SC Edit — London’s Newest Must-Try Restaurants and Their Creators

 In the past decade, London has undergone nothing short of a Foodie Revolution. The land of Shepherd’s pies and clotted cream has made space for sushi and caviar, Mongolian and Middle-eastern, and tapas and bistros as London has appeared on the international culinary map beside longstanding food giants like New York City and Tokyo. Something Curated has scoured and sampled London’s newest eating establishments and resolved the 5 best restaurants that have opened their doors over the past year. We’ve also gone behind the scenes and picked at the brains of the restaurateurs behind them to get some key insight into the changing game of the food and hospitality industry, what makes a good restaurant, and why London is such a force to watch out for.

 

Hoppers (The Sethis)

The Sethis are a sibling power team made up of Karam Sethi and his two siblings Sunaina and Jyotin. Together they run JKS, a restaurant group behind some of London’s most adored eateries, including NRA-award winning Gymkhana, Bao, and Lyle’s, plus Michelin starred Trishna and most recently, Hoppers.

In November 2015, JKS unveiled its newest venture: the Sri Lankan-inspired restaurant Hoppers, so named after its star offering, the hopper. A new and lighter take on the beloved curry, a hopper is a bowl-shaped, thin and crispy pancake made with fermented rice batter and coconut milk. Naturally, Hoppers takes on the most finicky of the hopper family, the egg hopper. Crispy on the edges with an egg baked into the base of rice, the egg hopper is a dextrous affair whose results are no doubt worth the effort.

Earthy and warm on the interior thanks to its wood and tile diner décor, not to mention friendly on veggies and the wallet, Hoppers has won over many lunching Londoners in the past six months of its operation. The next time you’re craving a curry but want to stay awake after lunch break, consider dropping into Hoppers to see a bit of Sethi’s magic at work. If you’re hungry for more, check out our full cover on the Royal Tennenbam-like Sethi siblings here.

 Park Chinois (Alan Yau)

Park Chinois is Alan Yau at his finest: re-inventing culinary expectations all over again by fusing the unexpected: Chinese and French cuisine, culture, design, and aesthetic. Yau’s influence is so pervasive that he practically needs an article of his own – and Something Curated has that covered. Check out our extensive look at the life and legacy of the dining and hospitality legend that is Alan Yau. 

Sosharu (Jason and Irha Atherton)

Sosharu is an izakaya-style (a type of gastropub that is informal, cheap, and ubiquitous in Japan) restaurant and bar in Clerkenwell, which opened in April 2016 as another notch in the belt of internationally-influential restaurateur power couple Jason and Irha Atherton. Created in collaboration with executive head chef Alex Craciun, Sosharu serves up Japanese cuisine using British seasonal ingredients – the ethos here is similar to Park Chinois, yet Atherton scales the British culture bit way down). The basement scene is a sleek dive bar called 7 Tales, with Japanese-inspired cocktails (bring on the Yuzu.) The whole affair was designed by Neri & Hu, the Shanghai-based architecture and design group who even more recently completed the fabulous Body Studio for women’s clothing in London’s Selfridges.

 

Black Axe Mangal (Lee Tiernan)

Black Axe Mangal by experienced chef and heavy metal enthusiast Lee Tiernan opened in late 2015 a stone’s throw from the Highbury & Islington station. Black Axe Mangal is a 22-seater meat meets metal eatery flamboyantly decorated and blasting metal consistently throughout its hours of operation. Based on Mangal cuisine’s principle of using the whole animal, Tiernan’s London joint (whose name carried over from its pop-up prior life in Copenhagen’s clubs) leaves no beast behind, but also makes room on its bold menu for savoury veggie-friendly dishes like charred onions, pomegranate, and curd. The space is compact and comfortable and in every way relishing in its own kitsch: from the aloha flower print tablecloths and schoolhouse-esque plastic chairs, both of which contrast hilariously with the intensity of the food on offer.

 

Padella (Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda) 

Frenchie & Padella are both newcomers to the London food scene (Frenchie in February, Padella in April), but they are the handiwork of two restaurateur power teams who have wielded a great influence on restaurant culture both here in London and abroad for many years. Founded by Tim Siadatan and Jordan Frieda, the duo behind the acclaimed Highbury Italian Trullo, Padella opened last month in Borough Market. It is fundamentally dedicated to pasta, with just 8 antipasti and 6 pasta dishes on offer. The restaurant is designed in a tasteful, minimalist way, with a unique open kitchen plan visible from the street, glossy marble countertops and plenty of space for people watching.

 

Frenchie (Greg Marchand)

Frenchie shares this aesthetic, although it feels a bit more retro, with softer shapes, hanging lights, upholstered bar stools (more like chairs), and the occasional pop of colour. Frenchie is so named after its head chef and co-founder Greg Marchand, who (according to culinary folklore) received his nickname from the time he spent working in the kitchen of Jamie Oliver’s illustrious Fifteen restaurant.

Frenchie originally opened as a tiny 26 seater in the garment district of Paris in 2009. It was a product of Greg and Marie’s dream to open a restaurant, and after achieving both Parisian and international acclaim, the duo opened Frenchie as their first restaurant outside of France.

The two-floor restaurant is designed by the renowned set designer Emilie Bonaventure, who has a longstanding partnership with the Marchands. Her design features whitewashed walls and exposed brickwork, similar to the Paris site. The refined industrial base is warmed by brass, copper and zinc highlights, which pick up the natural light flooding in to the restaurant during day and shine by overhanging bulb lights at night.

When Hospitality Interiors asked Marchand about his opening in London and his thoughts on London’s dining culture at large, he replied:

“I love London and I am so excited to have the opportunity to bring Frenchie over here and to feed on the energy, the diversity and the “richesse” the city has to offer. I look forward to rediscovering the best of British – both the produce and the people!”

 

Restaurant Ours (Tom Sellers)

Tom Sellers, the prodigy chef behind two Sunday Times top 100 restaurants, has converted the former site of 1990s restaurant, The Collection, for his latest venture. The meandering 30-meter Norman Foster-designed catwalk entrance still remains, with a dramatic interior of exposed bricks and skylights mollified by tactile details, including slate walls and velvet banquettes. Sellers, chef-patron of the Michelin-starred Story in Bermondsey, is “culinary director” of this new business backed by the Reuben Brothers. He approaches Restaurant Ours with a more casual feel, incorporating a green-tiled open kitchen with engaging views, a triple-height dining space punctuated by three enormous trees, a central bar, along with a mezzanine for lounging and dining.

Taberna Do Mercado (Nuno Mendes)

Nuno Mendes, the big name behind the popular Chiltern Firehouse, has gone back to his Portuguese roots for the inspiration behind Taberna Do Mercado. Employing a pared-down industrial chic aesthetic, the rather unassuming space in Old Spitalfields Market is light and airy with whitewashed brick walls. Mendes has gone for a Lisbon backstreet, Bairro Alto look; the restaurant is small, with fake-marble tables, child-sized wooden chairs, plain wood floors and an unfinished ceiling. In contrast, the food is complex, surprising and unreplicable. A little known fact, Portugal introduced the tempura technique to Japan, and now you can try the runner-bean fritters at Taberna Do Mercado.