Row on 5
Epitomising the partnership between chef patron Jason Atherton and head chef Spencer Metzger, Row on 5 is where the old and new guard of the industry meet. It’s a place that combines the self-assurance and attention to detail people have come to expect from Atherton and the exuberance and passion of one of the most exciting young chefs in the country. It’s a bold proposition, and one that could redefine fine dining in the capital thanks to its attention to detail. Everything is as immaculate as it is delicious, but it is also very deliberate, with Atherton having drawn on his vast experience not just running restaurants but visiting them and being inspired by what he has seen and tasted.
AngloThai
John and Desiree Chantarasak’s progressive Thai restaurant concept has finally opened as a permanent spot in London late last year following an unusually long gestation period. Called AngloThai, the concept takes inspiration from Thailand but utilises high-quality UK seasonal products. In some cases, the kitchen eschews ingredients that most Thai restaurants would source from Asia, not least rice. AngloThai started life as a pop-up just ahead of the pandemic, and in the intervening years John and Desiree have refined it over further pop-ups and residencies. The result is well worth the wait with the restaurant receiving a flood of positive reviews and earning a Michelin star within just a few months of opening.
JÖRO
After a long wait, husband-and-wife team Luke French and Stacey Sherwood-French have relocated their ambitious Nordic/Japanese restaurant from its original digs within a shipping container in Krynkl in Kelham Island in Sheffield to the impressive Oughtibridge Paper Mill development within a renovated 19th-century paper mill in the city. Dubbed as JÖRO 2.Ö, it is a much more grown-up restaurant, featuring rooms for staying guests as well as a retail offering and a menu of ambitious cooking that sets it out as one of the most exciting openings of the year.
Avery
When former The French Laundry chef Rodney Wages announced he was swapping the San Francisco sun for the more changeable surrounds of Scotland and relaunch his Michelin-starred Avery restaurant in the city’s Stockbridge area, some people thought it was a crazy idea. The chef said he made the decision following a family holiday to the Scottish capital and billed it as an evolution of his original US restaurant. It’s an unusual move, but one that’s paid dividends, with Wages scoring a star within a year of opening. It’s a rich and impressive restaurant, with the menu at Avery neatly combining mainstays from the San Francisco restaurant with new creations inspired by the fruits of Scotland’s larder including foraged ingredients, game and seafood.
Lita
Serving gutsy food in a stylish setting, Lita is a buzzy 80-cover dining room that majors in live-fire Mediterranean cooking. With a name that’s short for ‘abuelita’, a Spanish term of endearment for grandmothers, Lita is the brainchild of Canadian-born restaurateur Daniel Koukarskikh and is headed up in the kitchen by Irish chef Luke Ahearne, formerly head chef at Corrigan’s Mayfair, who has worked at restaurants in Ireland and London. Here, Ahearne serves up a seasonal menu that celebrates flavours of southern Europe. Portion sizes are hearty, and the menu is ambitiously long, but not to the detriment of quality, with Ahearne’s skill at the stove evident.
Osip
Billed as a ‘complete re-imagining’ of the Michelin-starred farm-to-table concept, the new iteration of Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Osip sees the chef taking his locavore cuisine to the next level. The original Osip launched in 2019 within boutique hotel Number One Bruton, but has now moved to much larger digs about five minutes’ drive east of the upmarket Somerset town. Labron-Johnson himself has big ambitions for this second iteration of his flagship. In an interview with Restaurant last year, he described his team as ‘young and very hungry’ with the ‘potential to do incredible things’ and said that his ultimate aim is for Osip to become an ‘internationally recognised place that people from all over the world come and visit’. Based on initial reactions, he’s well on his way to achieving this.
Starling
Following his departure from Tom Kerridge’s restaurant group, Nick Beardshaw has opened his debut restaurant in his hometown of Esher, Surrey. Called Starling, the 40-seater restaurant serves a concise menu of British cooking using seasonal ingredients, cooked using classical techniques that allow the flavours to speak for themselves. Dishes include successes from Beardshaw’s 2023 appearance on Great British Menu such as his winning fish starter A Moon Shaped Pool with Orkney scallop with Thai green curry sauce; and his Balloon Girl dessert, a combination of raspberry cheesecake and chocolate torte.
Dongnae
A contemporary Korean restaurant in Bristol’s Redland area from the team behind Bokman in Stokes Croft, Dongnae takes its name from the Korean word for neighbourhood but is more ambitious than that tag might suggest. Husband and wife duo Duncan Robertson and Kyu Jeong Jeon’s second restaurant outing is more grown-up in feel and offers a significantly more elevated and wide-ranging menu, drawing inspiration from the couple’s time spent living in Seoul as a family. Part of Bristol’s vibrant Chandos Road community, the restaurant has been turning heads since it opened last year with the FT‘s Tim Hayward describing it as ‘different, gently inspiring, flat-out delicious’.
The Square Opening of the Year will be revealed at the National Restaurant Awards, being held at Magazine on 9 June.