Friday Five: the week's top news
- Jeremy King is to reopen Le Caprice in London's Mayfair, 43 years after he and Chris Corbin first opened the restaurant. King says he has signed a lease for the site with the aim 'to recreate a restaurant that for many of our customers, over the years was the one they professed their greatest love for'. The restaurant will open early next year and is described by King as being 'a new version but I hope you will find it reassuringly familiar in how it looks, and what we serve'. It is thought that it won’t bear the Le Caprice name, which is owned by Richard Caring and who is understood to have plans to reopen it in a new site.
- Casual dining chain Honest Burgers is looking to make a play into the quick service restaurant (QSR) sector as part of its new expansion plans. The restaurant group, which operates more than 40 casual dining sites across the UK, is launching an equity share crowdfunding campaign to raise investment with the first QSR site planned to open in London early next year. Backed by existing investors Active Partners with a further £1m investment, the crowdfunding campaign is being launched later this month on Crowdcube. Honest’s founders Tom Barton and Phillip Eeles say the plan to create an Honest Burgers quick service restaurant has been fuelled by the success of its lighter and lower priced smashed burger that launched last year. Alongside a new range of burgers, sides and milkshakes, they believe they can challenge bigger brands in the market ‘in a setup built for speed of service, convenience and value for money’.
- Former National Chef of the Year winner Larry Jayasekara will launch his first solo restaurant next month on Bruton Place in London's Mayfair. Called The Cocochine, the restaurant, first announced in February last year, is a partnership between the Sri Lanka-born Jayasekara and art dealer Tim Jefferies, who runs Hamiltons Gallery in Mayfair, and named after an affectionate term for Jefferies’s young daughter. Set over four floors, The Cocochine will feature a basement wine cellar; a 28-cover dining room on the ground level complete with seven-seat chef’s counter; and a two-storey private dining space able to hold up to 14 guests. Billing itself as prioritising ‘personal connection and old-school hospitality’, the restaurant will not offer online bookings with guests needing to reserve a table over the phone. Additionally, the restaurant will offer ‘exclusive table use’ (no turning of tables) at both lunch and dinner. Jayasekara’s menu will be fully à la carte and is described as ‘a celebration of the joy of eating’, with the restaurant sourcing nearly all of its produce from regenerative mixed farmland in Northamptonshire.
- Made In Chelsea stars Harvey Armstrong and Sam Holmes have opened a restaurant in partnership with Jay Bradley, founder of The Craft Irish Whiskey Co and hospitality entrepreneur Chase Hunter. Called BÓHA, the Irish and British restaurant has launched at 562 Kings Road in Chelsea. It has space for 140 guests in the main dining room as well as a covered terrace, and downstairs speakeasy and cocktail bar. The menu is described as ‘showcasing exceptional produce through the lens of true Irish and British cuisine’ and is overseen by executive chef Anthony Fletcher who joins from The Ned. He will be joined by head chef Samuel McClurkin, whose experience includes roles at The Sportsman in Seasalter, Kathton House at The Tyler's Kiln in Canterbury, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxford, and Tom Kerridge’s The Hand & Flowers in Marlow. Dishes include bar bites and snacks including foraged mushroom toast served with whipped cauliflower and truffle; and a cherry caramel burnt Cambridge cream, served with foie gras, charcoaled milk bread, and hazelnut.
- The president of Aquavit New York is working on a plan to re-establish a London outpost for the high-end Scandinavian restaurant following the closure of its St James's Market site. Håkan Swahn, who launched the original Aquavit in Manhattan back in 1987, tells Restaurant that his ambition is to relaunch Aquavit London under the management and ownership of the New York business. It comes after the first iteration of Aquavit London, which launched in 2016, quietly closed its doors late last month, with the restaurant understood to be going through some kind of insolvency proceeding.
For more of this week's headlines, click here.
