The new restaurant edit
From Monday, restaurants across the country will be open again for indoor dining, to the sound of heavenly chorus. To celebrate, we’ve rounded up six of the best new restaurants to get excited about.
Akoko, Berners Street
Founded by British Nigerian Aji Akokomi, Akoko draws inspiration from his own family recipes and travels to introduce London to the drama and diversity of West African cuisine in a seven-course menu. Fans of MasterChef: The Professionals may recognise head chef JM Chilila, who was a finalist in 2018. A long-time in the making, no detail has escaped being fine-tuned to perfection.
Sonny Stores, Bristol
From The River Café to lockdown pizzas. Chef Pegs Quinn and his wife Mary Glynn started selling pizzas from their kitchen during the first lockdown and have now set down roots outside the familial home, with a seasonal Italian menu that changes every day depending on the best ingredients available.
Fallow, Mayfair
Co-founders Will Murray and Jack Croft cut their teeth in the kitchen of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Their ethos is ‘conscious creativity’, emphasising sustainability in every dish. Even the menu, which changes regularly, is written on paper made from harvested algae.
Osip, Somerset
If Somerset seems too far to go for a new restaurant (but really, after months of deprivation is there any distance too far for a decent meal cooked by someone else?), then good news because Osip has a partnership with a hotel where they also provide the cooked breakfast. There is no menu, just effortless dishes made from ingredients grown by the restaurant and its neighbours.
Louie, Covent Garden
If you’re wondering where all the cool kids will be this year, it’s here. The latest venture from the co-creator of Chiltern Firehouse is named after two distinctly different but equally grand Louis’s - Louis XIV and Louis Armstrong – setting the tone for decadent décor, heady cocktails and a French-Creole menu.
KOL, Marylebone
Chef Santiago Lastra’s new restaurant offers Mexican food like you’ve never tasted before, primarily because it has been cooked only using British ingredients. Conscious of the carbon footprint that accompanies importing exotic ingredients, only local produce makes the cut. Controversially, that means no avocadoes and no limes. It also means gastronomic ingenuity the likes of which is rare to find.