The Birmingham-based chef is joining forces with Loki Wines’ founder Phil Innes for the new venture, which is due to open in the Snow Hill area of the city in August.
Loki Wines was founded in 2012 in Birmingham’s Great Western Arcade as a wine merchant and tasting house. It has since expanded to run sites in Edgbaston and Knowle.
As well as selling a large range of wines, Loki Wines runs wine tasting dinners and cheese and wine tastings.
“It’s a coming together between myself and Phil,” says Purnell.
“There’s a movement in London at the moment for people going out for a good glass of wine and a couple of small plates and then moving onto the next place, so we want it to be that sort of thing really.”
“We’ll have some larger sharing plates on the menu as well, for people who want to spend more. You can come for a glass of nice wine, whether it be with a Coravin or just something really interesting and have a few dishes or do the whole whack and having something bigger.”
The as yet unnamed project will be located close to Snow Hill station and will occupy a ground floor space with outside seating.
Purnell says that the concept is being built so that it could be rolled out to other cities such as Manchester.
“It’s going to be very different from what I’ve done before,” he adds.
“The way that people are eating is changing. The quality of what we were doing at Purnell’s was on point, so we will take the quality and essence of what we did there and put it into something more accessible.”
Purnell currently operates two restaurants in The Midlands - Plate’s by Purnell’s, which is a tapas style Spanish restaurant located in Birmingham, and The Mount pub in Henley in Arden.
He closed his eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant in the city in October last year after 17 years of trading citing a combination of economic pressures and the ongoing challenges faced by the hospitality industry.