New opening

• The Azuki Room sees the Dotori team opening a new Japanese restaurant by Chancery Lane

  

  The man behind the hugely popular Korean/Japanese restaurant Dotori is getting ready to open a second place, this time in the City. Alan Tse has been running the much-loved Finsbury Park spot for the past eight years, during which time he also managed to squeeze in training at the Japan Culinary Institute in Tokyo.

  Now Tse is gearing up to open The Azuki Room, just off Chancery Lane. He's taking

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• Here are all the restaurants and bars opening at the huge new Chancery Rosewood hotel

  

  The opening of The Chancery Rosewood is nearly upon us. Not since the opening of The OWO has such a large endeavour been launched, but unlike that hotel, most of these restaurants here are opening at the same time. 

• Putney's getting a really interesting Indian restaurant, Raaz, from an ex-Kolamba chef

  

  Lucky old Putney folk. They'll no longer have to schlep into town to get great Indian food, with what sounds like a properly interesting neighbourhood restaurant opening on their doorsteps. Raaz (the name means secret but this one's going to get out fast) comes from chef Imran Mansuri who most recently headed up the restaurant at Kolamba in Soho but also has the likes of Michelin-starred restaurants Tamarind and

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• Camino are opening Pintxito, a new Basque pintxo bar in Covent Garden's piazza

  

  Updated 26/8/25 with the opening date. 

  It's a busy old year for Spanish restaurant folk Camino who have just spent the last few months buying up several of London's Iberica restaurants out of administration (the Farringdon and Victoria Iberica are now both Caminos as a result). But they're also working on something brand new - a pintxo bar in Covent Garden.

  Pintxito will be a pretty intimate

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• Alley Cats Pizza confirms its Notting Hill arrival

  

  15/8/25 - updated with the opening date

  Popular pizza spot Alley Cats is on the expansion trail again - this time to the area that it seems everyone's trying to break into, Notting Hill. 

  Alley Cats are taking over the space that was once Italian restaurant Verderame (that's a few doors down from Sunday in Brooklyn). The space will look pretty familiar to anyone

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• ADOH! sees the Kolamba team bringing Sri Lankan street food to Covent Garden

  

  14/8/25 - updated with the opening date

  Having already launched two London restaurants devoted to great Sri Lankan food, the couple behind Kolamba are getting ready to open a much more casual affair. ADOH! (a Sri Lankan word which is used both in greeting or to express surprise) is taking over a former Franca Manca space next door to Rules on Maiden Lane. And it's much more of a quick dine and dash

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• Amsterdam live fire restaurant Nela kicks off The Whiteley's reinvention in Bayswater

  

  14/8/25 - updated with the opening date

  Plans are well underway to bring Whiteleys, now renamed The Whiteley, back to its former glory, albeit this time as a hotel, apartments and restaurants. The people behind Bottarga and Nina are due to open

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• Richoux is coming back to London with a very French all-day café

  

  14/8/25 - updated with the opening date

  Back in 2021, one of the early casualties of Lockdown was cafe and patisserie Richoux. When its owner went into administration, all the Richoux sites closed. The name was briefly revived for a Piccadilly opening that was more of a restaurant, but that also closed a few years later. 

  Now, the people who bought

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• Lagana brings Med flatbreads and skewers to Shoreditch, taking over from Pachamama East

  

  The team behind Pachamama have spent the last year moving their restaurants' culinary inspiration point from Peru to the Mediterranean. It's been an extremely successful transformation, with both Bottarga on the King's Road and Nina in Marylebone being big hits. Now, the final restaurant, Pachamama East, gets the Med makeover, being reborn as Lagana. 

  This Greek-inspired

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• Scandinavian restaurant Punk Royale brings its caviar bumps to Mayfair

  

  13/8/25 - updated with launch details

  They've been here before in the guise of a pop-up at Carousel, but now Punk Royale is coming to London for their first permanent restaurant outside of Scandinavia. 

  The restaurant is taking a space in Mayfair that recently held two restaurants - Amethyst and London Stock. Neither of those survived long, so it's a

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• Napoli on the Road in Soho will offer London's first pizza tasting menu experience

  

  There are two things that have become very big trends in 2025 - smash burger bars and pizzerias. Napoli on the Road adds another pizzeria to London, but this one is doing something a little differently. 

  It'll be a two-floor approach where upstairs will be a more standard pizzeria, but the downstairs space will feature a tasting menu experience. They say that

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• SOLA's Victor Garvey kicks off a crowdfunder for Materia Prima in Marylebone

  

  Upon the news of the surprisingly quick closure of The Midland Grand, we revealed that Victor Garvey was already getting ready to open another restaurant in Marylebone. Now, thanks to a crowdfunder, we have more details about what's planned. 

  Called Materia

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• Kamara sees Brother Marcus opening an Eastern-Med-influenced cocktail bar in Soho

  

  The team behind Brother Marcus (best known for their Mediterranean brunches) are trying something a little different for their next opening. They've taken over the bar space that was the original Blind Pig bar (above Jason Atherton's Social Eating House), and they're launching their own Eastern-Med-influenced cocktail bar. 

  They've teamed up with ...

• Hoxton’s art’otel will open 25th floor restaurant Solaya from Kenny Atkinson

  

  7/8/25 - updated with the opening date

  When the swanky art’otel chain opened its second London outpost in Hoxton in 2024, we told you about its ground-floor dining experience Brush East London Grand Café. Well, the hotel has just announced its latest restaurant, and

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• Yangguofu Malatang brings its spicy hot pots to London's Chinatown

  

  Hot pot restaurants are ten a penny in London but the arrival of another new one in the centre of town has got fans rather excited. Yangguofu Malatang is a beast of a restaurant chain from China with over 7000 restaurants all over the world. Up till now if you wanted to try their food in the UK you had to head on over to Hammersmith, but a few weeks ago they unveiled their first restaurant in central

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