MAD Restaurants has already lined up a brace of major London restaurant projects: a Japanese-inspired grill and sushi restaurant on Soho’s Wardour Street that will be led by former Gordon Ramsay Group chef Andy Cook and a northern Spanish restaurant within Soho’s Kingly Court focused on open fire cooking overseen by former Gazelle chef Rob Roy Cameron.
The launch follows the success of Login’s family’s upscale café and patisserie business L’ETO, which has over 40 sites in London and the Middle East.
Led by Login (pictured right) alongside his father Alexander and wider family, MAD Restaurants will seek to create a group of restaurants that are ‘unique in their offering but with a common thread of creativity and live fire’.
To this end, Login has assembled a team of experienced hospitality professionals that includes group operations manager Giulia Cappuccio, who joins the team following time spent at The Ledbury and KOL, and group head of beverage Dino Koletsas, whose CV includes stints at some of London’s best bars, including Harrods and the Artesian Bar at The Langham.
Cook - who worked with Gordon Ramsay for over a decade, opening international outposts in New York, Las Vegas and Tokyo - is group executive chef.
MOI to showcase Japanese cooking over fire
Slated for July, his MOI restaurant (pronounced m-o-y), will offer a menu of sushi and Japanese-inspired dishes cooked over fire, showcasing British producers and seafood from the UK’s coastal waters.
MOI will be set across two floors (ground and lower ground) and will have a total of 150 covers spread across a main dining room, a private dining room for up to 20 people, an omakase-style sushi bar and a listening room.
The space has been designed with a tactile fusion of natural reclaimed woods, raw concrete and soft lighting, evoking ‘a contemporary take on Japan’s affinity to nature and simplicity’.
MOI’s menu will offer a mix of small and medium plates as well as a number of large grill dishes to share and a section dedicated to skewers.
Dishes will include fried artichoke, hoba smoked caviar and sansho; Orkney scallops with juniper kombu; and grilled turbot fillet with yuzu kosho butter.
Northern Spanish cooking at ALTA
Set to launch this summer, ALTA takes its name from Alta Navarra peninsula, which spans from Pamplona to Donostia and incorporates the Basque region.
Taking the 5,591sq ft two-floor site that was previously home to The Rum Kitchen, the restaurant marks the return of Cameron to the London restaurant scene after several years’ absence.
Originally from South Africa, Cameron has spent much of his cooking career in Spain working for acclaimed chef Albert Adrià holding key positions at restaurants including 41 Degrees (the spiritual successor to legendary Roses restaurant El Bulli); and top-end Mexican restaurant Hoja Santa.
He opened his debut UK project Untitled in Dalston in 2016 and, a few years later, launched Gazelle in Mayfair’s Albemarle Street, which closed after nine months’ trading.
Offering an ‘informal’ menu of sharing plates and dishes from the grill, ALTA will seat more than 100 guests across two floors and private dining rooms, including an outdoor terrace, and will open seven days a week.
The dishes at ALTA will marry the essence of Spanish cooking, honing in on the Basque country with the best of the British larder. Escabeche techniques (a method of marinating fish, meat or vegetables common in Spain) incorporating British vinegars and oils will be prevalent across the menu and will focus on low-carbon ingredients from small-scale producers and farmers.
Designed to share, dishes will include Cornish mussels and grilled bread, baked beetroot salad, almonds and balsamic dressing; wood-fired courgette with pumpkin seed romesco; and razor clams in white escabeche.
A grill section will offer guests the choice of meats and fish such as 38-day aged beef sirloin; and turbot head. Desserts such as chocolate mousse with smoked olive oil meringue; and Basque cheesecake with escabeche strawberries, will be offered to finish.
The wine list at ALTA will major in European wines, with a focus on low-intervention and ethical production methods and bottles from small-scale producers.
Influenced by the Basque country’s cider culture, ALTA will serve a selection of ciders from UK producers who focus on both ancestral and modern techniques.