Alan Lorrimer to open live music bar and restaurant The Piano Works

The 400-capacity venue, situated in the basement of an old Victorian warehouse on the corner of Ray Street and Farringdon Road, will officially launch this Friday (3 July). 

Its premise is to allow guests to request songs that will be played live by two pianists and accompanying musicians who have been chosen by the venue's musical director Andy Pianoman Johnson.

Head chef Fedja Stanic has created a simple menu of sharing dishes, such as steak and crab sliders, charcuterie and smoked haddock croquettes and Filled Rolls or Not - rolls filled with meat, fish or vegetarian options, a dipping sauce and smoked paprika and herb salt coated chips, or the same, without a roll and with a side salad. 

Operations director and general manager Tristan Moffat, formerly of Novus Leisure, has devised the cocktail list which includes 18 'classically strange' cocktails - from the Mojito and Cosmopolitan to Mai Tai and Old Fashioned.  

Lorrimer, who founded London venues Tiger Lil's, Charlotte Street Blues and Guanabara, said he wanted to create a 'house of song' that would 'cater to London's obsession with the original.'

"Singing is the primary form of our earliest human musical activity. It takes something incredibly intimate and personal, a sound or lyric that begins inside you and is then safely shared with a group of strangers that amazingly returns to you as harmony."

The Piano Works will open from 4pm to 1am Mondays to Saturdays and from Midday to 1am on Sundays.