A new weekend restaurant is to launch at the Islington Arts Club next month, bringing a weekly rotating menu of seasonal Italo-French cooking.
Called Dante London — not to be confused with the New York bar currently in residence at Claridge’s — the concept is the work of chef duo Louis Korovilas and Taylor Sessegnon-Shakespeare, who worked together at Pied A Terre a decade ago.
Korovilas is the former protege of Locanda Locatelli, and a chef widely credited with bringing the once-hyped pasta handkerchiefs to mainstream dining and who was most recently head chef of Phil Howard’s Italian fixture Notto.
Sessegnon-Shakespeare, meanwhile, has worked with Korovilas at restaurants across London, including Bancone, and was until last month the head pastry chef at the excellent Lardo in Hackney.
At Dante, the duo will operate their first venture together, serving a European menu on Friday and Saturday nights and hosting a more relaxed service on Sundays.
Dishes on the first menu will include broadbean orzotto with glazed chicken wings, bagna cauda and crispy palourde clams, beef carpaccio with oyster mayonnaise and baby artichokes, and seasonal financier cakes.
Both chefs said they intend to focus on lesser-known breeds and cuts and will break down whole animals rather than buying in pre-prepared parts, once par for the course in kitchens but rarer in modern times.
Sessegnon-Shakespeare said: “With London being such a cosmopolitan city, there is a constant stream of influence from all over the globe in terms of food, which is what makes the city so exciting.
“We want to make sure you can see this within our food and some of our ingredient choices. We’re trying to bring back the lost staple of hospitality with little details such as complimentary bread selections.
“Though this is a hit to margins and is labour intensive, it’s a price worth paying on our end. This is true hospitality: it's about giving and that is what we want Dante London to be about.”
Dante will be hosted in the candlelit dining room on the first floor of Islington Arts Club. The space is dim, moody and intimate, with mismatched furniture and aubergine-coloured walls.
Both chefs said the idea is to offer something different in what might be perceived as quite a “formulaic” dining scene in London.
“At the moment the London dining scene is quite formulaic due to the financial climate; restaurants are taking less exciting risks and you can see a lot of similarities in many restaurant menus,” Korovilas added.
“We’re trying to break away from this without current trends on our menu and how we cook.”
Dante will be open to walk-ins but bookings are advised. Tickets for dinner are £55 per person during a two-week soft launch and £65 thereafter. First full service is on August 1.
235 Upper Street, N1 1RU, @islington.arts.club
