Japanese-Italian restaurant Itaku to open in Marylebone next year

Called Itaku, the 60-cover restaurant will open on Great Portland Street serving a menu of Italian cuisine using Japanese flavours and techniques.

Fernandez-Versini is founder of Cannes pop up nightclub Cosy Box, which is now in its 15th year, while Simeoli has worked at venues including The Royal Academy of Arts, The Wallace Collection and Massimo Bottura’s three Michelin starred restaurant Osteria Francescana.

Signature dishes will include soya milk poached pork belly with baked Umbrian beans; miso Cornish monkfish with flamed pumpkin and Tuscan black cabbage; Sicilian red prawns with black truffle ponzu and shis; truffle carbonara; and seafood linguine.

There will also be a raw bar with a selection of sashimi and vegetables.

The drinks offer will be in keeping with the Japanese/Italian approach, with a cocktail menu curated by Nicholas Medicamento, previously bartender at American Bar at The Savoy. Cocktails will include East to West Manhattan made with Angel's Envy bourbon whisky, Umeshu plum liqueur, Cocchi Vermouth di Torino and Plum and rootbeer bitter; and a Bloody Itaku, a Japanese twist on a Bloody Mary made with yawatawa isogoro and yuzu juice.