Hot new London restaurant openings

Sabor

One of the most hotly anticipated openings of the year comes from the super talented Nieves Barragan, who helped propel popular Soho tapas bar Barrafina to a Michelin star. Branching out with her debut solo venture, Sabor, meaning ‘flavour’ in Spanish, opened in Mayfair this month.

Rather than focusing on one specific region, Sabor takes inspiration from flavours from all over Spain, from the lush green north to the sun-soaked south. The star of the show is the ‘asador’ – a wood-fired oven in the upstairs restaurant where octopuses and whole suckling pigs are flame-licked.

Like Barrafina, the main restaurant is a horseshoe counter surrounding the open kitchen. Classics like pan con tomate, chipirones and prawn croquetas jostle for attention with queso fresco with black truffle brioche, Iberian duck breast with ajo blanco, and honey and saffron ice cream.

On the drinks front you’ll find a large selection of Spanish wines, gins and vermouths, with both Sherry and Txakoli given special attention on the list.

Temper Covent Garden

Having focused on tacos and mezcal at Temper, then gin and curry at Temper City, Neil Rankin’s third London site will shine a light on pizza and vermouth. Completing the hat-trick is Temper Covent Garden, which is due to open this spring within a new office, restaurant and retail development in Mercer’s Walk.

The focus this time will be on wood-fired pizzas topped with cured meats, served alongside lashings of vermouth, which is becoming increasingly popular in the capital both as a neat serve and within cocktails.

Rankin will be prepping a selection of ragus for his pizzas, including goat, game and pork. Keen to make the most of the site, he will also be luring nearby office workers to Temper for their morning coffees, and will be serving piping hot croissants fresh from his wood-fired oven alongside home-cured bacon and sausages.

By Chloe

In keeping with London’s growing obsession with vegan food, one of the buzziest openings of the year is the first London outpost of New York vegan café By Chloe, which opened in Covent Garden this month. Proving vegan needn’t mean virtuous, By Chloe specialises in plant-based fast food.

By Chloe’s eighth site serves everything from vegan mac ‘n’ cheese and quinoa taco salads to guacamole burgers and matcha kelp noodles.

Time Out New York voted By Chloe’s veggie burgers as the best in the Big Apple, so the site will likely draw meat eaters who are happy to go flexi and try them out for size. They even serve dairy free ice cream.

Evelyn’s Table

Layo and Zoe Paskin of The Palomar and The Barbary fame have opened Evelyn’s Table, an 11-seater counter restaurant within their new pub, The Blue Posts on Rupert Street in Soho.

Unusually for Soho, the restaurant takes bookings despite its tiny size, where action is centred around a horseshoe-shaped marble bar that looks into the open kitchen. Housed in The Blue Posts’ wine cellar, half of the seats will be kept free each night for walk-ins.

Named after Faye Dunaway’s character in Chinatown, the tiny site is headed up by The Barbary’s super talented former head chef Nacho Pinilla. On the menu you’ll find the likes of polenta bramata with artichoke; cuttlefish ragout; duck cappalletti; smoked eel and beetroot; and gurnard with ricotta gnocchi. The seasonal menu changes every day and features around a dozen dishes to choose from.

On the Dak

On the Dak is the brainchild of Linda Lee of On The Bab fame. Shining a light on Korean delights, the Covent Garden site goes big on chicken in all its guises, from sweet soy fried chicken and barbecue chicken, to chicken noodle soup with coriander and seaweed.

Lee’s seventh restaurant is named after the Korean word for chicken. The star of the show is KFC – Korean fried chicken, with four different flavours to try, from sweet soy to ‘spicy Seoul’, in three different sizes served alongside spicy kimchi, salads and rice. All dishes are available to go.

Horatio Street Social Club

Named in honour of the street on which it resides, East London’s Horatio Street Social Club is an exciting new cocktail den from talented former Callooh Callay alumni Jordie Simon Thompson and Jake O’Brien Murphy.

Located in the bowels of The Nelson’s Head pub, cocktails are the main focus here, and include the likes of the Naïve Melody, featuring Campari, white wine and kola nut cordial; the Dirty Faces, which blends beeswax, Calvados, gin, apricot and verjus; Kill The Cook, a heady mixture of Tequila, red pepper, urfa and lime; and Garfield’s Funeral, made with Lot 40, angel share syrup and a black trumpet mushroom Tincture.

The Greyhound Café

Bangkok export The Greyhound Café has landed in Fitzrovia. Set across two floors, the venue shines a light on authentic Thai food served in a kooky setting with a laid-back vibe.

Among the fiery delights on offer are pork knuckle simmered in piquant Thai herbs; sashimi-grade salmon in chilli-spiked green sauce; wok-fried noodles with mixed seafood, basil and chilli; and veggie pad Thai with mushroom stems.

Its signature dish from the Bangkok original – complicated noodles – also makes an appearance in the form of a taco-like wrap stuffed with iceberg lettuce and rice noodle sheets with soy-braised pork herb salsa, which can be washed down with craft beer from Phuket’s Full Moon Brew Works.

Humble Grape City

There’s no stopping the ambitious team behind Humble Grape. With bars in Fleet Street, Battersea and Islington, their latest grape has burst onto the scene Liverpool Street and promises to keep City workers well oiled.

Boasting an impressive 30 wines by the glass and a further 400 by the bottle, some of the vintners’ stories will be told on a ‘winemaker wall’, adding colour and character to the wines. Seating 54, all of the wines on the list are available to buy to take home. On the food front, sharing plates include cuttlefish stew with chorizo, fennel and crème fraîche; and duck confit with clementine.

Daddy Bao

London’s love of bao buns knows no bounds, so Tooting dwellers will be delighted to hear that they have their own steamed bun mecca in the form of Daddy Bao. Founded by the duo behind Mr Bao in Peckham, the site’s name is a hat tip to co-owner Frank Yeung’s restaurateur father, Joe, who was instrumental in the success of Mr Bao.

Among the bao on offer are buns stuffed with pork, pickles and peanut powder. Other Taiwanese snacks include crunchy fried chicken, smacked cucumbers, golden kimchi and beer marinated prawns, pickled mooli and spiced spring onion.

Prosecco House

In news that will delight London-based fizz lovers, a Prosecco palace called Prosecco House has opened at One Tower Bridge. In a bid to get customers to embrace premium Prosecco, the focus at the venue is on DOCG Prosecco.

The bar serves 20 different Proseccos sourced by owner Kristina Issa from family-owned estates in the Veneto, including five that are exclusive to Prosecco House – Marchiori, Rivalta, Cirotto, Tasi Bio and Andreola.

Glasses of fizz start at £7.50 and bottles £30, with magnums and Jeroboams available for groups to buy. The bar serves a small selection of Prosecco cocktails like the Aperol Spritz and Bellini alongside signature cocktails and cicchetti.

The interiors feature burnt orange velvet bar stools, Italian marble and antique bronze tables with mirrored glass surfaces. All of the Proseccos on the list are available to buy to take home and can be delivered via UberEats and Deliveroo.

United Chip

Friday favourite fish ‘n’ chips has gone upmarket with the launch of United Chip in Clerkenwell from the team behind bowling chain All Star Lanes.

The menu features favourites like Atlantic cod, haddock and pollock, battered Dingley Dell sausages, and more left field options like soft shell crab burgers, prawn burgers and halloumi burgers for veggies.

Chips are either chunky or lithe French fries, while sauces include Bangkok mayo, tartare, sweet chilli and aioli. Those looking for a quick fix can order cones filled with scampi and calamari with a flute or three of Prosecco. Fizz and chips is the way forward…