The celebrity chef Thomas Straker is to launch a new cold bar concept at his London restaurant in the wake of a fire.
Straker shared news of the fire via Instagram on Thursday and explained a fire in the kitchen extraction system, which damaged the rear section of the restaurant and part of the kitchen.
He wrote: “We’re still investigating the cause of the fire and expect to have more clarity by the end of the week”.
Straker added that nobody was injured in the fire and that the team has “rallied together as creatives do” to find a way to continue operating.
The chef said he plans to reopen his Notting Hill restaurant as a cold bar concept “soon”, serving salads, crudos and carpaccios alongside the existing wine list. It would mean all full-time staff would be kept on, he said.
“We’re working quickly to reconfigure the restaurant space and adapt our offering,” Straker announced. “We’ll soon be launching a cold bar concept, featuring a vibrant and evolving selection of dishes.”
No date has been given for the relaunch and Straker’s is expected to reopen in full at some stage. The Standard has contacted Straker for more information.
Straker’s is not the only restaurant to have suffered a fire in the past week. Som Saa, the popular Thai restaurant in East London, announced a temporary closure on Monday.
“Sad news: yesterday we had a fire in our extraction system,” the team reported on Instagram. “It got bad quickly and we had to evacuate. All the team are safe and well but we have significant damage to repair and a large clean-up to do.”
