Barbary Coast, from Southern Europe to Northern Africa.
112 Westbourne Grove, London W2 5RU
thebarbary.co.uk
Briar
Chef Sam Lomas has taken on the former Osip site in Bruton to open his first restaurant. The chef is partnering with husband-and-wife team Claudia and Aled Rees, owners of Number One Bruton, to open Briar restaurant at the Somerset-based venue. Opening early this month in the Georgian townhouse’s old hardware store, Briar will be a neighbourhood restaurant ‘with its feet planted firmly in the West Country’. Drawing inspiration from its namesake - a wild bramble or shrub native to England - the menu will celebrate hyper-local produce, foraged ingredients and be dictated by the growing seasons of the kitchen garden. Briar will serve a daily changing blackboard menu of small plates, snacks, sharing dishes and puddings alongside a ‘thoughtful’ drinks menu.
1 High Street Bruton Somerset BA10 0AB
numberonebruton.com/briar
Sesta
This month will see Drew Snaith and Hannah Kowalski relaunch diminutive Hackney restaurant Pidgin this month as Sesta. Billed as ‘a neighbourhood spot serving an à la carte menu championing British seasonal ingredients’, the new restaurant will embrace Snaith’s love of live fire cooking and combine creative takes on British and European dishes with nods to the chef’s time travelling in Southeast Asia with his father. Much of the restaurant’s produce will come from Shrub, which connect restaurants with Sussex farms, with much of the menu expected to change seasonally. Having previously worked at Pidgin as head chef and GM respectively, Snaith and Kowalski have retained that restaurant’s back and front of house teams including sous chef Ben Ing and general manager Majalis Lundstrom Celedon to help them run Sesta. The restaurant will hold 26 covers with plans to introduce counter dining later in the year, and feature dark walnut wood table tops, a deep blue colour palette with flecks of gold, and a rotating selection of art from local artists.
52 Wilton Way, London E8 1BG
The Coal Shed
Brighton-based restaurateur Razak Helalat will finally open his reimagined iteration of The Coal Shed this month. The project will be the largest Helalat’s Black Rock Restaurants Group has undertaken to date and see the steak restaurant move from its current location on Boyce’s Street to a far more prominent site on North Street. In Clarence House, the venture is being billed as one of Brighton’s biggest restaurants seating 142 cover in total. Helalat will work with recently recruited executive chef Lee Murdoch to ‘deliver a completely new culinary direction for the restaurant’ that ‘showcases the restaurant’s growth over the past 13 years’. The ‘more elevated’ menu will be driven by local produce and expands on The Coal Shed’s fire-cooking techniques. As before, the restaurant will major on beef but other proteins will be available. Capitalising on Brighton’s seaside location, the new restaurant will also feature an extensive seafood offering, both raw and cooked over flames, a Sturia Caviar menu and a selection of Copper Kettle oven cooked breads and dishes.
Clarence House, 30-31 North Street, Brighton BN1 1EB
coalshed-restaurant.co.uk/brighton
Da Costa
Mount St. Restaurant and The Groucho Club operator Artfarm will open an Italian restaurant in the Somerset town of Bruton this month. Located within art gallery Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Da Costa will occupy the previous Roth Bar & Grill space and is named after and inspired by Artfarm co-founder Iwan Wirth’s maternal grandfather, who was born in the Veneto region of Northern Italy. The restaurant will utilise seasonal ingredients from the nearby Durslade Farm and the surrounding area to create dishes ‘blending the best of both worlds: quintessential Englishness with Italian culinary flair’. The menu is billed as an exploration of traditional northern Italian recipes that acknowledges ‘the similarities between this mountainous region of Italy and the verdant county of Somerset’.
Durslade Farm, Dropping Lane, Bruton BA10 0NL
da-costa.co.uk
HomeSW13
Rebecca Mascarenhas’s Barnes restaurant Church Road will relaunch as the more casual HomeSW13 later this month. Mascarenhas - who along with chef Phil Howard owns the Michelin-starred Elystan Street and Kitchen W8 - says she is handing over the reins to Church Road senior team members Craig Gordon and Alan Parry. The new venture will be run along the same lines to HomeSW15 in Putney which offers ‘comforting, yet innovative, modern British food’ in a relaxed setting and is also run by Gordon.
94 Church Rd, London SW13 9HR
Soul Mama
Musician, broadcaster and author YolanDa Brown has confirmed that her music venue and restaurant concept Soul Mama will now open in London’s Stratford, having initially planned to launch in Islington. Opening on 5 September at The Gantry on the ground floor of the Design Hotel, Soul Mama will feature an extensive live music programme and serve a food menu that ‘fuses the authentic tastes of Africa, the Caribbean and South America’. As well as live music, Soul Mama’s entertainment roster will also incorporate comedy, fireside chats, and concerts for children and families. Chef Aleandro Brown, who trained under Gordon Ramsay at Maze Grill and more recently cooked alongside Helene Darroze At The Connaught, will lead the kitchen in his first executive chef role. Soul Mama’s design will be ‘artist-led’ that features a double height space with floor to ceiling windows, a central stage, and a mixture of tall and restaurant-style tables framed by a bar.
The Gantry, 40 Celebration Ave, Stratford, London E20 1DB
soulmama.co.uk
Khao Bird
Brighton-based restaurateur Mike Palmer is taking his Thai brand Lucky Khao to London with a residency above Borough Market pub The Globe Tavern. Overseen by head chef Luke Larsson, Khao Bird is inspired by the ‘vibrancy of open-air night markets in and around Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand and will serve regional specialities such as gai yang (grilled chicken) and khao soi (noodles in Thai curry sauce), using 'sustainably sourced' British ingredients and Thai spices. The wine list will be overseen by wine consultant and John Dory Wine-founder Zeren Wilson. Cocktails will include Thai inspired twists on margaritas while beers will be sourced both from nearby breweries and from Thailand.
8 Bedale St, London SE1 9AL
khaobird.com
