The theatrical Swedish restaurant Punk Royale is opening a site in Mayfair, bringing its famed caviar bumps, vodka shots and Thai green curry oysters to the capital.
Five years after hosting a sell-out residency at incubator space Carousel, the Stockholm-born restaurant will launch in London next month, its first location outside Scandinavia.
Dubbed “iconoclastic, bonkers and audacious” by critics, past dishes include chawanmushi tart, kaitafi shrimp and langoustine nigiri, while ingredients such as lobster, white truffle and foie gras are par for the course. Shots of vodka are encouraged and diners are asked not to use their phones at the table – a no photo rule was employed at the London pop-up.
The restaurant was founded by Jokke Almqvist and Katherine Bont in 2015 and it quickly became a cult classic. Expansion to Copenhagen and Oslo followed.
Almqvist and Bont promised that the London outpost will be just as “outrageous” as the others, with a theatrical 20-course (or thereabouts) tasting menu and “opulent” drinks pairing.
The London restaurant, on Sackville Street, is said to be the team's most ambitious project to date.
“We’ve always done things our way, and with all the love and very positive response from our patrons to a couple of pop-ups in London throughout the years, this just seems like the natural and exciting next step in our journey,” said Almqvist.
He and Bont said the Mayfair space, like the other three, will be “part performance, part dinner party,” with Nordic techniques adapted for a London crowd.
An announcement said: “The design is sharp. The tone is dry. The experience is high and low,all at once.”
Punk Royale opens to the public on September 12. 6 Sackville Street, W1S 3DD punkroyale.com
