James Cochran's new restaurant replaces Chinese Laundry

1251 will open on the former site of sadly-closed dumpling specialist restaurant Chinese Laundry on Islington's Upper Street.

The 48-cover site will give diners the option of an a la carte menu of sharing plates, or five or eight course tasting menus.

A la carte dishes will include raw Orkney scallops, buttermilk whey, red meat radish, green apple and charcoal; potato spaghetti with cured egg yolk, truffle and burnt butter cream; and jerk spiced monkfish with iceberg lettuce, watermelon and coriander.

Snacks available in the afternoon will comprise potato crisp with oyster cream, seaweed and vinegar; picked white and brown Devon crab tartlet with prawn butter; and confit cauliflower with fermented bagna cauda and walnuts.

For large groups, sharing dishes such as a goat sharing board will be available, comprising a selection of cuts of goat served with black eyed pea dahl, roti, scotch bonnet jam and pineapple.

Wines will be sourced from all over the world, and a cocktail menu will include classics such as negronis made with house-made vermouth.

Interiors will be minimal, retaining many of the site’s original Victorian features such as its double-height windows.

Cochran’s CV includes a stint at The Ledbury in Notting Hill, after which the chef opened his eponymous restaurant James Cochran EC3 in 2016.

The chef opened James Cochran N1 last year, but it closed its doors after just four months, and reinvented itself as a pop-up.