Restaurant radar: the key openings of 2025

22 Bishopsgate

Probably the biggest launch of 2025 in terms of investment and square footage, Gordon Ramsay Group’s upcoming project at 22 Bishopsgate will have a total of five different restaurant brands including Lucky Cat and Bread Street Kitchen. Most intriguingly, it will also be home to a 14-seat chef’s table that is an offshoot of Ramsay’s three-Michelin-starred eponymous Chelsea flagship.

Le Caprice

Five years on from the closure of its original location on Arlington Street, iconic London restaurant Le Caprice is set to relaunch next summer in a new home at The Chancery Rosewood in Mayfair. The new Le Caprice will be sited on the southeast corner of the £1bn luxury hotel and leisure redevelopment of the former US Embassy, and is set to hold around 200 covers. Further details are thin on the ground, but owner Richard Caring has promised the new restaurant will ‘keep the essence’ of the original Le Caprice.

Francesco Mazzei at The Corinthia

Calabrian chef Francesco Mazzei returns to London next summer with a restaurant at The Corinthia hotel in the space that was previously home to its The Northall brasserie. Details are scant, but Mazzei is promising a return to his L’Anima days with a high-end Italian restaurant using British produce.

Simpson’s in the Strand

The historic London restaurant is being brought back to life under the stewardship of Jeremy King, who will return it to its former grandeur. The silver carving trolleys will feature for carving and desserts with King planning to keep the main dining room in its original guise but add a more accessible and affordable diffusion restaurant upstairs.

The Cut & Craft Manchester

Steakhouse group The Cut & Craft has chosen the former Royal Bank of Scotland building in Manchester for its impressive new restaurant. Described as ‘the final extravagant palazzo style building in the city’, the 150-cover restaurant and will feature a central marble-topped bar, marble-topped tables, plush green velvet seating, and a marbled floor.

Bar Valette

This new venture from The Clove Club’s Isaac Mchale will occupy the former Two Lights site on London’s Kingsland Road and will be an informal wine bar and restaurant with French and Spanish influences. It will be headed up by Erin Jackson, who will move over from nearby The Clove Club, who has helped create a menu of sharing dishes.

Carbone

Italian-American food was a major trend this year but there’s more to come in 2025 as one of New York’s hottest restaurants crosses The Pond. Launched in Greenwich Village a decade or so ago, Carbone is an upscale take on a classic ‘red sauce’ joint that’s famed for its spicy rigatoni vodka and veal parm. The UK iteration will be within the upcoming The Chancery Rosewood in Mayfair.

Din Tai Fung Canary Wharf

Xiao long bao-specialist Din Tai Fung will open a restaurant within Canary Wharf’s Crossrail Place early next year taking its total number of London sites up to four. On the former site of modern Indian restaurant concept Chai Ki, the site will have space for 112 covers plus a private dining room that seats 16.

Shanghai Me

Dubai-based group Fundamental Hospitality is to open a London outpost for its high-end pan Asian restaurant brand Shanghai Me on the former Galvin at Windows site next year. The rooftop restaurant, housed on the 28 floor of the London Hilton hotel on Park Lane, will boast 1930s Shanghai-inspired interiors by designer Richard Saunders. The menu will be inspired by the culinary traditions of East Asia and will feature an extensive ‘library’ of dim sum; wagyu kushiyaki; and miso cod.

Velvet Taco

Another year, another US-based QSR chain looking to take a slice of the UK market. This time it’s the turn of Tex-Mex brand Velvet Taco, which is to make its UK debut in London’s Piccadilly Circus next spring. The brand positions itself as ‘incorporating diverse culinary influences’ into its menu, with tacos inspired by global flavours. They include a London-inspired fish and chips taco with beer-battered cod, curry aioli, French fries, malt vinegar and napa slaw.

Alba

Billed as ‘a little slice of the Italian coast, just a stone’s throw from Harrods’, Alba is set to open in London’s Knightsbridge next year. Located on Brompton Road, the restaurant will have an open kitchen and a seafood display. It will serve a seasonally-changing menu that includes Amalfi staples such as risotto con gamberi and lemon; and Sicilian gamberi rossi di Mazara.

WSH Restaurants

The Woodspeen and The Braywood operator WSH Restaurants has taken the former Mere site in Fitzrovia for an as-yet-unnamed modern British restaurant. No details have been released yet, but the currently four-strong fine dining group will be looking to make a splash given that the Charlotte Street site will be its London debut.

Louis London

Tattu and Fenix operator Permanently Unique says it has secured a ‘landmark London location’ for its Italian-American brand Louis. The concept – which is open for dinner only and is designed around a central stage that hosts live music performances – launched in Manchester’s Spinningfields earlier this year and has been a big success, according to the group.

Brasserie Constance

Trinity chef Adam Byatt will further extend his reach in South West London with a modern British brasserie at the upcoming Fulham Pier development. Set for a Spring launch, Brasserie Constance will offer an à la carte menu and a set lunch menus comprised of ‘approachable, immaculately executed seasonal dishes’.

Dué

Jesús Durón, former executive chef at Mexico City’s famed Pujol, is teaming up with Yardbird Hong Kong co-founder Lindsay Jang to open a restaurant in London next year. Dué is described as being a globally-inspired, seasonally-focused upscale restaurant. Its location has yet to be revealed.

Chotto Matte Manchester

Chotto Matte’s enormous Manchester restaurant will launch early next year, some six months later than originally planned. Atop the St Michael’s development, the 20,000sq ft, 450-cover rooftop restaurant will be the largest in the city.

Maneki Ramen

Birmingham will be home to Maneki Ramen’s second restaurant, which is opening in The Midlands city in the spring. Located in the Jewellery Quarter it will have space for 70 covers on the ground floor dining room, plus an additional 40 seats downstairs and will be led in the kitchen by head chef Pete Dovaston.

Kricket Shoreditch

The latest opening from Kricket founders Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell marks an evolution for the Indian restaurant brand. Located on Shoreditch’s Charlotte Road it will be the brand’s first all-day café and bar concept alongside its signature restaurant, which means a breakfast menu, the highlights of which will include a jaggery glazed bacon chop and Bombay toasties. Kricket Shoreditch opens in March.

Noisy Oyster

Brought to you by the team behind Soho restaurant and wine bar Firebird, Noisy Oyster will serve a modern seafood menu as well as ‘innovative’ martinis. Expect local oysters, crudo, and classic whole fish dishes as well as some ‘killer’ cocktails.

Harry’s at The Gallivant

Former Bibendum chef Matthew Harris is heading to the East Sussex town of Rye for his latest venture. Located within boutique hotel The Gallivant, Harry’s will celebrate British cuisine with a menu inspired by Harris’ career spent in classic French restaurants and the chefs who have shaped his approach to cooking.

Voyage with Adam Simmonds

The Megaro hotel in King’s Cross welcomes Adam Simmons in the new year for an eponymous restaurant that represents the chef’s ‘personal evolution’. The food will have a Scandinavian bent with the cooking style combining traditional methods with modern techniques.

BloodSports

Covent Garden’s bar scene is set to massively improve in January when MEATliquor founder Scott Collins opens his sports bar, BloodSports. Located on Endell Street, expect MEATliquor’s range of food, inventive cocktails, and live sport aplenty.

Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard

Now a dominant force in the on-trade, Guinness’s popularity has gone from strength to strength in recent years, as demonstrated by the recent shortages of the black stuff in pubs. In 2025, the popularity of the Irish stout is set to reach new heights with the opening of the new Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard, a vast 50,000sq ft space spanning Mercer Walk, Langley Street, Neal Street and Shelton Street in London’s Covent Garden. It will house a microbrewery, a restaurant, an events space with an open-fire kitchen and a 360-degree glass rooftop space.

Dove

Following the closure of Orasay this month, Jackson Boxer is set to relaunch his Notting Hill restaurant space in January under a new concept that he says will be ‘more suited to today’s economy’. Opening on 7 January, Dove will serve a menu that Boxer describes as being what he ‘wants to cook and eat right now’. Think lemon and ricotta dumplings with lobster cream and lime leaf; pork and duck meatballs; steamed hake, grilled cabbage, capers and lemon; and roast chicken, fennel, and blood orange.

La Môme

French restaurateurs Ugo and Antoine Lecorché are taking over the space that was once home to Marcus Wareing’s eponymous flagship at The Berkeley. With sister locations in Cannes and Monte Carlo, La Môme London represents a major change of direction for the Knightsbridge hotel being both enormous – around 250-covers – and relatively informal (although still spendy).

Sandwich Sandwich

Having made its mark on the capital earlier this year with the opening of its first London site in The City, Bristol-based operator Sandwich Sandwich is looking to go even bigger in 2025 by launching what it says will be ‘the biggest sandwich shop in the UK’. The 3,500sq ft site will be located on Mark Lane in the City of London and serve the brand’s signature menu of stacked sandwiches. Based on the reaction to its first London site, expect long queues when this one opens.

The Prince Arthur

Opening in London’s Belgravia on 15 January, The Prince Arthur will combine a stylish neighbourhood ground floor pub and an upstairs Spanish restaurant led by chef Adam Iglesias serving dishes such as Iberico pork, Galician beef and seafood from Spain and Cornwall

BEAR by Carlo Scotto

Opening within the Crazy Bear Hotel in Beaconsfield, former Amethyst chef Carlo Scotto’s new restaurant will offer counter dining around an open kitchen serving a menu of Nordic, Asian and Arabic flavours. The restaurant is due to open in the spring.