Gauthier Group to open two new restaurants
Located next to the BFI office and screening rooms just off London’s Tottenham Court Road, the space will be home to 123V Bakery and Studio Gauthier and will feature a large open kitchen, booth seating and two terraces.
123V Bakery will be a cafe/patisserie-led continuation of the plant-based restaurant 123V which launched at Fenwick Bond Street in 2021. Situated at the front of the restaurant, it is aimed firmly at the working lunch crowd and will serve coffee, pastries and house-made breads from the Gauthier Soho bread selection. There will also be a daily-changing bottomless salad and sushi station with 123V menu classics such as chickpea fries; aubergine toast; and California cheeseburger on offer.
Studio Gauthier, meanwhile, will serve a ‘cutting-edge fine-dining tasting menu’ and is described as being a laid-back, more approachable option. Pitched as ‘Gauthier Lite’, this will be the first time the Gauthier name has been used in a restaurant concept with anything other than the Soho fine dining townhouse in Romilly Street.
The menu will combine the Japanese inspired dishes trailed at 123V with Gauthier Soho menu French classics, with dishes on the launch menu to include early season green asparagus, miso hollandaise, sesame seed crunch; wild garlic and rocket focaccia with aigo boulido; barbecued loin of kohlrabi, cucumber samphire; black truffle rice flour berlingots, truffle dashi velouté.
A plant-based future
“I’ve long felt that the working lunch is the first port of call for people wanting to get into a more plant-based lifestyle,” says Gauthier. “I still feel however, the options are side lined and often feel like a formality. We intend to give this rapidly expanding market the quality and love it deserves.
“This is a major departure for us but the first time I have felt ready to bring Gauthier Soho to a wider audience.
Long-term head chef Alexia Dellaca Minot will lead the kitchen at the new restaurant, with wine overseen by sommelier David Havlik.
“When we changed Gauthier to 100% plants, I must admit I worried. We were a classical French restaurant, and we lost a lot of customers,” adds Gauthier.
“But two years on I am happy to say we have now gained far more. I have always said the being vegan must not define us, what defines us is being delicious.
“I’m extremely lucky to have the customers I have. They are wonderful and I now live to create delicious food for them, helping them believe that there is a delicious, exciting, environmentally sound, sustainable, cruelty-free gastronomic future available to everyone”
