New opening

At the end of 2025, it's time to look and the best of the new openings of the year in London. Here are the restaurants that really made a mark. 

Lunch options for folks in the City just got a boost in the run up to Christmas with the arrival of cheese toastie folk MELT at the Boxhall City food hall. Melt have been trading at Old Spitalfields for the past couple of years; you'll probably have seen their signature oozy cheese toasties on your FYP at some point.

On the menu at the new City location will be a range of toasties and dips for dunking. But they're also launching an option that's exclusive to Boxhall City - The Boxer. That's a toastie with smoked pulled pork, maple mustard, MELT cheddar mozzarella blend, Kansas BBQ

Updated 10/12/25 with opening date

We get a lot of information about new openings here at Hot Dinners, so it takes a lot to impress us. So when we say that an announcement about a new central London hotel made us sit up and take notice, that's a big thing. The illustrations about the restaurant and bar opening at The Newman, just north of Oxford Street, really caught our eye. This Fitzrovian boutique hotel will have two places to eat and drink and they both look fabulous.

Brasserie Angelica will be the hotel's European all-day restaurant. That looks like a

Three years after closing The Laughing Heart in Hackney, Charlie Mellor is back with his latest venture, an Italian trattoria with fellow sommelier Cameron Dewar, formerly of Luca and Burnt Ends. 

Osteria Vibrato is the latest to join the recent trend of new Italian restaurants opening in town, this one with a menu created by Gaia Enria, founder of recently closed Burro e Salvia. Hoping to set themselves apart from the crowd, they're saying the menu will have a focus on simplicity.

Chef Louis Lingwood (ex-Quo Vadis and Toklas) is heading up the kitchen and serving a

9/12/25 - updated with more details and an opening date

London bakery nerd alert - one of the world's best bakers is coming to town. Richard Hart hails from London but made his name far from home, having headed up the famous Tartine in San Francisco for seven years before co-founding Copenhagen bakery Hart Bagery with none other than René Redzepi of Noma. Now he's signed up to be the executive

When Jamie's Italian went under back in 2019, it was one of the most public closures possible, with coverage all over the press. But, the brand has managed to keep going overseas and, much to pretty much everyone's surprise, it's coming back to the UK too. 

This time, the chef is spreading the risk about a bit as it's going to be a team-up with Prezzo and the first opening is going to be

8/12/25 - updated with the opening date

His main home may be Elystan Street, but Phil Howard's other business looks like it's doing pretty well. Fresh pasta bar Notto is already on Piccadilly and in Covent Garden, and a third is on the way to the City. 

If you're as yet unfamiliar with the restaurant, ...

Updated 8/12/25 with more details

In France they're responsible for a roster of hotter-than-hot restaurants, and back in 2021 we were the first to let you know that the Loulou Groupe were heading to London for their first UK opening. Now, four years later, we have more details on what's being planned.

The team have taken over a Grade II listed building in the

A quick look back at all the chef collabs that have taken place at Carousel over the past few years would reveal a distinct trend - they really love working with Mexican chefs. And at some point something on the team clearly asked the question, 'Why don't we open our own Mexican restaurant if we're so into it?' The net result is that Carousel founders, Ed and Ollie Templeton are currently working on one.

Cometa is being described as a contemporary Mexican seafood spot, influenced by the likes of Mexico City's Contramar and New York's The Four Horsemen. In the kitchen,

If you were one of the many fans of the much-missed Korean tea shop be-oom on Exmouth Market, then we've got some news that should gladden your heart. Founder Sooji Im has another venture in the offing. She's moved into central London, where she'll be opening TOKKIA, a luxury Korean matcha house.

On offer will be finely whisked Korean matcha, paired with saltbreads - a traditional Korean roll that looks

A health food restaurant that's opened across Europe is making its UK debut in Soho this month as Hg Soho (known as Honest Greens on the continent).

It's taking over a space in Soho that's directly opposite Kod (and used to be Good Housekeeping). The restaurant first opened in Barcelona in 2017 and has spread to more European cities since then. They bill the

We can't quite believe it's been 10 years since Padella first roared onto the London restaurant scene. The idea of well-priced, freshly made pasta dishes in a modern setting blew our tiny London minds at the time and set the scene for a perma-queue that pretty much remains at its OG Borough Market restaurant to this day.

Now the duo behind it, Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda (and also co-owners of Islington's Trullo),

They already have two big hits in Islington behind them with Goodbye Horses and The Dreamery and now the same team are blazingly on track for a third with Stable Wines. 

A Hot Dinners exclusive

Ruth's is a new neighbourhood restaurant and bar coming to Putney, and it's got an impressive team behind it. 

It's a team-up between Ed Baillieu and Callum Ross, who originally met in New Zealand (where Callum is from) and have since worked together as far afield as London, Auckland, Hong Kong and New York. This will be their first project together, opening in the neighbourhood where Ed grew up. The pair have an impressive background in London alone. Callum was GM at The Camberwell Arms and Forza Wine at the

After so many Italian restaurant openings, it's refreshing to be talking about something different throwing open its doors in London next month. Dim Sum Library is a Hong Kong import by the Aqua Group and is going to be taking over what used to be the group's Luci restaurant in Covent Garden.

They're pitching it as a modern take on classic dim sum, and they've brought in chefs Jian Jia (who