The first images of Manzi’s, a long-awaited seafood restaurant opening in Soho this week, have been released.
Four years after it was first announced in 2019, Manzi’s will welcome diners from tomorrow, June 29, in the Bateman Buildings in Soho. The restaurant will mostly serve fish and seafood, and pays tribute to the original Manzi’s, a seafood restaurant that operated just off Chinatown from 1928 till 2006. The new restaurant will open seven days a week, from 11.30am till 11pm (10pm Sundays).
Dishes will largely stick firmly to the classics, and include moules marinière, a catch of the day, Dover sole, seafood cocktails and smoked eel, but will also offer the likes of a New York shrimp burger, and a monkfish Wellington. There will also be a range of sandwiches, including a fish finger sandwich, and three types of oysters including the famed Gillardeaus, from the French family of the same name.
Interestingly, while Manzi’s was originally conceived as exclusively a fish restaurant, the new restaurant will serve chicken, beef and lamb, as well as two vegetarian options. Price wise, starters hover mostly around the mid-teens, while mains are £20-and-up, with a rib-eye steak coming in just shy of £40. Puddings are all around £10. That said, a two (£28) or three (£32.50) course prix-fixe is also offered, which Manzi’s say is ideal for pre-or-post theatre dining.
Drinks will follow a similar idea to the food, mostly offering updated classics — an Old Cuban (aged rum, lime juice, sugar, angostura bitters, Champagne); a White Negroni (gin, Italicus bergamot, Suze) and the Naked and Famous (mezcal, lime, Aperol and yellow Chartreuse). Cocktails will run around the £14 mark, with non-alcoholic options at £9.50. Beers will be £6 for a 330ml bottle.
While the new images at the top of this page show only the ground-floor level, upstairs is decidedly more glamorous, with a marble-topped bar that features great green mermaids on each of the four corners. What the Wolseley group call “hedonistic escapism” includes a full size, wall-mounted taxidermy marlin; another nod to Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea includes a mural depicting the story.
Manzi’s was originally a project originally orchestrated by Jeremy King, of Corbin & King, the restaurant group that once counted the Wolseley, the Delauney and Brasserie Zedel among its stable. Both King and Chris Corbin left their group last year, which has since been renamed the Wolseley Hospitality Group, and retains the same portfolio of restaurants. Manzi’s is the Wolseley Hospitality Group’s first new opening in London since the business changed hands.
