These are the Hedonist’s pick of the most exciting upcoming openings and restaurant gossip:
GOSSIP ABOUT TOWN:
Chef Tim Allen of Launceston Place has just picked up 4 AA Rosettes at the AA Hospitality Awards to go with his Michelin star. It’s good to see the boutique Kensington restaurant consolidating the progress it made under chef Tristram Welch.
Hanoi based celebrity chef Bobby Chinn will be opening The House of Ho serving Vietnamese food at 55-59 Old Compton St in Soho this autumn. (Thanks Richard Vine)
Polpetto chef Florence Knight will be reopening at 11 Berwick St, Soho in November.
Fortnum and Mason’s (see our review) will be opening their first new shop in over three hundred years in November. The 2000 square foot store will be located in the old St Pancras ticket hall.
Not satisfied with opening The Little Social and The Social Eating House within days of each other, followed shortly afterwards by The Berner’s Tavern as part of Ian Schrager’s new hotel The London Edition, Jason Atherton of Pollen St Social is taking over Gary Rhodes’ berth in the City at Tower 42 this autumn to launch The City Social.
Serial restaurateur Alan Yau has taken on a new site in Mayfair as well as buying up The Endurance pub in Soho’s Berwick St..
Gordon Ramsey has opened a Mediterranean themed restaurant called the Union Street Cafe near Borough Market without the previously trailed involvement of David Beckham. Apparently they are now planning to open a chain of pie and mash shops…
Charming Martin Morales, proprietor of Ceviche, is heading to trendy Shoreditch to open his second restaurant Andina in December, which will feature food from the Peruvian Andes in an all-day format.
October Openings
Hoi Polloi at The Ace Hotel Shoreditch
100 Shoreditch High St, London E1 6JQ
hoi–polloi.co.uk/reception@hoi-polloi.co.uk
Hoi Polloi is the latest venture from David Waddington of Bistrotheque and Shrimpy’s fame and is opening on the 3rd October for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, aperitifs, dinner, supper and nightcaps. Describing itself as a modernist brasserie it is situated in the latest outpost of the oh so hip Ace Hotel group in Shoreditch and is generating a lot of social media pre-opening hype.
Pipsdish Covent Garden
15 Exeter St, WC2E 7DT
http://www.pipsdish.co.uk/
Pipsdish’s Philip Dundas and Mary Doherty are moving on from their popup in the old Citroen Garage just off Islington’s Upper St, to permanent premises in Covent Garden. Pipsdish will continue to offer their quirky brand of homestyle cooking (see our review) and a no menu policy in a space decorated with Philip’s mountain climbing ephemera. Crampons on toast anyone?
The Holborn Dining Room Holborn
252 High Holborn London, Greater London WC1V 7EN
020 7781 8888/www.rosewoodhotels.com/London
Chef Bjorn van der Horst is masterminding the food offer at the London branch of the super-deluxe Rosewood Hotel Group. The Holborn Dining Room will feature a modern British brasserie in a space designed by Martin Brudnizki which mixes reclaimed oak with antique mirrors, leather upholstery and tweed details. This could be great and be the next phase in the creation of a new type of grand hotel dining room as pioneered at The Berners St Tavern.