At The Lavery, Anglo-Italian cooking caters to London’s design obsessive

There is an impressive array of names attached to this new South Kensington restaurant: creative director Martin Cohen, who helped launch Rochelle Canteen and Manhattan’s Odeon; front-of-house Alcides Gauto, a familiar face from Toklas; and chef Yohei Furuhashi, who spent nine years at the River Cafe. The biggest name, however, is Sir John Lavery, the Irish portraitist who lived and worked in the 19th century Georgian townhouse where the restaurant now resides – a heritage that has made the building the HQ of the Brompton Design District and a venue for key events for London Craft Week and the London Design Festival.

Wallpaper* dines at The Lavery

The mood: grand designs

While the structure of Lavery’s Grade II-listed home remains intact – think ironwork balustrades and ornate plasterwork – interior touches from the 20th century have been inserted, too. A zinc bar designed by Daytrip Studio welcomes guests to a space where key pieces of furniture have been sourced from locations including The Groucho Club in London, the Hotel Excelsior in Venice and the art nouveau mecca of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland.

The food: Anglo-Italian for art lovers

Furuhashi spent almost a decade at the River Cafe before heading chef roles at Toklas and Petersham Nurseries – owned respectively by Frieze founders Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, and good-living gurus Gael and Francesco Boglione – so is fluent in the sort of Anglo-Italian cooking beloved of London’s design obsessives. Dishes such as gnocchi with fresh peas, hen-of-the-woods mushroom and ricotta, alongside Scottish scallops with alubia beans, radicchio, marjoram, caper and anchovy combine Mediterranean influences with British ingredients, with much of the fresh produce sourced from the Balcaskie Estate in Fife. For something less formal, a ground-floor café will open later in the spring.

The Lavery is located at 4 Cromwell Pl, South Kensington, London SW7 2JE, United Kingdom; sevenrooms.com