London appears to have picked the second week of September to open everything at once.
Two cult Japanese pop-ups become a three-storey restaurant in Notting Hill, one of the men responsible for Norman’s returns to Hackney having sworn off fry-ups, La Petite Maison invents the £9 neighbourhood coffee and Soho gains somewhere to eat wagyu shepherd’s pie, which feels less like news than the fulfilment of a prophecy.
Elsewhere, Din Tai Fung has found room for a fifth London restaurant and one of London’s better-known smashburger brands has inherited the original Patty & Bun site. The circle of life, only with American cheese.
Anyone hoping for a quiet week should probably stay home.
Nakimushi, Notting Hill
Notting Hill’s seemingly limitless appetite for expensive Japanese food will be tested again on Monday, although Nakimushi comes with rather better credentials than most.
It is the latest restaurant from Chris D’Sylva, the man behind Michelin-starred Dorian, EEL Sushi, Supermarket of Dreams and the Notting Hill Fish + Meat Shop, and gives permanent homes to two Japanese concepts which have already built followings through residencies at Supermarket of Dreams.
Robin Kosuge’s Robin’s Ramen takes the ground floor, where an open kitchen, communal table and counter seating are designed for comparatively quick visits. Upstairs, Yuji Shimokawa Kelly – formerly of Dinings SW3 and two-Michelin-starred Umu – oversees a calmer 25-seat restaurant and bar. The third floor is given over to prep and storage, because apparently ramen now requires a townhouse.
There is lobster ramen with seafood paitan, pork belly ramen using Basque chicken broth, red prawn and courgette gyoza, quail tempura, steamed turbot and grilled tuna collar, while the drinks lean heavily into shochu and sake.
Nakimushi means “crybaby” in Japanese, although anyone who has tried getting a Friday-night table at Dorian may feel the name is aimed directly at them.
Opens 7 September | 7 Kensington Mall, London W8 4EB | Website
Beefbar at Dear Jackie, Soho
Broadwick Soho opened Dear Jackie with much talk of romance, glamour and the love letters hotelier Noel Hayden’s father once sent to his mother. Three years later, romance has apparently given way to Wagyu.
The basement restaurant and neighbouring Bar Jackie are becoming Beefbar, the international steakhouse created by Riccardo Giraudi in Monaco in 2005 and subsequently exported to the sort of places where nobody wants to ask what the steak costs: Paris, Milan, Mykonos, New York, et al.
Its arrival also follows the closure of Le Petit Beefbar in Chelsea earlier this year, making Soho the group’s new London flagship.
There will, predictably, be beef from Japan, Australia, America and Europe, but Beefbar has never been terribly interested in the old steakhouse model of meat, chips, Claret and silence. Instead expect wagyu kebabs, king crab tacos, croque sando, a Mini Big Smash, truffled cordon bleu and wagyu and veal Bolognese.
The contribution apparently judged necessary specifically for London is wagyu shepherd’s pie. About right. The terrace has also been redesigned and the restaurant will now open from noon, meaning Soho finally has somewhere for anybody who wakes at lunchtime overcome by an urgent need for Japanese beef.
Opens 10 September | 20 Broadwick Street, London W1F 8HT | Website
Marrion’s, Hackney
Elliott Kaye helped make Norman’s one of those restaurants that briefly caused Londoners to behave as though a fried egg and baked beans had only just been discovered.
He co-founded the north London cafe with Richie Hayes in 2020, turning the British greasy spoon into something sufficiently fashionable that queues formed for fry-ups, chips and ham sandwiches. Norman’s closed last summer and Kaye is now going solo in Hackney.
There is one important rule: “I’ve retired from fry-ups.”
Marrion’s takes its cues instead from neighbourhood bars and old-school European cafes, with Maricella Espinosa-Blohm, previously of Kol and Rita’s, in the kitchen. The menu has the reassuringly unfashionable ring of food you might actually want to eat: devilled crab rarebit, prawn cocktail, moules frites, pork schnitzel Holstein, cheeseburgers and Kaye’s beloved tuna melt.
Prices are intended to remain relatively gentle, with food roughly £6-£16, wines starting at £5 a glass and cocktails around £12-£15. There will be exactly one draught beer, Victoria Málaga, poured into little Spanish caña glasses.
Sundays bring boiled eggs with anchovy soldiers, lox bagels, fried fish sandwiches and baked eggs in vodka sauce. Still no fry-up. He appears serious about this.
Walk-ins only to begin with.
Opens 10 September | 177 Morning Lane, London E9 6LH | Instagram
Le Cafe LPM at The Lanesborough, Knightsbridge
There are few phrases more dangerous to the wallet than “a relaxed all-day cafe at The Lanesborough”.
Nevertheless, La Petite Maison is giving it a go. Le cafe LPM is the restaurant group’s first standalone cafe concept and begins with a year-long residency inside the Knightsbridge hotel, ahead of a permanent version planned for Dubai.
The inspiration is the supposedly easygoing cafe culture of the French Riviera: coffee, patisserie and tartines during the day, then aperitifs, cocktails and dinner. As ever with luxury hotels, relaxation comes at a price.
An espresso costs £9. Fries are £12. Tapenade is £18. A croque monsieur with veal ham and Comté is £34 and the steak baguette £39. Caesar salad starts at £28 but reaches £50 should you feel it is lacking lobster.
None of which necessarily means it will be bad. LPM remains one of London’s most reliable places for the particular fantasy in which everyone is very thin, very tanned and continually eating tomatoes drenched in olive oil.
Still, £9 for an espresso should at least come with a small view of Monaco.
Opens 9 September | The Lanesborough, Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA | Website
Din Tai Fung, King’s Cross
When Din Tai Fung first opened in Covent Garden in 2018, people queued for hours to eat soup dumplings. Eight years later, the Taiwanese group appears to have concluded that London could do with considerably more of them.
Its fifth London restaurant will open in King’s Cross this December, taking over the former Babel Beerhouse opposite Lightroom on Lewis Cubitt Walk.
There will be around 160 seats indoors and another 30 outside in what the company says will be its first dedicated alfresco dining and events space, with dumpling masterclasses planned. Inside, the usual show kitchen will allow diners to watch the group’s famous xiao long bao being folded – precisely 18 times. Why? Not sure.
The menu will run to around 70 dishes, including pork chop and egg fried rice, braised beef noodle soup, chicken soup and the dumplings that made the Taiwanese business an international phenomenon.
Din Tai Fung already has restaurants in Covent Garden, Centre Point, Selfridges and Canary Wharf. A possible Soho site has also been reported, although not formally announced.
At this rate it may soon be easier to find an xiao long bao than a functioning cash machine.
Opens December 2026, exact date TBC | 1 Lewis Cubitt Walk, London N1C 4DL | Website
Manna, Marylebone
Finally, Manna opened its first standalone UK restaurant on Friday in a site with an unusually neat bit of burger history.
The address, 54 James Street, was where Patty & Bun opened its first permanent restaurant, back when London’s chief burger concern was whether brioche buns had finally gone too far. Now it has been inherited by Manna, the smashburger brand developed by chef and writer Feroz Gajia with Arcade.
Until now Manna has mostly lived inside Arcade’s food halls in Tottenham Court Road, Battersea and Covent Garden. Marylebone gives it 46 seats of its own and a menu built around smashed beef patties, American cheese, pickles, Nashville hot chicken and waffle fries.
There are new desserts too, including an aggressively nostalgic trifle made with strawberry-milk-soaked sponge, jelly, Bird’s Custard, whipped cream, sprinkles and a cherry, plus cola floats.
The restaurant is walk-in only and its design looks back to the glossy futurism of Eighties and Nineties fast food.
One fashionable burger shop replacing another at the same address feels almost too perfect. London changes constantly. Sometimes it merely changes the sauce.
Opened 4 September | 54 James Street, London W1U 1HE | Website
