Never let it be said that once London restaurateurs identify a trend, they don’t so much saturate the market but flood it. This April, we’ve highlighted a duo of new noodle restaurants, a pair of food halls, and two new pub dining rooms where the emphasis is very much more on the gastro than the pub.
However, we could just as easily have drawn attention to burgers (Bleecker on Baker Street and Black Tap in Soho), sandwiches (brioche specialist La Spot), bakeries (online Reemies goes IRL in Chelsea) or pizza (081 Pizzeria expands to Shoreditch). But since when was a glut of choice a bad thing? It’s never been a better time to be greedy in London.
Corner Corner
Where next for the food hall? Street-food pioneer Kerb thinks it has the answer with Corner Corner in Canada Water, which brings together a quartet of London’s most respected traders and throws sustainable ingredients from an in-house vertical farm plus a programme of live jazz into the mix. To eat, expect fried chicken shop Chick ’N’ Sours, Taiwanese rice bowls and bao buns from Jou Jou’s Bites, Mexican using heirloom corn from Masa Tacos, and all-day café and restaurant Sireli, fresh from a successful run at the National Theatre; here its Armenian small plates and flatbreads will be joined by larger dishes such as charred cauliflower with zhug and pangrattato. Much of what ends up on all the plates will have been picked from the indoor vertical farm. On the music front, live acts include MOBO winner Denys Baptiste and Grammy-nominated Acantha Lang.
Opens: April 4
Maritime Street, SE16 7LL, cornercorner.com
Songhelou
Londoners might be blasé about historic restaurants — the city’s oldest, Rules, opened its doors in 1798 — but this Chinese noodle specialist can trace its lineage back even further, to 1737, during the rule of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty. The house speciality are the slim and delicate noodles of Suzhou, a city on the Yangtze delta in the southern province of Jiangsu, served in a sweet-and-spicy dark broth. All the customer need decide is what to go for in terms of topping: braised pork, stir-fried crab or sizzling eel, say, with rice balls and red bean paste for afters and tea to drink. This is the first international outpost of Songhelou and it should find a natural home here in Chinatown, where a Chinese design outfit is giving the three-floor site a makeover in natural materials such as bamboo, grey stone and antique copper.
Opens: April 4
22 Wardour Street, W1D 6QQ, en.songhelou.net
Kung Fu Mama
A grab-and-go restaurant in Covent Garden with only nine seats for eat-in customers wouldn’t usually merit too much attention, except this one comes courtesy of Noam Bar-Chang, who co-founded Ottolenghi. Here Bar-Chang has teamed up with Taipei noodle entrepreneur Chris Hsu to open a noodle bar which has roll-out written all over it. And who wouldn’t want this round the corner from their office for lunch al desko? Ingredients are oven-baked rather than deep-fried, seed oil swapped out for extra-virgin olive oil, and salt, fat and sugar levels kept to a minimum. That means sun-dried noodles topped with the likes of chicken thighs in a ginger and sesame sauce, or beef in Sichuan pepper sauce; there are also bao, veggie side dishes and a mango shaved ice with passionfruit and lime for pud. Who needs Pret?
Opens: April 8 (50% off food April 8-11, 11am-3pm)
80 Long Acre, WC2E 9NG, kungfumama.co.uk
Tom Brown at the Capital
Chef Tom Brown hasn’t exactly been idle since closing his contemporary fine-diner Cornerstone in Hackney last year, with his more casual Pearly Queen going great guns in Spitalfields. Still, the chef clearly has a tasting-menu itch to scratch because he’s opening this formal dining room at The Capital, the Knightsbridge hotel where he made his name as head chef of Outlaw’s. Responsibly sourced seafood will be at the heart of two tasting menus (12/14 courses £125/£165) which might yield wild bass with buttermilk and vanilla, tuna with soy and quail egg or monkfish with roast chicken and wild garlic. Not so hungry? There are eight courses (£80) at lunch.
Opens: April 10
The Capital, 24 Basil Street, SW3 1AT, tombrownatthecapital.com
The Kerfield Arms
Camberwell has been blessed with the Camberwell Arms, one of London’s best gastropubs, for some time; now SE5 is about to get some new competition with the arrival round the corner of the Kerfield Arms, a sibling of the Baring in Hoxton. Baring head chef Jay Styler will be overseeing a menu of some pretty fancy pub grub. Cuttlefish and lardo shish with pul biber chilli might be followed by grilled monkfish with hand-rolled fregola and shrimp bisque, and there’s a gariguette strawberry and chamomile custard doughnut to finish. Sunday roasts of ibérico pork belly with calçots and apple ketchup are no less considered. Wash it down with a choice of eight keg beers, natural wines and classic cocktails.
Opens: April 15
16 Grove Lane, SE5 8SY, thekerfieldarms.co.uk
Also opening
Lilli by Akira Back
Snowboarder-turned-chef Akira Back is back with more Korean-accented cooking in another smart London hotel, this time the revamped Montcalm Mayfair (actually not in Mayfair, but north of Oxford Street near Marble Arch).
Opens: April 1
Montcalm Mayfair, 2 Wallenberg Place, W1H 7TN, montcalmcollection.com
Boxhall City
The Edwardian Metropolitan Arcade opposite Liverpool Street station is getting a new lease of life as a 2020s food hall, courtesy of Boxpark. Thirteen operators include Eggslut, Burger & Beyond and Old Chang Kee.
Opens: April 10
The Arcade, Liverpool Street, EC2M 7PN, boxhall.co.uk
Alfie’s
An upstairs dining room at Belgravia gastropub the Alfred Tennyson, offering steak tartare, roasted brill and baked Alaska in an antique-strewn Georgian townhouse.
Opens: April 14
10 Motcomb Street, SW1X 8LA, cubitthouse.co.uk
Mr Porter
Not a lifestyle expansion of the luxury men’s shopping portal, but an Amsterdam import serving steak and carpaccio in the old Trader Vic’s site in the basement of the Park Lane Hilton.
Opens: April 28
London Hilton on Park Lane, 22 Park Lane, W1K 1BE, mrportersteakhouse.com
Bubala King’s Cross
A third outing for the Middle Eastern veggie and plant-based restaurant, with signature dishes such as confit latkes alongside new creations including cucumber tzatziki.
Opens: Late April
Unit 1, Cadence Court, 4 Tapper Walk, N1C 4ED, bubala.co.uk
