London in the 21st century is the restaurant capital of the world. British chefs vie with the most famous names on the international food scene to secure the primest sites for their new ventures. Here you can find almost any cuisine on the planet, often made with seasonal British ingredients, whether organic meats, sustainably caught fish and regeneratively farmed veg, but food is only half the story: chefs collaborate with designers to ensure that the surroundings look every bit as enticing as what’s coming out of the kitchen. Each month, we visit some of the city's buzziest openings to discover the most exciting new menu items and locations across the capital.
It's a bold restauranteur who opens a new restaurant in December but this month's newest offerings come in the form of a couple of new Italians.
How we choose the best new restaurants
At Wallpaper* design is always front of mind – our favourite new restaurants each have carefully-considered interiors which complement and enhance the dining experience. As for the food, well, that has to be great too. We love innovative menus that surprise and delight. Every one of the restaurants we’ve recommended here has been visited by one of our editors. Between us, we have had the privilege to have dined in some of the world’s most talked-about restaurants so you can feel confident in our first-hand experience. If we say something’s good, it’s good.
Discover the best new restaurants in London
December restaurant openings
Row on 5
Jason Atherton completes his quartet of 2024 launches with the flagship restaurant intended to cement his legacy as one of the definitive British chefs of the 21st century. His right-hand man here is Spencer Metzger, former Ritz head chef who won two Michelin stars at Dubai sibling Row on 45 within six months of opening.
Describe the mood: The restaurant channels the bespoke Savile Row theme in everything from high-spec interiors to personal service, with the food delivered by the chefs who made it in an open kitchen within the intimate 28-cover dining room.
What to order: The only choice is between two 15-course tasting menus (each £198.50): one involving meat and seafood, the other vegetarian dishes, and both based on best-of-British ingredients.
Why we love it: A perfectly tailored fit for fans of fan dining.
Read our full review of Row on 5
Row on 5 opened on November 23 and is available to book now (bookings are released one month in advance). It is located at 5 Savile Row, W1S 3PB; rowon5london.com
Osteria
A sibling to Mayfair and Soho Italians Bocconcino, this time on the Strand. A daily selection of fresh fish will be presented on a seafood display before being cooked in an open kitchen by chef Matteo Massafra, who has worked at Six Senses Ibiza and Café Dior.
Describe the mood: The Tuscan coastline around Forte dei Marmi transplanted to a bank conversion in London’s West End, with a moneyed smart set to match.
What to order: Anything involving fish, obviously – octopus in red wine sauce is set to be the signature dish – but pizza is also a good shout.
Why we love it: Good-value glamour a short walk from Covent Garden.
Read the full review of Osteria Del Mare
Osteria del Mare opened on 9 December and is available to book now. It is located at 366 Strand, WC2R 0JF, bocconcinorestaurant.co.uk
Babbo
The favourite Italian restaurant of Premier League footballers has shut up shop in Mayfair and moved across town to St John’s Wood. It’s not time for pipe and slippers yet, though: cocktails in the swish bar are just one of Babbo’s many attractions.
Describe the mood: Babbo’s different spaces fit different times of day, from breakfast on the heated terrace to lunchtime pizzette in the lounge and smart dinners in the dining room.
What to order: The cooking is classic all the way (salmon tartare, veal Milanese) but who could resist a slow-cooked lasagne?
Why we love it: Smart all-day drinking and dining without the faff of going into town.
Babbo opened on December 9 2024 and is available to book now. It is located at 29-31 St John's Wood High Street, NW8 7NH, babborestaurant.co.uk
November restaurant openings
The Georgian at Harrods
Afternoon tea
A re-imagining of the flagship dining room of the world’s most famous department store, with British cooking overseen by chef Calum Franklin and interiors designed by David Collins Studio.
The Mood: Deco Heaven
The Georgian first launched on the fourth floor of Harrods in 1911, though it is the following decade that David Collins Studio has taken for inspiration, with mirrors inlaid with mother of pearl and lots of metallic Art Deco details. Twenty-five twinkling chandeliers illuminate a grand space that spans 10,333 sq ft and has room for 164 diners; one imagines that eating aboard the Titanic felt something like this. The atmosphere is very different by day and night: afternoon tea is accompanied by the tinkling of a live pianist, while evenings play host to a live band paying homage to the Jazz Age.
The Food: The Pie’s the Limit
The Georgian has always been known for serving British food but Franklin has refined the flag-waving even further by offering a selection of the sort of pies that made his name at Holborn Dining Room and Public House in Paris. The showstopper here is lamb shoulder slow-cooked under an elaborate pastry crust for two to share, but there will also be retro recipes drawn from the Harrods archives such as sole bercy in a white wine sauce for those whose appetites are more Jack Sprat than Billy Bunter. Afternoon tea, meanwhile, will see tea sommeliers creating custom blends if English breakfast isn’t your cup of cha.
The Georgian at Harrods is open and available to book now. It is located at Fourth Floor, Harrods, 87-135 Brompton Road, SW1X 7XL harrods.com
AngloThai
AngloThai Carrot & Sea Buckthorn Parfait
A long-awaited permanent site in Marylebone from chef John Chantarasak and sommelier wife Desiree, following four years of impressing Londoners at pop-ups and residencies around the capital. John is half British, half Thai: hence not only the restaurant’s name but also the culinary approach, based around creative modern Thai cooking using seasonal British ingredients.
The Mood: Thai with a Modern Twist
The 50-cover dining room is a showcase for contemporary Thai craftsmanship. The interiors have been overseen by Thai-American designer May Redding, with bespoke tabletops made from chamchuri wood shaped by Chiang Mai furniture manufacturer Moonler, lights made by Robert Sukachard in collaboration with artisans from Ban Pa Ao (the last village in northern Thailand using wax-cast brass) and an art installation of woven metals and recycled textiles by Bangkok-based designer, Pichatorn Nuladaisri. The audio, though, is just as important as the visual. John is a former musician and playlists combining modern Thai artists and Western instrumental pieces will be played through Tannoy Devon loudspeakers made in Britain in the 1970s.
The Food: British ingredients meet Asian authenticity
Liverpool-born John trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Bangkok before working in the kitchens of David Thompson’s Nahm, possibly the world’s most highly regarded Thai restaurant. He’s brought that authenticity back to the UK: the kitchen will use a turbo jet-wok burner, coconut cream will be pressed on site, curry pastes made in house and rice based on heritage grains. Charcoal-grilled Brixham crab – the white meat dressed in coconut cream and makrut lime, the brown meat made into an emulsion – served with a coconut ash cracker topped with Exmoor Caviar, gives a thrilling taste of the intricate complexity of the AngloThai approach.
AngloThai is open and available to book now. It is located at 22-24 Seymour Place, W1H 7NL
- See more of London's best Thai restaurants
Vatavaran
A third London restaurant for chef Rohit Ghai of Kutir fame, Vatavaran is inspired by the Himalayas and named after the Sanskrit word for ‘atmosphere’. It is opening in the almost equally rarefied atmosphere of Knightsbridge.
The Mood: River Deep, Mountain High
The restaurant’s four levels ascend from a ground floor inspired by valley streams and decked out with floral wallpaper to a top-floor, velvet-lined cocktail bar called Shikar, the Sanskrit word for ‘mountain peak’, where the textured and reflective ceiling is designed to mimic snow glinting on mountain slopes. In-between are a mezzanine with a living tree growing next to an open kitchen, and a serene, forest-themed dining room. If it all sounds like a high-altitude Rainforest Café, Newcastle’s Collective Design also created the look of Ghai’s Mayfair restaurant Manthan, so Vatavaran should look just as chic.
The Food: Peak Performance from a Modern Indian Master
Ghai made his name at top Mayfair dining rooms Gymkhana and Jamavar before opening his own places so knows exactly what smart Londoners want from their modern Indian restaurants, with food that is heavy on the flavour but sits lightly on the stomach. Signature dishes here will include robata-grilled wild tiger prawns with chickpea and coconut, balchao guinea fowl with smoked beetroot, and slow-cooked lamb shank biryani, mopped up with dreamy breads such as Amritsari kulcha. Cocktails in the bar, meanwhile, take inspiration from the tea estates of the Himalayas and the spices that grow in the mountainous landscape.
Vatavaran opened on November 7 and is available to book now. It is located at 14-15 Beauchamp Place, SW3 1NQ.
October restaurant openings
Fonda
Santiago Lastra’s Michelin-starred Kol restaurant is the UK’s highest-rated entry on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, at number 17. Now the chef is going casual with his interpretation of a fonda, the family-owned fresh-food counters found in markets around Mexico City that serve home cooking passed down through the generations.
The Mood: Mexico comes to Mayfair
Kol is one of the most beautifully designed dining rooms in London and Fonda’s two floors should look just as mesmerising, from textiles dyed naturally with betel nuts to a constantly changing collection of work from up-and-coming Mexican artists. The idea is that Fonda is Lastra’s home from home, and the mi casa es tu casa vibe may make customers hope that the chef is taking applications for housemates. Pride of place goes to the comal, a griddle for turning heritage corn supplied by a Mexican social enterprise into tortillas, tacos and tostadas before serving them in Fonda’s bespoke stoneware made by Mexican designers Duplo.
The Food: Cutting-edge cooking with a soft touch
Lastra worked at the Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen before overseeing the Noma Mexico pop-up for seven weeks in 2017. The experience involved researching and sourcing ingredients from across Mexico’s nine regions and turned him into one of the foremost authorities on the country’s cuisine. So while the cooking here might not scream casual dining, one can at least rest assured that Lastra has done his homework in his reinterpretation of the fonda repertoire, including his own family recipes. The signature dish will be a sticky short rib in a mole poblano, rich with chillies and chocolate. Who needs pudding?
Fonda is open now. It is located at 12 Heddon Street, W1B 4BZ
Three Darlings
It’s been a busy few months for Jason Atherton. The chef has turned Pollen Street Social into Mary’s grill, opened Sael brasserie in St James’s and is due to launch finer-diner Row on 5 on Savile Row by the end of the year. Three Darlings, named in tribute to his and wife Irha’s three daughters, is the most immediately appealing, a modern British bistro in Chelsea open from breakfast to supper.
The Mood: All-day Atherton
Pavilion Road has been transformed into a foodie enclave in recent years, with Provenance butchers, Bread Ahead bakers and London Cheesemongers, though it hasn’t had a destination restaurant for those who would prefer someone else to do the cooking. Three Darlings revives Atherton’s trademark Pollen Street style of approachably ambitious food served in light-and-airy, casual-contemporary surrounds, with tables positioned amphitheatre-like on the steps leading to the open kitchen. A commitment to recycled materials extends to repurposing kitchen waste into a hot sauce available to buy and take home.
The Food: Open-fire cooking and fine wine
From his days at small-plates Maze in the noughties, Atherton has always excelled at melding carefully sourced British ingredients with global technique. Here, day-to-day cooking duties fall to executive chef Jake Oswin, who has come from Dinner by Heston Blumenthal up the road to produce the likes of skate schnitzel with anchovy and Amalfi lemon dressing, while cooking over fire in the open kitchen might result in smoked brisket with fried duck egg and XO gravy. To drink, there are low mark-ups on fine wine from the cellar. Note the ‘fine’: this is Chelsea, after all.
Three Darlings is available to book now and opens on 23 October. It is located at 241b Pavilion Road, SW1X 0BP
Fantômas
It’s all go at the World’s End end of Chelsea. First an SW3 outpost of New York-style pizza joint Alley Cats opened with queues along the King’s Road. Now chef Chris Denney, formerly of 108 Garage and Fiend in Notting Hill, is launching Fantômas with Royal Borough restaurateurs George Bukhov-Weinstein and Ilya Demichev (Wild Tavern and the Belvedere).
The Mood: Perfect imperfection
The interiors have been inspired by Belgian minimalist Axel Vervoordt, whose adherence to wabi-sabi, the Japanese concept of the beauty of imperfection, governs everything at Fantômas except Denney’s precise cooking. Black and grey walls and furniture are illuminated by bespoke fittings conceived by Atelier Lighting, while the limestone worktop in the central open kitchen, hewn from blue Belgian fossil stone, adds a tactile touch to the muted palette. The colour here comes from what’s on Denney’s plates.
The Food: The bold and the beautiful
Denney has built a cult following as a chef provocateur with a take-no-prisoners approach to cooking, but it is rare that his unexpected combinations of taste and texture fail to hit the bullseye. Lamb heart ragù or smoked mozzarella top farinata, the crisp chickpea pancake that is the speciality of Liguria (Denney has been a fan since living in Genoa and for the first time will have his own farinata oven here). Elsewhere, his near-legendary signature of smooth-as-silk duck liver parfait gets another showing, while many dishes go big on veg: a ‘pastrami’ of beetroot comes with blue cheese ranch and Fuji apple. Cocktails such as pandan iced tea with coconut oil washed rum are no less arresting.
Fantômas is open now. It is located at 300 King’s Road, SW3 5UH
September restaurant openings
Endo at the Rotunda
Not a new restaurant but very much a new era for Endo Katzutoshi, who has already launched Nijū in Mayfair and Kioku at the OWO hotel this year. Here on the roof of the former BBC Television Centre the chef is re-opening the lift doors of his Michelin-starred flagship following a period of “culinary reflection” and a spruce-up by architect Kengo Kuma, who designed the Japan National Stadium for the Tokyo Olympics.
The Mood: Into the woods
The view might be of the bleak Ballardian future-scape of White City but, inside, the restaurant’s refreshed look leans into the gentleness of the natural world. A wooden seating area for pre- or post-dinner drinks has replaced what was formerly the bar with a wave of cedar planks, while the 10-seat cypress sushi counter has been re-figured to foster greater interaction between chefs and guests. The overall look is influenced by omotenashi, the Japanese art of empathy-driven hospitality, with the use of mobile phones and cameras frowned upon. Empathy, alas, comes at a price: £248 for the 18-course omakase menu.
The Food: New-style sushi inspired by the past
Kazutoshi is a third-generation sushi master who grew up in his family’s Yokohama restaurant. Now the chef is returning to the recipes and techniques of his grandfather, who himself was inspired by a collection of 200-year-old notebooks, to evolve his own style of sushi into something new but rooted in his family heritage. Rice, wasabi and soy sauce come from trusted suppliers in Japan, but the raw material of spanking-fresh seafood is fished from Cornish and Spanish waters before being turned into phenomenal nigiri, or cooked quickly on the grill. Saké pairings include one-off bottles made exclusively for the restaurant. Kanpai!
Endo at the Rotunda opened on 17 September. It is located at 8th Floor, The Helios, Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, W12 7FR
See more of London's best sushi restaurants.
Amélie
Amélie first floor render
The trend for homely French bistros is so vieux chapeau; hot-on-the-heels of the Côte d’Azur-inspired Mimosa at the Langham hotel comes another glamorous homage to Provence, Amélie. The 19 Motcomb site is also home to Luum, a Mexican-accented cocktail lounge, and Sachi, a rooftop Japanese left over from the building’s previous incarnation as Pantechnicon, a brand association that new owner Sunset Hospitality Group is keen to avoid but, with the name etched into the building’s 19th-century frontage, is hard to ignore.
The Mood: The Belgravia riviera
Old-money Belgravia has always been a cut above the arriviste thrust of neighbouring Knightsbridge but with Sunset Hospitality operating 80 venues in 22 countries from the USA to the UAE, might this quiet corner of SW1 become London’s answer to Saint-Tropez? Certainly, there’s no shortage of posing opportunities in the re-design of the building’s ground floor, from catching one’s reflection in a gilded mirror by the Art Deco-style bar to swanning up the grand staircase to a mezzanine dining area illuminated by ornate chandeliers. Seats outside on the terrace, meanwhile, are shaded by tasselled parasols.
The Food: Naughty but niçoise
Handsome head chef Steve Raveneau not only looks and sounds the ravishing French part but, having cooked in the kitchens of Annabel’s and The Arts Club, also knows how to tickle the fancy of the London beau monde. That might mean seared Dover sole with Champagne sauce and Provençal condiments, orzo rice with whole blue native lobster and rouille, or tuna tartare prepared on a trolley tableside with the option of a dollop of caviar from the selection of sturgeon eggs produced exclusively for the restaurant. La cuisine paysanne, this very much is not.
Amélie opened on 26 September. It is located at 19 Motcomb Street, SW1X 8LB
Wildflowers
Moules farcies, wild garlic & parsley butter
A new restaurant and deli close to the antiques and interiors shops of Pimlico Road, Wildflowers is the first solo project of chef Aaron Potter and his business partner Laura Hart, a florist and stylist who used to work for Heal’s and Petersham Nurseries. The pair have taken the rustic dining culture of Spain, France and Italy for inspiration, transplanted to the artsy urban enclave of Newson’s Yard, designed by Stiff + Trevillion.
The Mood: All things bright and beautiful
Hart has worked with London-based hospitality design outfit Studio Found to bring the outside in to the intimate 54-cover space, with textured walls, warm timber tones and floral displays evoking dining alfresco in the Med but sheltered from the London weather. Sustainably sourced furniture includes vintage pieces where possible, though all eyes are likely to be on the open pass, with dishes cooked over live fire before being handed to diners.
The Food: Best-in-season simplicity
Potter headed up the Michelin-starred kitchens of Trinity in Clapham and Elystan Street in Chelsea but will here be offering a more pared-down take on ingredients-led, flavour-first cooking. Moules farcies cooked in wild garlic and parsley butter might by followed by barbecued Herdwick lamb with harissa and labneh: simple assemblies reliant on expert technique and top-quality produce. Not so hungry? Small plates will be served alongside wines on tap in the wine bar upstairs, or there are daily pastries and sandwiches to take away.
Wildflowers is opened on 27 September. It is located at Newson’s Yard, 57 Pimlico Road, SW1W 8NE
August restaurant openings
Oriole
Oriole is part of the same avian-themed group of cocktail bars as Swift and Nightjar and is named after a golden-feathered relative of the blackbird. Now it’s flying west from its original home in Smithfield Market to a new and improved site in Covent Garden, complete with a South American-themed restaurant.
The Mood: Live cabaret and cutting-edge cocktails
Three-course meals in the dining room will be soundtracked by live jazz, cabaret and world music, while furnishings in both here and the upstairs bar will be familiar from the original Oriole – woven bamboo ceiling panels, tropical wall murals, cabinets of curiosities and a centrepiece bar hewn from Brazilian quartzite. Look out for the in-house bar lab, where avant-garde cocktail technique will be applied to clarified juices and syrups while an ultrasonic homogeniser creates barrel-aged extracts at the flick of a switch: a taste of things to come.
The Food: Nobu-style nikkei and Latin American fusion
Argentine-born chef director Gustavo Giallionardo is bringing together ideas from across South America, including the Peruvian-Japanese nikkei cuisine beloved of Nobu in the likes of hamachi tiradito kimchi aguachile. The chef has given his own creativity free rein, too, with sea trout accompanied by a beurre blanc made with torrontés, the signature white wine of Argentina. Snacks including octopus karaage are served in the bar alongside draught cocktails such as The Lost Explorer (Espadín mezcal, pickled pink ginger, Lillet Rosé vermouth and timur berry soda).
Oriole opened on August 28. It is located at 7-9 Slingsby Place, London, WC2E 9AB
Ambassadors Clubhouse
The first new Indian in six years from JKS Restaurants opens six months after their flagship Gymkhana won its second Michelin star. Ambassadors Clubhouse is a tribute to the grandfather of owners Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina (J/K/S) Sethi, a former Indian ambassador. The Mayfair newcomer will celebrate the food, drink, music and culture of Punjab.
The Mood: Ambassador, you are really spoiling us!
The restaurant draws inspiration from the summer house of the Sethi siblings’ grandfather in the hill-station of Dalhousie, formerly in the Punjab Province of British India. The 140-cover restaurant is spilt over two floors and includes a heated veranda on traffic-free Heddon Street – here’s hoping an Indian summer is coming our way! A gold-domed bar on the ground floor is the first thing to catch the eye, though there are attention-grabbing features wherever one looks, from classic Indian patterns to zingy contemporary prints. The restaurant isn’t just a feast for the eyes, however. From September, Punjabi cultural curator Sukhchain Sohal will oversee resident and guest DJs.
The Food: Club-class Punjabi cooking
The menus seek to reflect the cooking of the undivided Punjab before partition with papads and chaats, tandoor-roasted kebabs and curries cooked in cast-iron karahis and clay matkas, all mopped up with freshly baked breads. Though this being the Sethis, the traditional dishes are brought bang-up-to-date to appeal to the 21st century Londoners who have made Gymkhana one of the hardest-to-book tables in town. Karahi langoustines, fragrant with fennel, and herb-infused haryali rara rabbit keema are likely to among the must-order signatures, washed down with Tequila and mezcal cocktails mixed with north Indian fruits.
Ambassadors Clubhouse opened on 20 August. It is located at 25 Heddon Street, London, W1B 4BH
Cornus
This rooftop fine-dining restaurant comes with impeccable haute-cuisine credentials. Owners Joe Mercer Nairne and David O’Connor have run Michelin-rated Medlar in Chelsea for the past 13 years. Here they’re joined by executive chef Gary Foulkes, whose last gig was at Michelin-starred Angler in The City. All those accolades might sound stuffy but the light-filled location channels laid-back luxury.
The Mood: An eyeline of skyline
A 19th century warehouse near Victoria Station has been re-imagined along Mid-century modern lines, with muted greens and rich woods in the dining room, and bronze lighting illuminating the marble counter and banquette seating of the bar area. All eyes, however, are likely to be on the rooftop views through the wraparound windows. Expect service to be as slick as the surroundings. O’Connor is a legend among maître ds – with the podcast to prove it – and will be joined out front by his wife Monika, while wine director Melania Battiston won awards for her list at Medlar and is an expert at suggesting the perfect match.
The Food: Reach for the Michelin stars
The seasonally changing menu takes the best bits of French and British cuisine, with foodie savoir faire brought to bear on native ingredients given a gloss of European sophistication. Roast Landes chicken is partnered with Scottish langoustines, sweetcorn and roast chicken sauce, while hand-rolled spaghetti is laced with native lobster, Amalfi lemon, N25 caviar and small-batch olive oil from Two Fields on Crete. Not a wine drinker? The non-alcoholic options are equally well-considered and there are sakés and premium teas, too.
Cornus is open now. It is located at 27c Eccleston Place, London, SW1W 9NF
July restaurant openings
Plates
Gourmet vegan cuisine is having a moment in London – French chef Alexis Gauthier has just opened 123V in Mayfair while pop-up-turned permanent Holy Carrot launches in Notting Hill this month. Neither, however, comes with quite the same cachet as Plates, owned by brother and sister Kirk and Keeley Haworth. Kirk was the first plant-based chef to win Great British Menu’s Champion of Champions and Plates is already booked solid until February; reserve a table now for spring and eat on the terrace in the meantime, where bookings are only taken 24 hours ahead.
The Mood: Bringing the outside inside
Keeley has worked with Emma Shone-Sanders of East London-based Design & That Studio on the look of a restaurant that reflects Kirk’s food philosophy of ‘turning the humble into the heroic’. Only pigments found in nature have been used in the low-lit, 25-cover dining room while materials have been repurposed and recycled wherever possible. The centrepiece bar and chef’s counter has been made from felled London trees that would otherwise have been destroyed, a banquette crafted from wood and linen wraps around the entire dining room, textured walls incorporate ingredients from the menu such as buckwheat and quinoa and there is an installation fashioned out of dried seaweed.
The Food: You are what you eat
Kirk adopted a plant-based diet following a diagnosis of Lyme disease in 2016 and his menu reflects the healing ingredients he believes have helped him manage the condition. Not that you’d know the six-course tasting menu was packed with medicinal properties. The chef uses whole, organic produce from trusted suppliers to produce complex dishes of multi-layered flavour and texture. Carrots, for instance, are brined in Korean aromats before being lightly smoked and caramelised over coals, then topped with leek kimchi, whipped aioli, crispy wild rice and spirulina powder and served with pickled kohlrabi and spiced pear.
Plates is open now. It is located at 320 Old St, London
June restaurant openings
The River Cafe Cafe
The River Cafe is one of the most famous restaurants in the country, but it comes with two distinct drawbacks: getting a table in the first place, then having the funds to pay the bill. Neither should be an issue at this more affordable, no-bookings offshoot in the warehouse next door, which trumps the original with a terrace with a view of the Thames. Finally, the River Cafe lives up to its name.
The Mood: Bright and breezy, River Cafe easy
The River Cafe began life as the in-house canteen for the Richard Rogers Partnership and co-founder and chef Ruth Rogers originally trained as a graphic designer, so the look of the restaurant has always been as important as the food on the plate. Here in the former office of Sir Richard Rogers, the visual cues of the River Cafe – paper-clothed tables standing on a cobalt-blue floor, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the kitchen garden – are set off by a huge Damien Hirst painting of cherry blossom. Want to take the lifestyle home? The shelves surrounding the tables groan with River Cafe cookbooks and foodie goodies: boxes of cantucci for £15, bottles of Negroni or limoncello for £40.
The Food: Tuscany on Thames
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A café it may be, but Rogers and her chef team were adamant that the food had to be Italian. For breakfast that means cornetti deep filled with cream or chocolate, fruit so ripe it might have been picked moments before, and Duralex tumblers thick with bitter hot chocolate. The all-day menu might include courgette and pesto soup for lunch, vitello tonnato for dinner and, in-between in the afternoon, house-made ice cream. Best of all, River Cafe classics like the chocolate Nemesis can now be enjoyed by themselves, while the bar team have been given free rein with the likes of a bergamot margarita: raise a glass to the evening sun setting over the river.
The River Cafe Cafe is located at Thames Wharf, Rainville Rd, London
Akira Back
The signature restaurant of the new Mandarin Oriental in Mayfair marks the UK debut of Akira Back, who is a very big deal in Asia and the States. The Korean-born, Colorado-raised snowboarder-turned-chef has cooked for everyone from the Dalai Lama to Bill Clinton and operates 28 restaurants from Doha to Dallas, Bangkok to Beverly Hills. Dosa, the relocation of the chef’s Michelin-starred Seoul chef’s table, will open later in the year, along with ABar Rooftop. Checking in? Back is also responsible for in-room dining across the 50-room hotel.
The Mood: Glossy glamour at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
Tokyo-based studio Curiosity has brought an elemental approach to the design, with earth, wind and water reflected over the 148-cover dining room and ABar Lounge. A circular marble staircase delivers diners to the triple-height lower ground-floor space, where light catches on the bronze ceiling of ABar Lounge. Back has had a hand in the design too: artwork by his mother is a key component of all the chef’s projects.
The Food: Modern Japanese creativity and cutting-edge cocktails
Back’s globetrotting cooking style grafts influences from his Korean-American childhood onto a thorough understanding of Japanese cuisine, with a strong taste for the contemporary. Signature dishes imported from the international outposts include ‘AB Tuna Pizza’, a crunchy wafer-thin crust topped with ponzu aioli, tuna sashimi and white truffle oil, while London-specific dishes such as turbot with white asparagus and saké beurre blanc will debut in Mayfair. Meanwhile, snacks such as wagyu tartlet will be served in the ABar lounge: not just any old bar lounge, it features cocktails with ingredients like lacto-fermented peaches, a 2.30am weekend licence and a roster of live DJs.
Akira Back is open now. It is located at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, 22 Hanover Sq, London
mandarinoriental.com; akiraback.com
See also, April and May's hottest openings: Julie's, Kioku, Oma, Arlington, Lita, Josephine Bouchon and ABC Kitchens.
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London's best Thai restaurants for flavour enthusiastsLondon’s best Thai restaurants each offer their own unique spin on the cuisine that push boundaries and present new culinary experiences. Browse our pick of the best
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Harrods revives beloved 113-year old restaurant, The GeorgianRedesigned by David Collins Studio, The Georgian at Harrods in London is where art deco artistry, elegance and theatrical flair collide
