Top Soho restaurant SOLA to double in size
The Dean Street restaurant, which is currently ranked at number 40 on our list of the top 100 restaurants in the UK, closed today (12 September) and will reopen ‘in time for Thanksgiving’ in November.
The refurbishment, by Lerose Design Studio with John Lacey as architect, will more than doubling SOLA’s overall capacity. Guests will begin their experience on this floor with cocktails and canapés in an elegant lounge area, before moving upstairs to their table.
The new private dining room will seat 18, with concertina doors which can be opened to transform the entire lower-ground floor into an exclusive-hire events space.
Accessible toilets and a lift between the two floors will ensure that the new SOLA experience is available to all guests.
The ground floor, which currently comprises the entire restaurant, will house the main dining room – whose capacity will increase from 24 to 32, with new banquette-style seating – as well as a much-enlarged, open service-kitchen designed by Mark Rees.
“I’m stoked that the team will now have a much bigger kitchen, as well as a prep kitchen downstairs, in which to experiment, innovate and of course execute the very high standard of food we’ve become known for,” Garvey says.
“It’s amazing that we’ve achieved everything we have to date in the limited kitchen space available to us. With so much more room to work in, and even better equipment, we can really push things towards attaining the kind of standard we want to and that I know the team is capable of. I truly think we can make SOLA a world-class dining destination.”
Throughout September and October, SOLA’s kitchen team, led by Victor Garvey, head chef Andy Parker and pastry chef Megan Stafford, will be cooking on various dates at Carousel, the Fitzrovia restaurant and events space. Menus and booking details for these will be confirmed soon.
The refurbishment is being supported by landlord Soho Estates, reflecting their belief in Soho as being “London’s greatest gastronomic destination.”
A portmanteau of Soho and Los Angeles, SOLA launched in 2019 on the site of Garvey’s Spanish restaurant Rambla.
