The Middle Eastern restaurant group Honey & Co is to close a venue and relaunch another as it undergoes significant changes, the Standard can reveal.
Founders Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer said they will close their Warren Street deli, Honey & Spice, at the end of March, choosing not to continue their lease.
The couple founded the deli 10 years ago but said the time is right to call time on the venture.
Srulovich and Packer also said they will relaunch Honey & Smoke Grill House, their grill restaurant on Great Portland Street and which also opened in 2016, turning it into a wine bar, deli and dining room.
Both said both decisions were “not taken lightly” and said “both sites were successful and the landlord was willing to renew”.
The restaurateurs added that opening Honey & Co Daily (a cafe and bakery) and Honey & Co Studio (an events space) in recent years gave them a new perspective on what the company could become.
“When we told our accountant we weren't going to renew the lease (at Honey & Spice), he couldn't understand it,” Srulovich told the Standard.
“But we've never been driven by playing it safe. We want to bring something that excites us, that excites our guests, that reflects who we are right now. Not 10 years ago. Now."
He continued: "Honey & Smoke was the restaurant we'd always wanted to open, a homage to the grill houses we loved from back home.
“Honey & Spice started differently. The lease came up, we needed an office, so we took it. But it became the place of experimentation, everything we really wanted to do and didn't have room for. Ice cream, a deli, a wine shop, a bookshop, events, a million experiments. It became the beating heart of a community.
“Closing both is bittersweet. These places gave us so much, but we realised we had to evolve and we're really excited about what comes next.”
What comes next above all else is the wine bar in the former Honey & Smoke site, which will be completely reimagined and refurbished.
It will operate as a relaxed deli by day, offering sandwiches, salads, soups and baked goods to eat in or take away.
By night, the fixture will be a wine bar and casual restaurant, with a focus on the eastern Mediterranean, Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Palestine, all “regions producing exciting, creative wines that London diners wouldn't necessarily think of as wine destinations,” Srulovich and Packer told the Standard.
As for Honey & Co’s other restaurants — the original site on Lamb’s Conduit Street, which opened in 2012, and the aforementioned deli and studio — business will remain as is.
“London eats very differently now compared to when we opened Honey & Smoke and Honey & Spice in 2016,” said Srulovich and Packer.
“People want places to be a lot more useful. You want somewhere to nip in for a cheeky half-hour lunch, but also go for a three-course birthday meal, or just a glass of wine before the theatre.
“People want that flexibility. We don't want to necessarily spend £100 every time we go out, but we still want quality, fresh, delicious food."
