Friday five: the week's top news stories
- The team behind family-run Edinburgh restaurant Timberyard are to launch a wine bar in the Scottish capital’s Abbeyhill area this autumn. Called Montrose House, the new venue will be split across two levels and include a downstairs wine bar and a first-floor dining room. The downstairs are will hold between 20 to 30 covers, with the upstairs having room for around 15 covers per sitting.
- Salt chef Paul Foster’s debut London restaurant will launch in Camden’s Hawley Wharf development next month. Called GrassFed, the 50-cover restaurant will specialise in high-quality grass-fed beef, celebrating 'all cuts of beef from prime ribs to ox cheeks'. Foster - who is best known for his Michelin-starred Salt restaurant in Stratford-upon-Avon - says that GrassFed’s menu is derived from his ‘passion for bringing quality sourced British meat to the masses’.
- Hong Kong-based Black Sheep Restaurants is bringing two of its concepts to London ahead of the opening of the group’s first international restaurant in London in spring 2024. Its New Punjab Club and Ho Lee Fook brands will pop-up at London’s Carousel this July and August, each running for a week-long residency at the Fitzrovia restaurant space serving exclusive menus using produce from the British isles. Black Sheep Restaurants was founded in 2012 by Syed Asim Hussain and operates more than 35 different concepts across in Hong Kong. The group is planning to open a restaurant in London next year that it says might be inspired by either of the two concepts it is showcasing in the capital, or a completely new one.
- D.ream International, the group behind restaurants including Zuma, Roka, Coya and Amazonico will launch a high-end Italian restaurant on Mayfair’s Albemarle Street later year. Il Gattopardo will be inspired by 1960s Italy embodying ‘the understated, refined luxury of the Italian riviera’ and honouring ‘a heyday of frivolity and seduction’. Translating as 'The Leopard', the site is the first 'own-brand' project from D.ream International, which is closely involved with a number of major international restaurant groups including Amazonico operator Paraguas Group, Roka and Zuma operator Azumi Group, Coya Group and Salt Bae's Nusr-et Group.
- London and Essex-based alcohol-free restaurant brand will open a site in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh towards the end of the year. The group’s first international site, Coco Saudi Arabia will be located in the city’s central Zone Complex and will seat 200 covers. The drinks menu will be entirely alcohol free, as it is the offering across the group’s entire estate.
