Tigermilk
France-born Latin American styled restaurant brand Tigermilk is crossing the channel having acquired a large site on London’s Charing Cross Road. Launched in Paris in 2019 by restaurateurs Nina and Alexis Melikov, the group has nine locations in France and a further site in Brussels. Tigermilk– which takes its name from the marinade used in ceviche – is being billed as a cliché-free love letter to the region that serves dishes that are ‘generous, festive, and precisely seasoned’ and will have one of largest selections of agave-based spirits in London.
127 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0EW
tigermilkrestaurants.com/en/restaurants/london/
The Black Cow
Middle Eastern steak house concept The Black Cow has chosen Shoreditch’s Curtain Road for its second London location. Launched in Camden in 2021 by Shiri Kraus and Amir Batito - who are also behind Camden’s Epicurus - the brand offers dry-aged steaks and US-style dishes with a Middle Eastern twist. Their east London outpost will be located in the reimagined development of the 1570s Shakespearean Curtain Playhouse Theatre.
30 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NL
Lupa
Carousel co-founder Ed Templeton and The White Lotus actor Theo James are joining forces to open a restaurant dedicated to Roman comfort food. Launching in Highbury in London later this month, Lupa will be led in the kitchen by head chef Naz Hassan, previously head chef at Pidgin and Crispin, and will focus ‘on the beauty and simplicity of traditional Roman osterias with a distinct London flare’. The 28-cover restaurant is named after the she-wolf of Rome.
73 Highbury Park, London N5 1UA
Noreen
Translating to ‘two lights’ in Arabic, Middle Eastern inspired Marlebone restaurant Noreen will be led in the kitchen by head chef Mehdi Hani, who has experience in cooking in kitchens including Harrods and The Dorchester. Opening in St Christopher’s Place, Noreen will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week and will draw inspiration from across the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, with a focus on the region and its culinary heritage, culture, and diversity.
28-32 St Christopher’s Place, London W1U 1NU
Prime by Pasture
The team behind Bristol-born steak house group Pasture are launching a burger restaurant, butchery, deli and cookery school in the city’s Redcliffe neighbourhood. Open all day from breakfast through dinner, the 75-cover venue will have a focus on beef, which will be sourced from regenerative South West farms where cattle are raised on pasture and butchered in house. Food waste will be kept to a minimum and will be composted in the restaurant’s anaerobic digester, one of a small number of restaurants in the UK to have this kind of facility on-site.
St Thomas Street, Bristol BS1 6ZD
Mareida
The team behind renowned Santiago restaurant Ambrosía are set to ‘bring Chile’s largely unexplored culinary landscape to London’ this month with the launch of Mareida on Great Portland Street in Fitzrovia. Inspired by the Godofredo Iommi poem Amereida, Mareida is the creation of restaurateur Prenay Agarwal, who says he decided to open the restaurant having spent a year living in Chile and immersing himself in the country’s food scene. The restaurant will be helmed by head chef Trinidad Vial Della Maggiora. She’ll be working alongside Carolina Bazán, who was voted Latin America’s Best Female Chef by The World’s 50 Best back in 2019.
160 Great Portland St, London W1W 5QA
Singburi 2.0
Following the closure of its original site in London’s Leytonstone last year, bracingly authentic Thai restaurant Singburi has relocated and is set to open within Montacute Yards, a recently-launched development on Shoreditch High Street, later this month. The restaurant’s new iteration, dubbed Singburi 2.0, will continue to be led by chef patron Sirichai Kularbwong, who has brought in friends and fellow hospitality professionals Nick Molyviatis and Alexander Gkikas to oversee the ‘much-anticipated rebirth’. Details on the new restaurant remain thin on the ground, but the press notes say the ethos of Singburi 2.0 will ‘remain rooted in the spirit of the original while embracing a broader, distinctly London perspective’.
Unit 7 Montacute Yards, Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6HU
Noisy Oyster
Having won over many fans with their Soho restaurant Firebird, Madina Kazhimova and Anna Dolgushina’s are doubling up in London with a new venture that will be located in the Norton Folgate development in Shoreditch. Called Noisy Oyster, the restaurant will serve a modern seafood menu with an emphasis on sustainable sourcing alongside a drinks offering that will major in martinis. The 50-cover restaurant will have an interior design that ‘reflects Shoreditch’s fusion of street art, fashion, and gentrified industrial spaces’, with materials including wood, concrete, and stainless steel.
Norton Folgate, London E1 6DB
Lai Rai
The family team behind the Bánh Bánh group of Vietnamese restaurants is adding to its London estate with the opening a new retro-style concept that’s launching in Peckham this month. Lai Rai will be inspired by the Vietnamese bia hoi culture of meeting friends for snacks and cold beer and will serve a menu that will shine a light on familiar Vietnamese flavours but with an ‘experimental, youthful twist’. The restaurant will serve bánh mi and Vietnamese coffee by day and innovative Vietnamese dishes and drinks in the evening with the menu devised by Blair Nguyen, co-founder of southeast London project Vinaxoa, a collective known for its food pop-ups at parties and clubs, combining rave culture with food.
181 Rye Lane, Peckham SE15 4TP
BEAR by Carlo Scotto
After an extended hiatus following the closure his high-end London venture Amethyst back in 2023, chef Carlo Scotto is back in the kitchen with a new eponymous restaurant that’s set to launch this month at the Crazy Bear Hotel in Beaconsfield. BEAR by Carlo Scotto will take the form of an intimate, 14-seat chef’s table and is described as pushing ‘the boundaries of creativity and taste’ while prioritising responsible sourcing. The restaurant will offer counter dining and will serve a tasting menu that takes a farm-to-plate philosophy, and which will take in Nordic, Asian and Arabic flavours.
73-75 Wycombe End, Beaconsfield HP9 1LX
www.sevenrooms.com/experiences/bearbycarloscotto
Gina
Ravneet Gill and her husband Mattie Taiano open the doors to their debut restaurant in Chingford on 11 June. Details of Gina’s menu are yet to be revealed but the restaurant is described as a ‘chophouse meets family-run restaurant.
92 Station Road, London E4 7BA
Barbarella
Barbarella is one of two restaurants to open this month from Big Mamma Group. Named after the supremely kitsch 1968 science fiction film featuring Jane Fonda, Barbarella is located within Canary Wharf’s YY Building and is inspired by ‘the golden age of 70s Roman cinema’ and will feature a design of ‘sexy vintage Ferragamo silks and glitzy details’ with a mirrored glass bar, reflective 70s chromed lounge and an open kitchen. Chef Marco Rastelli leads the food offer of pizza, pasta and large sharing dishes and the restaurant will also have Big Mamma’s biggest-ever cocktail menu and its most extensive wine list yet.
Canary Wharf, YY Building, 30 South Colonnade
www.bigmammagroup.com/italian-restaurants/barbarella
Dumbo
Paris-based Smash burger brand Dumbo makes its international debut in east London this month. Located on Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch, the restaurant will serve a tight menu features a cheeseburger made from meat from butcher HG Walter, and a vegetarian ‘earth’ burger as well as twice cooked french fries and some chicken nugget in slick, utilitarian surroundings.
119 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 7DG
Island
Chefs Brad Carter and Tom Brown have come together to open a meat and seafood restaurant in King’s Cross. Set inside the Chandelier Room at Mare Street Market, Island is Inspired by the friends’ shared memories of years of cooking together around the world and combines Brown’s extensive knowledge of sourcing and cooking seafood and Carter’s nose-to-tail ethos. The menu will include snacks such as caviar crisps; pickled cockles; jamon; and an oyster caesar salad along with charcuterie such as trout pastrami and monkfish cheek ham and lardo and larger family-style dishes. Save room for its oyster ice cream sandwich.
Mare Street Market, King’s Cross, Lewis Cubitt Square, London N1C 4DY
marestreetmarket.com/kingscross/#island
Canal
The Bistro Freddie team are back with a new canal-side restaurant property in London’s Westbourne Park. Canal will open within the new Mason & Fifth property at the end of the month and will be open from breakfast through dinner, with its kitchen headed up by New York-born chef Adrian Hernandez Farina, whose experience includes time at Humo, Luca, Coal Rooms, ASKA in New York, and The French Laundry in California. Expect a bistro-style menu of British and European produce.
11 Woodfield Road, London W9 2BA
Margaret’s Cambridge
This modern British bistro is the younger sibling to Michelin-starred Restaurant 22 in Cambridge run by husband-and-wife team Sam Carter and Alex Olivier. Opening on 12 June, diners can expect produce-led shared and set menus that elevate locally sourced ingredients. Opening dishes will including crudités with cod’s roe and chilli; tempura monkfish with lemon, ginger and kombu; Norfolk salt marsh lamb rump with green sauce; and peach and almond crumble with meadowsweet custard for dessert.
18 Chesterton Road, Cambridge CB4 3AX
Circolo Popolare Manchester
Not content with opening a restaurant in London this month (see Barbarella), Big Mamma Group is also making its debut in Manchester with a second UK site for its Circolo Popolare brand. Opening on 6 June within Manchester’s new high-end St Michael’s development near Deansgate, the 280-cover restaurant is this time inspired by the island of Sardinia and will feature festoon lights across a eucalyptus-clad ceiling, and a courtyard floor filled with antique trinkets and a wishing well.
1 St Michael’s, 36 Jackson’s Row Manchester, M2 5DA
www.circolopopolare.com/restaurants/circolopopolare-manchester
Shwen Shwen
Sevenoaks is getting a Sierra Leone restaurant thanks to chef and cookery book author Maria Bradford. Shwen Shwen will serve Bradford’s distinctive take on Afrofusion cuisine’ with dishes such as lamb belly, palm oil, African five spice; mackerel, mango and cassava flat bread; king prawns with lemongrass gel; and beef short-rib, groundnut and coconut. Desserts will include hibiscus, caramelised white chocolate, fig leaf and pepper; and moringa mille-feuille, benne cake with sheep’s yoghurt ice-cream.
1-2 Well Court, Bank Street, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1UN
Cylla
Occupying a site that was previously home to an All Bar One, Cylla is a Greek fine dining restaurant that is inspired by the legendary Greek sea monster Scylla. The restaurant promises to serve a blend of authentic Greek cuisine and contemporary Mediterranean food, and will be led by general manager Adonis Maniadakis.
43 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 3QR
Society Birmingham
Independent food hub Society has chosen the centre of Birmingham for its new food hall, that will be home to five independent street food traders. Central to the offer will be a bar offering one of the largest selection of beers in the city with 36 lines of craft beer sourced from breweries including local producer such as Attic and Glasshouse. The 9,000sq ft venue in the heart of the city’s business district will have space for more than 350 guests across its open plan dining hall and outdoor terrace.
1 Colmore Square, Birmingham B4 6AA