Miller Prada to head up new wood-fired Mayfair restaurant HUMO

The Colombian-born chef, who is a protégé of Endo Kazutoshi at his Michelin starred Endo at the Rotunda, will open HUMO on the former site of Anthony Demetre’s Wild Honey on St George Street

Directly translated as ‘smoke’ in Spanish, HUMO will have a four-metre long grill with no electricity or gas utilised as cooking fuel. All dishes will be cooked over a selection of widely sourced woods that impart subtle flavour differences to each of the dishes, including juniper branches, white ubame oak, British oak,  birch, cherry, walnut, apple and beech sourced from protected wood ‘farms’ in the UK.  

The menu is described as predominantly being product-led rather than by a specific cuisine but will be influenced by the precision of Japanese cooking techniques as well as from Prada’s Colombian background, his training for six years at Endo at the Rotunda, and the heritage of his Italian head chef.

Dishes on the launch menu will include ike-jime trout from Hampshire, marinated and smoked in Juniper, seared with white ubame oak, topped with six-month aged baerii caviar and wrapped in Kombu kelp; and hand-dived Orkney scallop, grilled directly on French oak used for aging whiskey for 25 years, Speyside whiskey sabayon and white kombu kelp ‘shiraita’.

The wine list will feature bins from small artisan growers and age-old traditional producers, with a focus on aged burgundy and bordeaux in particular.

The new venue is part of Creative Restaurant Group, co-founded by Misha Zelman, founder of Goodman, Burger & Lobster, Beast, Zelman Meats and SUMI, alongside chef-patron Endo Kazutoshi and led by managing director Alex D’Aguiar. The 34-cover restaurant will comprise of counter seating surrounding the grill, a small dining room and a 10-cover chef’s table on the lower ground floor.