Tapas restaurant opens second site in Charing Cross

The new premises, on Caxton Walk, Charing Cross Road, are currently being refurbished and an opening date is slated for the end of February or the beginning of March.

This will be the eighth tapas restaurant for co-owners Tiho Strbac and Rajaratman Kumar, but the first time the partners are expanding an existing brand rather than launching a new one.

“We started in this business 15 years ago, and the idea was to open individual restaurants that were untied brands. We wanted to create places that could have the feel of a favourite local,” explained Kumar, who runs the day-to-day operations in all sites.

Together with a number of private investors, the partners now run seven restaurants throughout London and its suburbs, each of which is an independent company.

Building a brand?​

Jamon Jamon, which has been running in Camden for around a decade, is the first brand they decided to duplicate.

“We’re toying with the idea of building one of our brands, and Jamon Jamon is the most well-known and the most successful,” said Kumar.

Kumar and Strbac will be duplicating the atmosphere of the current Jamon Jamon in the Charing Cross location. It will have a “minimalist feel”, with bare walls, wooden tables and copper lights.

Covering a total of 2,100 sq ft over two floors (ground and basement), the restaurant will accommodate 110 covers inside and 35 covers outside.

The site, which was acquired through property agents Cedar Dean Gilmarc, was previously a Chinese restaurant. Kumar and Strbac bought the remaining lease of 23 years for £35K, and will be paying an annual rent of £85K.

The owners told BigHospitality that if the new Jamon Jamon restaurant is successful it could prompt them to expand the brand further.

“We wouldn’t want to dilute the concept, so we wouldn’t think of creating 50 restaurants. But further expansion is something we’d have to assess in the future.”

The ‘soul’ of a restaurant​

The other sites owned by the partners are:

• La Siesta, Ealing
• Tapeo, West Hampstead
• Sangria, Chelsea
• Carmen, Clapham Common
• La Cuenta, Wandsworth
• Jamon Jamon, Camden
• Kumar’s 42, Hampstead

“We have Spanish staff in all our restaurants, and they are the ones that make the place. Often, they come from the same region, and they bring there own individuality to the restaurant.”

“We want to keep this individuality, which is why we haven’t made all the sites one brand. Brands are often soulless, and we try to keep the soul is our restaurants.”

“But we do use the benefit of group purchasing, which lets us negotiate better deals with our suppliers.”