Restaurant Radar: June 2022

CORD by Le Cordon Bleu​
French culinary school Le Cordon Bleu will open its first London restaurant later this month, more than two years later than planned. CORD by Le Cordon Bleu will launch on 85 Fleet Street in the City of London and feature a fine dining restaurant; a café; and an outpost to the London Le Cordon Bleu culinary institute, offering short courses with Le Cordon Bleu chefs. Open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday, the 90-cover CORD restaurant will showcase varying menu offerings including daily à la carte, a weekly-changing set lunch, and evening tasting menus. A 30-cover CORD café, meanwhile, will serve French patisseries and viennoiseries baked on-site daily, as well as sandwiches, salads and soups.
85 Fleet St, London EC4Y 1AE​
www.cordrestaurant.co.uk​​

Honey & Co​
Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer influential Middle Eastern restaurant Honey & Co opens at its new location on  Bloomsbury’s Lamb’s Conduit Street. The small but influential Warren Street restaurant closed earlier this year after 10 years following the landlord’s decision not to renew the lease. On the former site of Cigala, the new iteration of Honey & Co retain may of the dishes that made the original famous - including its falafel, seasonal salads and honey cheesecake - but the larger kitchen will see it be able to offer a wider menu that will include stuffed vegetables, dumplings and meat dishes designed to share. 
54 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1N 3LW​
www.honeyandco.co.uk​​

Firebird​

Former Caravan head chef Nikos Kontongiannatos is to lead the kitchen at Firebird, a lively new open-fire restaurant and natural wine bar that’s set to open in London’s Soho on 7 June. Marking the UK debut for restaurateurs Madina Kazhimova and Anna Dolgushina, who both hail from St Petersburg, Firebird will serve a largely European menu with Kontongiannatos drawing on his Greek heritage to create a selection of wood-fired sharing dishes such as charred peaches with ricotta and coriander; pork belly with a plum ketchup and green salad; and hand-dived scallops with truffle mash. The drinks offering, meanwhile, will primarily comprise draft cocktails and a dynamic wine selection of wines from small producers across the continent. The 46 cover space will use terracotta flooring, exposed brick walls and cascading plants to create an earthy, natural space reminiscent of those hugging the coasts of mainland Europe.
29 Poland Street, London W1F 8QR​

Maria G’s ​

Darby’s and Bermondsey Larder chef Robin Gill will draw on his experience of working in a Southern Italy fishing village for his latest restaurant launch. Located on the ground floor of a new development on a quiet residential street between Kensington and Earl’s Court, Maria G’s will be the Ireland-born chef’s second Italian restaurant project, joining Clapham’s Sorella. The menu will focus on food from the south of the country in the summer but look to the north during the winter.
Coe House, 1-4 Warwick Lane, London W14 8FN​
www.mariags.co.uk​​

Black and Green​
Birmingham-based chef Andrew Sheridan is set to launch a 16-seater ‘neighbourhood’ restaurant in the Worcestershire village of Barnt Green. Black and Green follows the success of his ambitious flagship 8 - which is themed around the number eight - along with another tasting menu concept called Divide and the more casual Craft. The restaurant will offer ‘a modern interpretation of British flavours’ by way of a five or six course tasting menu (£55/£65) that includes the likes of beef and root tartar; jumbo plaice with buttermilk sauce; chocolate and cherry pie.
49 Hewell Road, Barnt Green, Worcestershire B458NT ​
www.aboutdining.co.uk​​

Zephyr​

Pachamama Group will open its first non-Peruvian focused restaurant in the capital later this month. Named Zephyr, the Grecian restaurant and bar will open on Notting Hill’s Portobello Road and will have a ground floor restaurant and a 32-seat cocktail bar below. The kitchen will be led by Greek South American executive chef John Skotidas, former executive chef of Mazi restaurants and Suzi Tros in London and co-owner and culinary director of Egg Run. Zephyr will be the fourth restaurant in the Pachamama Group, which also runs London’s Pachamama Bar + Kitchen, Chicama and Pachamama East. 
100 Portobello Road, London W11 2QD​
www.zephyr.london​​

Gleneagles Townhouse​
The famed Gleneagles Hotel will soon open its first venture beyond the Perthshire hills in its almost 100-year history. Gleneagles Townhouse will be a 33-bedroom hotel, members’ club and all-day restaurant located at 39 St Andrew Square in Edinburgh. The F&B offer has been created in partnership with PASKIN & Associates, the new hospitality studio created by The Palomar and The Blue Posts founders Zoë and Layo Paskin. At the heart of the townhouse will be modern brasserie The Spence, led by head chef Jonny Wright - an alumnus of the Paskin’s Evelyn’s Table restaurant in Soho. 
39 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh EH2 2AD​
www.gleneagles.com​​

Boundary​
In the space that was home to Albion Café The Boundary hotel’s new ground floor restaurant will be called simply Boundary. Overseen by former 1 Lombard Street and Ekte chef Robin Freeman, the 100-cover restaurant and bar will serve a menu of modern British food with a European influence. The new opening follows the acquisition of the hotel by James McCulloch of Harcourt Inns and an extensive renovation of the venue that was formerly owned and designed by Sir Terence Conran.
2-4 Boundary St, London E2 7DD​
www.boundary.london​​

Mambow​

Malaysian-born chef Abby Lee is relaunching her Mambow restaurant concept this month at Peckham’s Market Stalls. Lee launched Mambow in Spitalfields just before the pandemic as an affordable breakfast and lunch-focused bowl food spot but the brand will return as a more complete restaurant offering a menu that takes ‘an enlightened, fresh and playful’ approach to Malaysian cuisine alongside natural wines. The site will share a 1,750 sq ft 60-cover ground floor space with rotisserie chicken, beers and cocktails concept Rotorious. Dishes will include The M Wing (deep-fried chicken wing tossed in an anchovy sambal served with lime); Hainanese chicken sando; acar awak (pickled seasonal vegetables and pineapple with coriander seeds and crushed peanuts); lor bak (deep-fried five spice pork and prawn rolls in a bean curd skin); and kerabu glass noodles (roasted and pounded desiccated coconut, herbs, shallots, vegan sambal, tofu puffs, beansprouts and lime).
133a Rye Lane, London SE15 4BQ​
www.mambow.co.uk ​​

Fatto Pizza & Beer​
Brighton & Hove-based restaurant group Fatto a Mano is to put down permanent roots in the capital later this month with the launch of Fatto Pizza & Beer in King’s Cross. The Neapolitan pizza brand, which operates two Boxpark locations in Croydon and Shoreditch as well as three bricks and mortar restaurants in Brighton & Hove, will open on Pancras Square with a slightly tweaked concept that, as the name suggests, puts the pairing of pizza and craft beer front and centre. As with all Fatto a Mano pizzerias – the name translating as ‘made by hand’ - the dough used at the King’s Cross restaurant will be made fresh every day and proved for at least 24 hours Pizza options to feature on the menu will include the Diavola with tomato, spicy salami, chilli, mozzarella, parmesan and basil; the Salsiccia e Friarielli with fennel sausage, Neapolitan broccoli, chilli, smoked cheese, mozzarella and parmesan; and a vegan pizza with tomato, olive and tomato ‘nduja, roasted peppers, black olives, vegan cheese and basil. Craft beers on tap will include Fatto Bionda Pilsner brewed by Harbour Brewing Co of Cornwall; Joosy Hazy Pale from Brightonian brewery UnBarred; and KBirr’s #cuoredinapoli AP.
Unit 1, 3 Pancras Square, London N1C 4AG​
www.fattoamanopizza.com​​

Burger & Beyond Soho​
London-based street food operator Burger & Beyond is to open a huge 119-cover site on Old Compton Street in Soho this month; one of two new openings planned for the summer. It will be the group’s second permanent location in the capital and serve all of the brand’s signature burgers and sides, including the bacon butter burger topped with American cheese, burnt butter mayonnaise, onion and crisp pancetta bacon. Exclusive items to feature on the menu, meanwhile, will include the XL pork belly burger featuring a dry-aged beef patty, double American cheese, thick cut crispy rolled pork belly, pickleback slaw and sweet honey mustard sauce; and a side dish of cheeseburger wontons with ‘Mac’ sauce.
10 Old Compton Street, London W1D 4TF​
www.burgerandbeyond.co.uk​​