Restaurant Radar: July 2022

Isibani​
Named after a Zulu word meaning ‘bring the light’, Isibani is being launched by owners Anthony Douglas Chuka and Abdul Malik Abubakar with Nigerian-born chef Victor Okunowo heading up the kitchen. The Knightsbridge restaurant will have a 22-cover fine dining room on the ground floor with a more relaxed 24-cover upstairs dining area serving a different menu as well as a 16-cover roof terrace. The menu will focus on dishes from West Africa, with highlights set to include a jerk poussin taco; and chicken kiev with offal nkowbi, onions, and peach.
9 Knightsbridge Green, London, SW1X 7QL​
isibani.com​​

The Baring​
Chef Rob Tecwyn and general manager Adam Symonds are re-uniting to launch a London gastropub 10 years after they first met at Highgate’s renowned The Bull and Last. Opening on 12 July, The Baring will be located, suitably, on the Islington’s Baring Street and be defined by Tecwyn’s ‘simple yet considered cooking’ which will ‘promote humble ingredients and seasonal produce’ against a backdrop of low intervention wines and independent UK breweries. The food menu will be concise and include the likes of smoked eel and pig’s head terrine, horseradish and daikon; roast gurnard, Roscoff onion and taramasalata; grilled lamb rump, kofte, aubergine and shishito pepper; and warm almond cake and Chantilly cream. To drink, keg and cask beers will feature a rotating selection from UK-based small breweries including Burning Sky, Little Earth, Five Points, and Cornwall’s Harbour Brewing. There will also be wines sourced from independent, low intervention winemakers.
55 Baring St, London N1 3DS​
thebaring.co.uk​​

Tatale​​

Akwasi Brenya-Mensa’s debut London restaurant Tatale will launch at The Africa Centre’s new location in Southwark later this month. Originally set to launch early this year, the contemporary Pan-African concept takes its name from the plantain pancake tatale, a quintessential Ghanaian dish. The menu will showcase dishes and techniques originating from the world’s second largest continent in a bid to ‘introduce people outside of these communities to the vast array of amazing dishes, ingredients and techniques’. Dishes will include chichinga buttermilk fried chicken wings with dill emulsion; ackee croquettes with curry emulsion; and red snapper moqueca with onion and tarragon.
66 Great Suffolk St, London SE1 0BL​​
tataleandco.com​​​

Kino​
Opening in Leed’s national opera company Opera North this month, Kino is a 100-cover, three-storey restaurant that will celebrate local suppliers. It will kick off with a summer menu of the region’s cheese and charcuterie before operating a full food offer and a residency from a Leeds-based pop-up brand from September.
34 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 6NU​
kinoleeds.co.uk​​

Valderrama’s​

Named after famed Columbian footballer Carlos Valderrama, James Cochran’s second restaurant project will open close to his highly-rated 12:51 restaurant on Islington’s Upper Street. The 48-cover site will be filled with specially-commissioned murals, paintings, including one made from vintage goalie shirts and will ‘evoke 90s nostalgia’. The venue will act as a permanent home for Cochran’s By The Cluck delivery concept with a menu that majors on crispy buttermilk fried chicken. The drinks offer will be focused on beers from Beavertown, frozen margaritas and other cocktails. “This is a game changer,” he says. “It’s a sports bar, but we’re inclusive – there’s no discrimination here, just good drinks, great food and an amazing atmosphere.”
163 Upper St, Islington, London N1 1US​
valderramas.co.uk​​

Miznon​​
Israeli chef-restaurateur Eyal Shani will make his UK debut with a site for his Miznon restaurant brand opening in Soho on 15 July. Opening on Broadwick Street, the fast-casual restaurant is bringing Mediterranean flavours with dishes such as whole cauliflower; lamb kebab; and minute steak plate with tahini, and salsa. Miznon first opened in Tel Aviv in 2011 and has since expanded to Paris, Vienna, New York, Melbourne, Singapore, Boston. There’s more to come from Shani, too, who plans to open his HaSalon restaurant in Notting Hill later in the year.
8-12 Broadwick St, London W1F 8HN​​

Bubala Soho​

After a number of delays, critically-acclaimed Middle Eastern restaurant Bubala is finally set to launch its second London site in Soho. Opening on 11 July, the new Poland Street restaurant is described as an ‘extension’ of the group’s original Spitalfields site and will hold 50 covers including an eight-seat kitchen counter. The dining area will be more spacious and the menu more expansive, with a greater emphasis on cooking over fire thanks to the restaurant’s yakitori grill. Signature dishes will include halloumi with black seed honey; confit potato latkes with toum and Aleppo chilli; cabbage with mandarin and ras el hanout ponzu; and Yemeni malawach with stracciatella, kalamata olives and smoked aubergine honey. The drinks menu, meanwhile, will feature wine on tap; bottled natural wines; UK produced beers; and Gazoz house sodas, a homemade seltzer combined with natural, locally sourced fruits, flowers, spices, herbs and syrups.
15 Poland St, London W1F 8QE​
https://bubala.co.uk/​​

Caia​
Neighbourhood wine bar and restaurant Caia will open on London’s Golborne Road in Notting Hill this month. Named after the Roman goddess of fire, Caia is being launched by Rishabh Vir and Tim Lang and will have a ground floor restaurant and a basement bar and music venue. The ground floor dining room will have space for 60 covers including a bar and open kitchen at which 10 diners can sit. To the rear will be a 12-cover wine room complete with a floor to ceiling wine display. Caia will serve ‘wine-friendly’ sharing plate dishes cooked on a custom-made, open fire grill including charred meats and vegetables alongside a range of ferments, vinegars and preserves. Smaller options such as asparagus with smoked onion and crispy chicken skin, or gilled artichoke with cured egg yolk, will sit alongside larger dishes such as monkfish with ancho chilli and beetroot; and pork belly with lavender molasses. Desserts, meanwhile, will include Caia’s smoked cheesecake with Kentish strawberries; and macerated peaches with lemon sorbet and lemon verbena.
46 Golborne Rd, London W10 5PR​

Updown​

Duck Duck Goose founder Oli Brown and his partner Ruth Leigh are to launch an outdoor restaurant with rooms near Deal, Kent, later this month. Housed within a 17th century Grade II-listed farmhouse, Updown will have seven rooms in total including two cottages, all of which have been carefully restored by the couple over the past few years. Updown's main farmhouse will hold four bedrooms all overlooking the site's extensive grounds, with the additional rooms housed within the farm’s former outbuildings. Alongside this there will be the outdoor restaurant, which will be led by Brown and sheltered under a pergola shaded by hanging vines and wisteria. The restaurant will overlook Updown's central lawn and farmhouse, and have its own outdoor kitchen with a bakers oven built into the stable wall. A far cry from Duck Duck Goose, the modern Cantonese canteen Brown previously operated at POP Brixton in London, Updown's restaurant will serve an 'Italian leaning hyper-seasonal' menu with dishes including raw sea bass with almonds and cherries; and grilled lamb chump with broad beans, artichokes and bagna cauda.
Updown Farm, Updown Road, Betteshanger, Deal, CT14 0EF​
https://updownfarmhouse.com/​​