Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.
Already a member?
Log in
London’s restaurants have plenty to keep themselves occupied this week. Claude Bosi is heading back to a building he left under a cloud, Adam Handling is letting customers choose their own lunch and a burger restaurant has decided pudding is best accessed through a Coca-Cola machine.
Elsewhere, Chelsea has a birthday to celebrate, an internationally famous ramen chef is heading west, and a bar in Dalston has dispensed with chairs altogether. There are also pig’s trotters in Chinatown – a more compelling proposition than it sounds, and certainly less expensive than most of what follows.
Claude Bosi returns to Michelin House as Brooklands prepares to close
Claude Bosi is going back to Michelin House, the extraordinary Art Deco building on Fulham Road where he ran the two-Michelin-starred Bibendum before its abrupt closure in August 2025. Evidently, time heals some wounds – or at least makes room for a fresh set of negotiations.
The return comes with a casualty. Brooklands by Claude Bosi, his restaurant on the eighth floor of The Peninsula London, will close in January 2027. It won two Michelin stars within four months of opening and made a considerable impression with its elaborate British cooking, spectacular views and enormous model of Concorde suspended from the ceiling.
Bosi and his wife and business partner Lucy plan to reopen at Michelin House in spring 2027, although the name and shape of the new restaurant remain under wraps. Their Josephine bistros in Chelsea and Marylebone will continue as usual.
The original departure from Michelin House followed a breakdown in relations with the building’s owners. Now Bosi is returning to the scene of the disagreement. One suspects the Michelin Man in those magnificent stained-glass windows has seen stranger things.
Brooklands open until January 2027 | The Peninsula London, 1 Grosvenor Place, London SW1X 7HJ | Website
Ixchel celebrates three years with a new Mexican menu
Three years is a respectable age for a London restaurant, particularly on the King’s Road, where there is no shortage of places to spend money. Ixchel, the Mexican restaurant and tequila bar named after the Mayan moon goddess, is marking the occasion with a new autumn menu.
Mexican-born head chef Ximena Gayosso Gonzalez, whose CV includes Brat, Ella Canta and Dulce Patria in Mexico City, has been busy. There is sea bass and pineapple aguachile with charred Scotch bonnet crema, for anyone who finds ordinary ceviche insufficiently alarming; truffle potato quesadillas with quesillo and shiso leaf; and steak tacos with honey-cured beef and Sichuan pepper.
The centrepiece is whole sea bream zarandeado with red adobo, chimichurri and pineapple purée. Downstairs, the bar remains dedicated to tequila, mezcal and cocktails. There are worse ways to celebrate a third birthday than an enormous fish and several Margaritas.
33H King’s Road, Chelsea, SW3 4LX | Website
Adam Handling is letting diners choose their own lunch at Frog
The arrangement at most tasting-menu restaurants is simple: hand over a considerable sum of money and eat whatever the chef puts in front of you. At Frog by Adam Handling, diners are now being offered the unusual privilege of making some decisions for themselves.
The Covent Garden restaurant has introduced a four-course lunch with three options for each. At £125 per person, it is not exactly a bargain, but it is cheaper than the £199 tasting menu and should require less of an afternoon.
Handling’s signature dish, Mother – celeriac, dates, apple and truffle, created after his mother became vegetarian – is among the choices. So are beef tartare with bone marrow and Ahrelia caviar, short rib raviolo with peppercorn sauce and venison with beetroot, turnip and hazelnuts. Lobster, wagyu and caviar can be added for a supplement, while chocolate, milk and malted toffee rounds things off.
Portions are more generous than their tasting-menu equivalents and the selection will change with the seasons. Four courses, a choice of what to eat and a fighting chance of getting back to the office before it closes. Progress.
34-35 Southampton Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 7HG | Website
Ivan Ramen heads to Shepherd’s Bush
Ivan Orkin, the New Yorker who went to Tokyo, opened ramen shops and won over Japanese diners before returning to America and appearing on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, is opening a second London restaurant.
Following his Farringdon debut last year, Orkin is heading to Askew Road in Shepherd’s Bush later this month. The new place will have just 28 seats, which might prove optimistic given his following.
The menu will cover shoyu, spicy miso red chilli and tonkotsu ramen, alongside karaage chicken and crispy aubergine. Katsu curry is due to join the menu in December. Inside, the look will borrow from Japanese ramen bars and New York diners, with counter seats, banquettes and manga-inspired lighting.
Selected bowls will be two-for-one during opening week, which should do absolutely nothing to discourage the queues. An exact date has yet to be confirmed.
Opens 27 November | 77 Askew Road, W12 9AH | Website
The Three Sheets brothers open a bar with no seats
London’s enthusiasm for martinis shows no signs of diminishing. Its enthusiasm for providing somewhere to sit while drinking them is apparently another matter.
Max and Noel Venning, the brothers behind Three Sheets, open Berryman’s on 13 November, two doors down from their original Dalston bar. It holds 20 people, all standing. There are no reservations, no tables and no chairs: just the European-style prospect of a quick drink and something salty to eat.
The bar takes its name from the brothers’ mother’s maiden name, with Cornish oysters nodding to her heritage. Dressings include strawberry mignonette and Kashmiri and clementine ponzu. Martinis take centre stage, supported by changing wines and snacks from chef Ethan Pack, formerly of Claridge’s: a toasted bikini sandwich stuffed with jamón, ’nduja and cheese, and dirty martini crisps seasoned with juniper, coriander and olive powder.
The opening coincides with Three Sheets’ 10th anniversary. Whether customers can remain upright after three martinis is another question.
Opens Friday 13 November | 508 Kingsland Road, Dalston, E8 4AE | Instagram
Pig trotters get their moment in Chinatown
Pig trotters are not an ingredient most London restaurants rush to put in the spotlight. Ana da Costa, happily, has no such reservations.
The Macanese chef and founder of supper club FAT TEA has teamed up with Chinatown restaurant Tao Tao Ju for a limited-edition dumpling called Lots of Trotter, available from 12 November to 12 December for £8.50.
The filling is made from slowly braised pig trotters, cooked until tender and rich, then wrapped in translucent crystal skin. The wrapper leaves little to the imagination, allowing diners to see what they are eating.
Da Costa’s cooking draws on her upbringing in Macau, where Portuguese and Chinese food traditions have long overlapped, as well as a commitment to low-waste cooking. In Cantonese home kitchens, trotters are prized for the depth and gelatinous texture they bring to braises. Here, those qualities have found their way into a neat dumpling.
At £8.50, a month-long celebration of the pig’s least glamorous extremity seems a sound alternative to another luxury burger.
Available 12 November-12 December | 15 Lisle Street, Chinatown, WC2H 7BE | Website
Heard hides its new dessert bar behind a Coca-Cola machine
Buying a burger and an ice cream should not require a secret key. At Heard’s new Covent Garden restaurant, pudding now comes with a concealed entrance.
The smashburger business founded by chef Jordan Bailey, who previously held two Michelin stars at Aimsir in Ireland, has opened its biggest site yet on Wellington Street. Upstairs, there are 35-day-aged British beef burgers in roast-potato buns, with toppings including jalapeño hot honey and Ogleshield cheese.
Downstairs is The Soda Room, a dessert and cocktail bar reached through a vintage Coca-Cola vending machine using a special key. Inside are soft serve, sundaes, ice cream sandwiches, hot apple pie and brulee cheesecake, alongside cocktails.
There is one condition: customers must have eaten upstairs, and the bar cannot be booked separately. It is a fairly elaborate system for obtaining pudding, but anyone who has already eaten a double smashburger is unlikely to be deterred by a concealed entrance to the cheesecake.
33-35 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, WC2E 7BN | Website
Big Mamma brings 1930s Milan to the City
For a group that has made a business of oversized Italian food and interiors designed to make Instagram work overtime, the City of London seems an obvious next stop.
Big Mamma, the group behind Gloria, Circolo Popolare and Jacuzzi, opened Edmondo at Bank on 6 November. The 200-cover restaurant takes its cues from 1930s Milan, with leather banquettes, dark wood and a grand central bar. Three private dining rooms include one filled with Ferrari memorabilia – useful, perhaps, for clients who need reminding what a successful quarter looks like.
Head chef Alfonso Esposito’s menu includes enormous focaccia, handmade pasta, gorgonzola gnocchi and substantial steaks, followed by a molten-centred chocolate cake. There is, unusually for Big Mamma, no pizza. Even this group apparently recognises that a restaurant opposite the Bank of England calls for a different approach from one in Shoreditch.
Given its gift for creating queues, filling 200 seats should not present much difficulty. One can only imagine what the City expense accounts will make of it.
6 Lombard Street, City of London, EC3V 9LJ | Website
