Restaurant radar: November 2019
The Bull & Bear
Opening on 15 November in Manchester’s Stock Exchange Hotel, The Bull & Bear will see Tom Kerridge and executive chef Dan Scott serve a menu of refined British classic comfort food. Located in what was previously the trading floor of the Manchester Stock Exchange, the capacious restaurant will mark The hand & Flowers’ chef-patron’s second move into hotel dining, following the opening last year of the equally grand Kerridge’s Bar and Grill and the Corinthia Hotel. The cooking at Kerridge’s one-star The Coach will inform the menu, with dishes to include mushroom ‘risotto’ Claude Bosi; The Coach Burger; chicken kiev with cauliflower cheese; and The Coach profiteroles with soured vanilla cream.
4 Norfolk Street, Manchester
www.bullandbearmanchester.co.uk
IT Ibiza
‘Fine Mediterranean cuisine meets the Balearic beat of Ibiza’ is how restaurant group IT Ibiza describes its approach. The two-strong group (soon to be three, when it opens in Mayfair this month) doesn’t give much away online, with its website giving visitors the chance to book and little else, but it will be a 100ish cover London dining room split over two floors located in a former art gallery. Gennaro Esposito, the Michelin-starred chef who manages all three IT restaurants, is set to work with head chef Adriano Rausa to create a menu of southern Italian dishes including Esposito’s ‘signature’ spaghetti al pomodoro; and a seafood ‘Glassball Showstopper’ made using raw fish.
28-29 Dover Street, Mayfair, London
Sam’s Riverside
Located adjacent to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, Sam’s Riverside marks a welcome return to the restaurant world for Sam Harrison following the closure of his Sam’s Brasserie in Chiswick and Harrison’s in Balham a few years back. The 70-cover restaurant will serve a modern European menu with a focus on Anglo-French dishes with the kitchen overseen by head chef Harvey Trollope in collaboration with culinary director Rowley Leigh. Launch dishes will include starters of clams, braised trotter, and white beans; beef tartare, quail egg and dripping toast; and rabbit ragù pappardelle (£7.50-£10) with mains such as pork shoulder steak with chimichurri; and brick chicken, black cabbage and ‘poor man’s Parmesan’ (£12-£36).
1 Crisp Walk, Hammersmith, London
Daffodil Mulligan
Named after the daughter of Biddy Mulligan - a legendary Dublin street seller - Daffodil Mulligan is from the restaurant and pub triumvirate that is Richard Corrigan, John Nugent and Tony Gibney. Located on Old Street on the former site of fellow Irishman Niall Davidson’s Nuala, the 60-cover restaurant will include a 10-seat oyster bar and a basement saloon bar and will have an ‘Irish heart’ but not be an Irish restaurant per se. Corrigan is looking to keep things more casual than at his Mayfair restaurants Bentley’s and Corrigan’s Mayfair with Daffodil Mulligan set to serve hearty dishes using produce from Corrigan’s Virginia Park Lodge country estate in Ireland.
70-74 City Road, Shoreditch, London
Amazonico
The area around Mayfair’s Berkeley Square isn’t a stranger to some extravagant even outlandish restaurants - Sexy Fish and Park Chinois being two notable examples - and later this month it will be home to yet another, in the form of rainforest-themed restaurant Amazonico. Spanish restaurateurs Santo da Silva and Marta Santos have taken on the former Allied Irish Bank building on Berkeley Square for their ambitious project which specialises in upmarket dining ‘inspired by tropical, Asian, Mediterranean and Brazilian cuisine’ to provide ‘a sensory journey through the Amazon’ - the foliage-heavy interior creating a space unlike any other restaurant in the capital. The menu is yet to be revealed but a sushi bar will feature and dishes will be made with ingredients native to South America.
4-19 Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London
Ivy Asia
With Amazonico parking up next to Sexy Fish, there is the possibility that Richard Caring could be upstaged when it comes to restaurant openings this month. But not if he has anything to do with it. Over in the City in St Paul’s he’s opening the second of his Ivy Group’s Asia restaurant - the first was in Manchester - and it’s no shrinking violet. On entering the double floor restaurant guests are met with a fluorescent pink onyx floor, panelled artwork depicting notable Japanese landscapes, and a pink pagoda with the entire floor of the upstairs dining room illuminated with green, semi-precious stone. Dishes on the menu will include small plates of steamed prawn dumplings with miso foam; crispy duck salad with green mango and ponzu; and crispy tofu bao bun; while larger dishes will be Thai seabass with coriander and lime chilli; and duck massaman curry. Cocktails, served from antique gold mirrored bar, have a similar eastern bent with the likes of Malaysian Margaritas made with tequila, aloe vera juice, coconut cream and lime. Subtle this ain’t.
20 New Change, London
Lina Stores KX
Italian deli and restaurant company Lina Stores is to launch its first site that encompasses both concepts in London’s King’s Cross later this month. Opening between Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square on Stable Street, the new Lina Stores will have 100 covers, contain an ‘aperitivo bar’ and open kitchen, and feature both ‘sunken booths’ and ‘banquette seating’. As with the company’s first restaurant, which opened on Soho’s Greek Street last year, the new site will focus on pasta with dishes including osso bucco ravioli with bone marrow butter; and duck egg yolk tagliolini with parmesan and fresh truffle.
20-21 Stable Street, King’s Cross N1C 4DR
https://www.linastores.co.uk/
Simplicity Burger
Chef Neil Rankin is opening a vegan burger restaurant that will provide an alternative to the "heavily processed" meat substitutes that most in the space are using. The two-storey space on Brick Lane (rather ironically positioned directly adjacent to Bacon Street) features with a tight menu of burgers available upstairs in a diner-style restaurant, with a cocktail bar below. The recipe and make-up of the patty is a closely guarded secret, but it involves three cooking stages and dehydrating and rehydrating some of the ingredients, which Rankin says are largely sourced from the UK.
202 Brick Lane, London E1 6SA
https://www.simplicityburger.london/
Sussex
The Gladwin brothers - Richard, Oliver and Gregory – have taken the Soho site once occupied by Anthony Demetre and Will Smith’s Arbutus as the location for their first West End restaurant. Sussex will offer ‘an eclectic mix of classic and progressive cooking’, with many of the ingredients coming directly from the Gladwins’ West Sussex family farm. Chef-patron Oliver Gladwin will oversee the kitchen, serving a menu that the restaurant says will combine the rustic and the refined. Dishes are set to include vinewood-roasted grouse; and Oliver’s ‘signature’ wellington range.
63-64 Frith St, Soho, London W1D 3JW
https://www.sussex-restaurant.com/
Volta do Mar
Salt Yard Group co-founder Simon Mullins and his wife Isabel Almeida Da Silva are setting up shop in Covent Garden with Portuguese restaurant Volta do Mar. The restaurant will focus on the regional cuisine of Portugal ‘from classic staples to dishes born of the country’s trading past and culinary interactions’, with former Sexy Fish and The Fat Duck chef George Tannock overseeing the kitchen. A frequently changing menu of both sharing and large plates will include dishes such as a traditional bean-based stew with smoked ham hock, a Macanese seafood rice served tableside from a cataplana; and a Goan dish of smoked chorizo served in a naan.
13-15 Tavistock Street, London WC2E 7PS
https://www.voltadomar.co.uk/
Market Halls West End
Billed as the largest food hall in the country, Market Halls’ latest venue will be housed in the former BHS building near Oxford Circus and have seating for more than 900 covers. 11 traders in total will take up residency in the site, with many familiar faces among the line-up. Former Restaurant Story head chef Angelo Sato is set to launch Japanese concept Yatai, which will serve a menu featuring katsu-inspired dishes including katsu sandos and katsu curry; while Tom Griffiths’ Flank is set to unveil new rotisserie chicken concept Good Birds. It will also feature smoked meats chain Hotbox; New York-style pizza brand Paradise Slice; and another site for Sichuanese restaurateur Shao Wei’s Baozilnn.
https://www.markethalls.co.uk/market/west-end
9 Holles Street, London, W1G 0BN
The Owl
The team behind Leeds’ fine dining restaurant HOME opened the first ever pub in the city’s historic Kirkgate Market on 1 November. MasterChef semi-finalist Liz Cottam and former Box Tree head chef Mark Owens are collaborating on The Owl, which serves a menu paying homage to its position at the top of the market’s fish and game row. The pair have created bar snacks, a la carte and three-course set menus, with specials including a daily-changing whole roast game bird with potatoes, vegetables, gravy and rabbit suet pudding. This is the first of four planned venues Cottam and Owens are opening at the market, including a high-end Chef’s Table experience.
Fish & Game Row, Kirkgate Market, Leeds
14 Hills
D&D London’s latest restaurant project is opening on the 14th floor of the 120 Fenchurch Street skyscraper development in The City. Thomas Piat, former executive chef at Bar Boulud at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, is overseeing the kitchen, serving an all-day modern British menu. The c.9,000 sq ft site is situated beneath and public roof garden, and D&D says it will have “spectacular views of the London skyline”, with a design inspired by “English terraces”. This is D&D’s largest restaurant opening in London since the launch of 10,000 sq ft Aster in Victoria in 2017.
https://www.danddlondon.com/restaurants/fourteen-hills/
14th floor, 120 Fenchurch St, London EC3M 5BA
640 East
Independent café and restaurant brand 640 East is setting up shop in Brighton, taking over the site formerly occupied by zero-waste dining room Silo. The ‘thoughtful food concept’ will serve a daily brunch and small plates menu, with the kitchen acting as a residency space for local chefs during the evenings. 640 East serves food, coffee and beer out of two shipping container sites in east London, and has a kiosk in Bristol. It is the brainchild of Brighton-based couple Ross Blake and Alice Duvernois, who will work with local Sussex producers on the menu.
39 Upper Gardner St, Brighton BN1 4AN
Bong Bong's Manila Kanteen
The team behind Filipino street food concept BBQ Dreamz, which appeared on the BBC’s My Million Pound Menu, are opening their first permanent restaurant in London's Bethnal Green on 7 November. Bong Bong's Manila Kanteen will serve a similiar menu of Filipino cuisine as BBQ Dreamz, with several new additions. Co-founder Lee Johnson says the restaurant is an "evolution" of the original concept, with a more "ambitious menu". New dishes include crumbed and fried Adobo chicken served with banana ketchup; and La Paz Batchoi, a noodle broth with pork and liver garnished with peanuts and spring onion. On Sunday's the restaurant will host a Filipino-style family feast, with food served on banana leaves and eaten by hand.
460 Hackney Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 9EG
