Our Insta feeds may be full of Greek salads eaten by the Aegean and salade Niçoise on the Croisette but give us London in the sun any day.
This month sees the JKS siblings back in their comfort zone of luxury Indian, a pair of Nepalese sisters hoping to convince the capital that their dumplings can rival dim sum and the first restaurant off the blocks from Jason Atherton in what is going to be a very busy six months for the chef.
All that plus rooftop fine dining in Belgravia, basement cabaret in Covent Garden and a floating French brasserie in Docklands. Who needs the triathlon in the Seine when there’s cheese soufflé in Canary Wharf? Read on for where to spend summer in the city with our guide to the best restaurant openings in London this August.
Eat Momo
Sisters Trishna and Dipa Chamling are paying homage to their Nepalese childhood with this Borough Yards canteen specialising in the steamed dumplings called momo. The dumplings will be mixed, kneaded, rolled and folded in house in the open kitchen, with fillings including chicken, pork and beef spiked with spices, herbs and ginger before being dipped in tomato chutney and chilli pickle. Sleek interiors will feature polished concrete floors, Formica tables and wooden stools; the best seats in summer are likely to be on the small riverside terrace. In a hurry? A kiosk on Stonecutters Lane will provide momo to go.
Opens: August 5
1 Bank End, SE1 9BU, eatmomo.uk
Cornus
Slow and steady wins the race might be the motto of restaurateurs David O’Connor and Joe Mercer Nairne, who have been quietly winning plaudits for Medlar in Chelsea since 2011. Now they’re moving eastwards and upwards with their follow-up, a rooftop restaurant in Belgravia where the pair are teaming up with chef Gary Foulkes. Expect the sort of high-end French cuisine made from top-notch British ingredients that won Foulkes a Michelin star at Angler in the City — Scottish langoustines with sweetcorn and roast chicken sauce; English raspberry millefeuille with lemon verbena cream — with drinks overseen by wine director Melania Battiston, who won awards for her list at Medlar.
Opens: August 6 (soft launch until August 3, with 30 per cent off the food bill)
27c Eccleston Place, SW1W 9NF, cornusrestaurant.co.uk
Mary
It’s a busy few months for Jason Atherton: the chef is opening Sael in St James’s at some point this summer, Three Darlings in Chelsea in October and the fine-dining Row on 5 in Mayfair in November. This month sees him launch a hot-dog counter in Harrods — and Mary, in Mayfair. The reinvention of Pollen Street Social will see the former bar retooled as a new version of his Blind Pig from the recently closed Social Eating House, the old 10-seat chef’s counter refashioned as a smash burger bar and the main dining room becoming a meat-and-fish focused grill room. Then it’s all change again in January when the restaurant closes for a four-month refurb. There’s no word yet on specific dishes, but there’s a clue in the name: Mary’s is named after an American customer of Pollen Street who always ordered a steak and a martini, and Atherton has said he intends to return the restaurant to its pre fine-dining days.
Opens: August 16
8-10 Pollen Street, W1S 1NQ, jasonatherton.co.uk
Ambassadors Clubhouse
It’s been six years since JKS siblings Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi last opened an Indian restaurant, with Brigadiers in the City. Now the all-conquering trio behind everything from Berenjak to Bao are returning to home turf with a Punjab-inspired Mayfair restaurant themed around their ambassador grandfather who summered in the hill station of Dalhousie. The theme is really more of a mood board for a gold-domed bar, Indian fabrics and Punjabi DJs, while food will nod towards the contemporary classics that have made siblings Gymkhana and Trishna the hottest Indians in town. Think: papads and chaats, kebabs and curries, tandoor-roasted breads and traditionally prepared biryanis, washed down with Tequila and mezcal cocktails, knocked back for preference on the heated veranda.
Opens: August 20
25 Heddon Street, W1B 4BH, ambassadorsclubhouse.com
Oriole
Named after a yellow-hued relative of the blackbird, Oriole has flown its Smithfield nest to alight in Covent Garden, where the award-winning bar is expanding into a restaurant, too, with a side order of entertainment. The pan South American menu will tout nikkei crowd-pleasers alongside creative cooking from Argentine chef Gustavo Giallionardo: lamb rump with huacatay (Peruvian black mint), carrot and yeast sauce, or coconut tres leches cake with fig-leaf sauce, soundtracked by live jazz and cabaret. The bar is likely to remain the star attraction, however, with a “bar lab” mixing up all kinds of crash-bang-wallop cocktail technique in the likes of a Rio Verde Tequila punch designed to share. Diners not in the mood for a full meal can accompany their cocktails (including some on draught) with snacks in the Bamboo Bar upstairs.
Opens: August 28
7-9 Slingsby Place, WC2E 9AB, oriolebar.com
Also opening
Marceline
A return to London for Rob Aikens (twin of Tom), this floating restaurant in Canary Wharf sees the chef cooking the sort of contemporary French-brasserie fare he was rustling up at Pastis in New York: duck liver éclairs, skate Kiev, steak tartare.
Opens: August 5
10 Water Street, E14 5GX, marceline.london
Alley Cats Chelsea
A big hit since opening in Marylebone last December, Alley Cats is bringing its thin-and-crispy New York-style, 14-inch pizzas to the World’s End end of the King’s Road. Still no bookings, alas.
Opens: August 9
342 King’s Road, SW3 5UR, alleycatspizza.co.uk
Lolo
José Pizarro expands his Bermondsey Street line-up with this all-day offering based on the sort of cooking the chef likes to eat at home: salmon cured in PX sherry for breakfast, salt cod with roasted fennel, chilli and orange for supper.
Opens: August 12
102 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB, josepizarro.com
Köd Soho
A name, perhaps, lost in translation, Köd is not a fish restaurant but a steakhouse imported from Denmark, where there are two branches in Copenhagen and another at Aarhus. ‘Köd’ is the Danish word for meat — here, steaks aged for a minimum of 35 days.
Opens: August 14
2 St Anne's Court, W1F 0AZ, restaurantkod.co.uk
Lussmanns
Twenty years after leaving the capital to open half a dozen restaurants in the smartest parts of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, this sustainably minded brasserie is returning to London in the nearest equivalent to Home Counties flash, Highgate Village.
Opens: late August
2 Highgate High Street, N6 5JL, lussmanns.com
