London in the 21st century is the restaurant capital of the world. British chefs vie with the most famous names on the international food scene to secure the primest sites for their new ventures. Here you can find almost any cuisine on the planet, often made with seasonal British ingredients, whether organic meats, sustainably caught fish and regeneratively farmed veg, but food is only half the story: chefs collaborate with designers to ensure that the surroundings look every bit as enticing as what’s coming out of the kitchen. Keep scrolling to discover the best new restaurants in London.
Discover the best new restaurants in London
June restaurant openings
Akira Back
The signature restaurant of the new Mandarin Oriental in Mayfair marks the UK debut of Akira Back, who is a very big deal in Asia and the States. The Korean-born, Colorado-raised snowboarder-turned-chef has cooked for everyone from the Dalai Lama to Bill Clinton and operates 28 restaurants from Doha to Dallas, Bangkok to Beverly Hills. Dosa, the relocation of the chef’s Michelin-starred Seoul chef’s table, will open later in the year, along with ABar Rooftop. Checking in? Back is also responsible for in-room dining across the 50-room hotel.
The Mood: Glossy glamour at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
Tokyo-based studio Curiosity has brought an elemental approach to the design, with earth, wind and water reflected over the 148-cover dining room and ABar Lounge. A circular marble staircase delivers diners to the triple-height lower ground-floor space, where light catches on the bronze ceiling of ABar Lounge. Back has had a hand in the design too: artwork by his mother is a key component of all the chef’s projects.
The Food: Modern Japanese creativity and cutting-edge cocktails
Back’s globetrotting cooking style grafts influences from his Korean-American childhood onto a thorough understanding of Japanese cuisine, with a strong taste for the contemporary. Signature dishes imported from the international outposts include ‘AB Tuna Pizza’, a crunchy wafer-thin crust topped with ponzu aioli, tuna sashimi and white truffle oil, while London-specific dishes such as turbot with white asparagus and saké beurre blanc will debut in Mayfair. Meanwhile, snacks such as wagyu tartlet will be served in the ABar lounge: not just any old bar lounge, it features cocktails with ingredients like lacto-fermented peaches, a 2.30am weekend licence and a roster of live DJs.
Akira Back is available to book now but opens on June 3. It is located at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, 22 Hanover Sq, London
mandarinoriental.com; akiraback.com
Koyn Thai
Never one to miss a gap in the local market, Queen of Mayfair Samyukta Nair has converted the basement of her Japanese restaurant Koyn into a Thai dining room overseen by Paris-based chef Rose Chalalai Singh. Nair says she is aiming for approachability but the West End’s only high-end Thai is likely to be as gilded as her other Mayfair restaurants Jamavar, Socca and Mimi Mei Feir.
The mood: Bangkok by night
Designer Tom Strother of Fabled Studio has given the dark and moody Japanese decor a subtle Thai makeover, incorporating burnt orange leather upholstery, hand-painted tapestries and works by Chiang Mai artist Kitikong Tilokwattanotai to contrast with the black oak ceiling and black marble counter. Food and drink are the focus of the refreshed look: wine is stored in a flower-bedecked sommelier station while food is cooked over live fire in the open kitchen before being served in handmade woven baskets.
The food: Home-style cooking that travels around Thailand
Bangkok-born Chalalai Singh has made a name for herself in Paris at her 11th-arrondissement restaurant Ya Lamaï, named after the grandmother who taught her to cook. But it was at her private Rose Kitchen within the Marché des Enfants Rouges, the city’s oldest covered market, that the chef became a hit with the Parisian fashion community and impressed Nair with recipes drawn from the length and breadth of Thailand. Expect dishes such as a Chiang Mai platter of spicy homemade pork sausage, capsicum nam prik sauce, sticky rice and pork crackling, or a southern Thai crab curry with wild betel leaf.
Koyn Thai opens on June 16 but is available to book now. It is located at 38 Grosvenor St, London
May restaurant openings
Julie’s
First opened in 1969 by interior designer Julie Hodgess, Julie’s was the belle of the beau monde. McCartney and Jagger partied here in the Seventies, Princess Di was an Eighties lady who lunched while Kate Moss threw her 22nd birthday here in the nineties. The 21st century wasn’t so kind – the restaurant closed between 2015 and ’19, and again in 2023 – but the star quality of the Julie’s name remained undimmed. Now Holland Park’s most famous restaurant has been bought by Tara MacBain, a long-time local and venture capitalist turned restaurateur.
The mood: Naughty but nice
MacBain is so committed to her new venture that she has the letter ‘J’ tattooed on her forearm. ‘G’, however, is the most famous letter here on account of the alcove known as the G-spot. Tina Turner dancing on the table (her heel marks are still etched into the wood) is the tamest thing to have happened behind the curtains. But while the brown awnings above the pavement terrace still look like the Julie’s of old, everything else inside is new, courtesy of interior designer Rosanna Bossom. Banquettes are upholstered in custom-made Le Manach fabric, timber tables finished with walnut tops, flower-shaped chandeliers hang from the ceiling and one-off prints on the walls.
The food: Seventies nostalgia given a 21st century update
Julie’s, arguably, has always been more about the mood than the food, though neither, alas, has been a forte in recent years. With a Cordon Bleu qualification under her belt, MacBain wants people to be talking as much about what’s on the plate as what’s on the walls and has enlisted Owen Kenworthy as chef patron. Kenworthy’s last gig was as exec chef of The Pelican, so he knows a thing or two about what well-heeled Notting Hillbillies want from their local, namely an all-day menu of Franglais classics with an emphasis on simple sophistication rather than cheffy showboating: devilled eggs with harissa, lobster soufflé with leeks and Gruyère, rhubarb and almond tart with custard.
Julie’s is located at 135 Portland Rd, London
Kioku
The OWO hotel launched last autumn with offerings from some of Europe’s glitziest operators (Mauro Colagreco, Café Lapérouse) but has saved the best till last with Kioku: the fourth London restaurant from Endo Kazutoshi, the chef behind Sumi in Notting Hill, Niju in Mayfair and the Michelin-starred Endo at the Rotunda in White City. The rooftop views here are even better than at the Rotunda, with a 360-degree panorama of central London from the dining room and terrace.
The mood: Magical views and privacy
It’s easy in a rooftop restaurant to focus all the attention on what’s beyond the windows rather than inside but designers Pirajean Lees have emphasised texture as much as natural light in details such as carved oak service stations, accents of aged brass and oxblood leather, and mesh screens to break up an already intimate 55-cover space. Oak chairs covered in Japanese embroidered silk reference Kazutoshi’s favourite hotel in his home city of Yokohama, with the best seats in a spectacular private dining room housed within one of the building’s turrets overlooking Whitehall and St James’s Park.
The food: European-accented Japanese cooking taken to new heights
Don’t mention the f-word (fusion): Kazutoshi gained an in-depth education and appreciation of Mediterranean cooking when his Nagoya sushi master sent him to work at the Japanese embassy in Madrid. The cuisine at Kioku isn’t so much east-meets-west as classic European with a Japanese accent: ravioli made from ramen pasta stuffed with chashu pork, say, or native lobster with fregola, shiso oil and sancho. Purists can rest assured there is also the sushi and sashimi that have made Kazutoshi’s name, with tuna sliced tableside from a bespoke trolley, while Europe’s largest saké collection – 300 bottles of over 110 varieties – is stored in a ‘saké safe’.
Kioku is located on the sixth floor of The OWO, 2 Whitehall Pl, London
April restaurant openings
ABC Kitchens
Alsace-born, New York-based chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten created waves in London in the Nineties at Belgravia’s Berkeley hotel with Vong, a restaurant which defined the concept of fusion cuisine in the capital. Now he’s back next door at Maybourne’s new property The Emory, London’s first all-suite hotel where life is very sweet indeed. ABC is JGV’s trio of NYC restaurants – ABC Kitchen, ABCV and ABC Cocina – here joined under the same roof for the first time.
The mood: Manhattan transfer with a British accent
Few recent London restaurant launches have arrived with the effortlessly confident swagger of ABC. Which, of course, took a lot of effort to achieve. French designer Rémi Tessier has channelled Transatlantic glamour; a series of Damien Hirst artworks called ‘The Secret Gardens Paintings’ anchors the space in London with vibrant pops of colour, but the emphasis on luxe comfort in everything from the tactile furnishings to a wine cave fashioned from amber glass, suffusing the room with a warm glow, feel very Uptown, as too the nothing-is-too-much-trouble service.
The food: Thrilling combinations of global flavours and textures
Fusion cuisine may have been consigned to the garbage shoot of history but Vongerichten’s cuisine still thrills with its borderless approach to mix and matching ingredients. Stiff prices are justified by careful sourcing: exceptional quality British seafood from Portland Shellfish, and foraged ingredients from The Wild Room, among others. Early hits include tacos filled with crispy Dover sole, aioli, cabbage and apple slaw – a crunch in every mouthful – guacamole made with spring pea to scoop up with warm tortilla chips, and an arroz con pollo involving rice stirred through with chicken skin, lemon zest and black pepper.
ABC Kitchens is located at The Emory, Old Barrack Yard, London
Oma
Hot on the heels of Camille and Kolae in Borough Market comes this new island-inspired Greek from David Carter, a former Gordon Ramsay front-of-house who already has American barbecue joint Smokestak and nose-to-tail Italian restaurant Manteca, both in Shoreditch, to his name. With downstairs wine bar Agora topped by first-floor dining room Oma, this is Carter’s most ambitious project yet – and he’s pulled it off with aplomb.
The mood: It’s all Greek
A flight of white stone stairs leads to a dining room under the green girders of the market roof. A terrace spreads out to the left while on the right is a 2.5m-long raw bar and hearth, where dry-aged meat, Cornish fish and Flourish Farm veg are cooked over an open wood fire. Smokestack and Manteca designers Box 9 have created an interior as weathered as the most sun-kissed, wind-swept Greek isle, with a colour scheme of eucalyptus and stone applied to natural materials. At lunch the space is flooded with daylight; in the evening, low lighting and thudding beats create a mesmeric scene.
The food: That of the gods
Greek food is having a moment in London – Kima, Vori, Gaia – but no one has applied the same creativity to the cuisine as Barbados-born Carter and his Ecuadorian head chef Jorge Paredes. The wood-fired breads, baked downstairs, are worth the cost of entry alone – pillowy laffa, or açma verde like a cross between a bagel and garlic bread – and dredged through labneh topped with salt cod XO sauce or smoky baba ghanoush with a rubble of Jerusalem artichoke. Elsewhere are sausage and octopus glued together on a skewer with sticky lamb sauce like succulent surf ’n’ turf. Not everything is so rich – Oma is the Greek word for raw and there’s gilthead bream ceviche and sea bass crudo made from fish picked off the glittering ice.
Oma is located at 2-4 Bedale St, London
Arlington
Le Caprice, the legendary late 20th-century haunt of everyone from Hollywood and rock royalty to the real thing – Liz Taylor, Elton John, Princess Di – is set to be revived by Richard Caring at the Chancery Rosewood in the former US Embassy next year, but its soul will forever remain at its former St James’s site, now back under the control of original owner Jeremy King and reincarnated as Arlington. It’s the restaurant equivalent of a new engine being put under the bonnet of a vintage Aston Martin: it might look the same, but everything has been fine-tuned to perfection.
The mood: Party like it's 1989
If Annabel Croft and Alan Yentob, Nigella Lawson and Michael Caine are your idea of celebrity spotting, then the mood of late middle-aged nostalgia at Arlington will have you in raptures. First-timers may wonder what all the fuss is about (a primetime table is nigh-on impossible unless you have Jeremy King on speed dial) but for regulars from the King and Corbin glory days, Arlington is a reassuring resurrection. Much of it is new but designed to look like the old version, from the luminous set of black-and-white David Bailey prints to the mirror behind the bar which allows solo diners at the 12-seat counter to watch the table-hopping behind.
The food: modern European crowd-pleasers
The menu is a greatest hits for anyone who ate at Le Caprice or The Ivy in their 90s heyday: bang bang chicken or crispy duck salad followed by shepherd’s pie or salmon fish cakes. Nostalgia never tasted so good: eggs Benedict quiver under a buttercup-yellow hollandaise, pink-cooked calf’s liver comes with a piquant sauce diable, and for anyone who doesn’t wish to finish with the famous Scandinavian iced berries with white chocolate sauce, Welsh rarebit, bubbled up from the grill, functions as both cheese course and savoury pud.
Arlington is located at 20 Arlington Street, London
Josephine Bouchon
Claude Bosi is famous for running some of the finest fine-diners in London: Brooklands at the new Peninsula hotel and Bibendum each have two Michelin stars. But the chef hasn’t forgotten the casual bistro his parents ran in Lyon and Joséphine – the name of his grandmother – is his homage to the restaurants he grew up in.
The mood: fancy, French bistro
South Kensington is the epicentre of London’s French community which means that while the capital is currently drowning in ersatz Gallic bistros, the chatter of French accents makes Joséphine feel like the real deal. It helps that the restaurant absolutely looks the part: net curtains shield diners from the prying eyes of Fulham Road while a heavy curtain in the vestibule protects them from the wind. Pork terrine is sliced tableside from a pig-shaped ceramic jar to diners sitting on cherry-red banquettes, while the Frenchest thing of all is a set menu served all day for £29.50 for three courses, a terrific-value alternative to the SW10 pricing of the à la carte.
The taste: A love letter to Gallic classics
If you’re in the mood for nouvelle cuisine, then walk on by. Bosi and his kitchen are cooking up every cream-drenched, booze-infused classic you care to name. There’s a French onion soup thick with cheese and croutons, veal sweetbreads acting as sponges to soak up a morel mushroom sauce and a rum baba so alcoholic it could be served as a cocktail. Do be sure to dine with at least one other person: the must-order side dish of gratin dauphinois is designed for two to share.
Josephine is located at 315 Fulham Road, London
Lita
Short for ‘abuelita’, the Spanish word for ‘grandmother’, Lita is a new Marylebone venture from restaurateurs Daniel Koukarskikh and Dominykas Ramanauskas and the team behind Chelsea’s Wild Tavern. The general schtick is a modern Mediterranean bistro with open-fire cooking, but with the kitchen headed up by Irishman Luke Ahearne, the waters and pastures of the British Isles are just as much of an influence on the sharing-plates menu as the Med.
The Mood: Rus in urbe near Regent’s Park
Like visiting the sort of rustic-chic French farmhouse restored by a terrifyingly smart friend, B3 Designers have jumbled together a floor laid with reclaimed Italian terracotta tiles, a timber-clad bar with a red marble-veined top, restored antique tables and chairs by Guillerme et Chambron. The best seats in the house are the green velvet bar stools at each of the three counters, which offer a ringside seat to the open-fire cooking from the roaring grill. The full-length windows are thrown open to the pavement in fine weather; dogs are welcome too if you’ve been for a stroll in nearby Regent’s Park.
The Food: British ingredients warmed up with Mediterranean flavours
Ahearne worked at the two-Michelin-starred Clove Club in Shoreditch before becoming head chef at Corrigan’s Mayfair; here he’s found a happy medium between the cutting-edge and the comforting. So while morels come with wild garlic and lardo di Colonnata to highlight the kitchen’s ultra-seasonal, southern European credo, the dish is essentially the best version of garlic mushrooms imaginable. Small plates such as pan con tomate elegantly draped with Cantabrian anchovies are followed by meat and fish from the chargrill; dry-aged Devon duck, vividly flavoured with Todolí citrus, is the perfection of duck à l’orange.
Lita is located at 7-9 Paddington St, London
