VQ, St Giles Hotel, London

After almost 18 years operating from a single site in London's Fulham Road, 24-hour ​​café and diner concept VQ doubled up this month,​​ having acquired the ground-floor unit of the St Giles Hotel in Bloomsbury.

The 120-cover, 3,700 sq.ft restaurant is almost double the size of the original, benefitting from a late-night refreshment licence which will allow food and drink to be served 24 hours a day.

VQ’s managing director Simon Prideaux told BigHospitality that he won’t be taking a cookie-cutter approach with the new venue, as he expects more to follow in the capital and eventually further afield.  “I think it’s really important that every site we take has its own character, he said. “But there will of course be elements of the Fulham Road site’s design. Since revamping the original site, we’ve been tweaking the menu over the past year and I think we have it right – so the menu at Great Russell Street will be 99 per cent the same."

VQ, St Giles Hotel, London - 15 October.