Our summer is finally hotting up and so too is the restaurant scene it seems. Take yourself on a culinary trip around London and on to Surrey in our list of hot restaurant openings for August 2024.
Goodbye Horses
Alex Young and George de Vos launch their inaugural project - wine bar and restaurant Goodbye Horses in North London this month. Created in partnership with Swiss architect Leopold Banchini, the old pub building in De Beauvoir has been restored with an emphasis on using local crafts and natural materials. Head Chef Jack Coggins (Papi, Planque, The Baring previously) offers a weekly changing menu of small plates featuring the delicious-sounding likes of chicken fat and sardine toast, Cornish crab blini with brown butter and sorrel, and cuttlefish, emmer wheat sauce and chilli. Director Nathalie Nelles has curated the wine list with emphasis on French, Italian, and Catalonian winemakers. Guests will find over 20 wines by the glass and over 300 by the bottle.
An artisanal ice cream shop The Dreamery is set to open later this month across the street.
Now open
21 Halliford St, London N1 3HB
Alley Cats, Chelsea
New York-style pizzeria Alley Cats opens a second site on the King’s Road in Chelsea following their Marylebone original (which landed in December 2023). The New York style 14-inch pizzas from Head Chef Francesco Macri are topped with quality produce from Southern Italy such as San Marzano tomatoes and aged mozzarella from Molise. Macri combines recipes from his grandmother and techniques honed throughout his career working in restaurants in both Rome and London. We’re ready and waiting to try the Vodka Sauce pizza crafted with four-hour slow-cooked vodka tomato sauce topped off with mozzarella and buffalo mozzarella! Episodes of The Sopranos will be silently projected onto the exposed brick wall and cocktails, wine and beer are all available.
342 King’s Road, walk-in only
Opens Friday 9th August
Xi Home Shoreditch
Dumpling alert: Authentic Northern Chinese dumpling ’shop’ Xi Home is now open on Blossom Street, near Liverpool Street Station. Created by 27-year old restaurateur Wenjun Xiang, who was born and raised in Dalian, Xi Home serves a range of over 20 authentic, handmade dumplings, alongside tea pairings, cocktails and detox juices. All of the dishes are freshly prepared by Dalian chefs chosen by Wenjun and brought over from her hometown. Guests can watch all the action from the glass panelled open plan kitchen. The signature Jade Lobster dumplings are a family recipe handed down from generation to generation, but our star of the show are the giant soup dumplings with straws - a ChattingFood fave!
Now open
10 Blossom St, London E1 6PL
Kolamba East
Another new spot to head to on Blossom Street, Spitalfields this month is Kolamba East. Kolamba founders Eroshan and Aushi Meewella have opened the doors to their second site following their original Kolamaba in Kingly Court Soho which opened to much acclaim in 2019. Menus are a modern take on Sri Lankan cooking and revive dishes from the owners' childhoods growing up in Colombo - a melting pot of food from the communities of Sinhalese, Tamil, Moor, Burger (Dutch) and Malay descent that call Sri Lanka’s capital their home.
Now open
12 Blossom St, London E1 6PL
PIRAÑA London
Photo: Grilled Lamb Chops Anticucho
This new entertainment-led, Nikkei restaurant has opened in the West End on Saint James Street. The elevated dining concept will see Peruvian and Japanese fusion food with signature dishes including grilled lamb chops anticucho (pictured) and hamachi tiradito. The 110-cover space gears up in the evening for live music and DJs until 1am. For a special occasion, check out their immersive floating 12-seat private dining enclosed by one-way windows where guests can look out over views of the main restaurant while having total privacy behind the glass.
Now open
7-9 St James's St, London SW1A 1EE
Starling
Former Tom Kerridge head chef Nick Beardshaw is opening his first solo restaurant in Surrey.
The 40-seat bistro will open at the end of August in Esher on the high street. The opening menu will celebrate Nick’s BBC Great British Menu success and include his winning fish starter 'A Moon Shaped Pool' - marinated cucumber, scallop mayonnaise, caviar lime, Exmoor caviar, gelatin and Thai green curry sauce. The wine list has been expertly crafted by James Shaw who joins Starling as General Manager from Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.
Opens 28th of August
Marceline
Canary Wharf's gets a new brasserie this month. Floating on Wood Wharf, Chef Robert Aikens, who cut his teeth working under the Roux Brothers at Le Gavroche and New York's Pastis for over 15 years, has developed a menu centred around his 'signature style of confident brasserie cooking'. Steak tartare with hazelnuts, watercress, mint, and artichoke chips, escargots de Bourgogne with garlic parsley butter and hazelnuts, and Aikens’ signature Apple tarte fine, Mille-Feuille, Rosewater will all feature. Cocktails sound suitably Parisian: Try Two Sips Martini; St Germain Spritz and the Absinthe Sour.
Opens 5 August
5 Water St, London E14 5GX
Features Editor, Chatting Food: Jo Aspin
Jo Aspin is a freelance writer specialising in UK restaurants, travel, food and drink. She is also a Director at hospitality PR agency Amy Williams Consultancy, based in London.
Follow Jo at:
Instagram: @welovechilli
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