INSIDERS Restaurant
KANPAI CLASSIC
Japanese restaurant group Kanpai Classic, which was founded in Taipei two decades ago and now has numerous sites in Taiwan and China, has opened its first UK location in Soho. Kanpai Classic is about two things; wagyu beef and yakiniku (that’s cooking bitesize pieces of food over a charcoal flame), so if you don’t eat red meat, this is one to swerve. But for carnivores, a veritable feast awaits. Company founder Soji Hiraide has made it his mission to bring the finest wagyu to his customers and showcase a wider range of cuts, so you’re getting meat here that you won’t find anywhere else in the UK. Executive chef Masatada Ogata and head chef Nicolo Bolognesi, formerly of Nobu Hotel Portman Square, launched the restaurant with a 14-course omakase menu, though there’s now both a shorter set menu and a la carte options available. If you like wagyu you’ll pretty much love everything but the beef tongue, an unbelievably buttery slice of tri-tip brushed with yakiniku sauce, rib finger brushed in spicy miso and served in a lettuce wrap, and a richly marbled A5 steak, almost half fat to meat, with rock salt and proper wasabi are particular highlights. And with exclusive sakes from Japan’s Masuizumi Brewery on offer, the drinks list is pretty spesh too.
HIGHROAD SOCIAL
The Rivington Grill in Greenwich was part of the Caprice group and was the second outpost of the restaurant, with the original being in Shoreditch (now Blacklock). Closed and never reopened after the pandemic, the site stood empty for a long time but has recently been reborn as Highroad Social, the debut restaurant from David O’Brien, who was former Development Director at Caprice Holdings. In the kitchen is Irish Head-Chef Fionnan Flood (ex-The Chelsea Pig), who’s come up with an excellent menu of casual, modern British dishes, like Glamorgan pork croquette with toffee apple sauce; battered smoked Londoner sausage with puffed pieces of crackling like rice crispies and a port reduction sauce; Scottish scallop with Granny Smith and lemon balm; whole Dover sole served with a creamy caviar sauce and sea vegetables; and sticky toffee ginger pudding with vanilla ice cream. Greenwich is not a part of London known for its restaurants, dominated as it is by big chains and tourist traps. Highroad Social is a very welcome change to all that – a proper restaurant, offering serious modern cooking right in the heart of town.
RIA'S
Ria’s, run by Ria and David Morgan-Ratcliffe is a Detroit-style pizza and natural wine bar on All Saints Road. It’s a real looker – the gorgeous, light-filled space boasts blue panelled and cornflower yellow walls, cafe curtains, and wine bottles skirting round the shelving. Detroit-style pizza is the star here – the dough is made with regenerative flour and slowly fermented for 72 hours, resulting in a thick and chewy base that’s impressively light .There’s been a real focus on quality ingredients and thought has clearly been put into creating interesting combinations, like the roasted king prawn, salsa macha and parmesan cream pie and the beef merguez sausage, sweet pickled shallots and red chillies pie. The pepperoni & soppressata slice, made with Cobble Lane cured meats, cheddar, hot honey, aged parmesan and fresh oregano is also a winner, especially if you drizzle it with some Frank’s hot butter. Make sure you save room for the smashed spuds with whipped feta and the deep-fried Mars bar with soft serve though.
XI HOME DUMPLINGS BAY
Xi Home Dumplings Bay specialises in northern-style Chinese dumplings from Dalian, the hometown of founder Wenjun Xiang. Having started out at Bang Bang Oriental Food Hall, a Covent Garden restaurant soon followed, and now they have a brand new spot on Blossom Street in Spitalfields. Northern-style Shuijiao (boiled dumplings) are a little thicker than steamed dumplings so they are hearty and filling, rather than delicate and pretty like Cantonese dim sum. At Xi Home Dumplings Bay, they’re made fresh and you can see the chef through the glass window creating the pastry and filling the dumplings before boiling. There’s around 20 to choose from and we can very much recommend the jade lobster dumplings; the pork and pickled Chinese leaves; and the spicy lamb and cumin. You also have to get the giant soup dumpling which comes with a straw to drink the soup from before you tuck in – this is the dish that made the restaurant Insta-famous. Elsewhere, there’s an excellent smacked cucumber salad, seaweed salad, and prawn pan-fried dumplings, as well as a line-up of noodle and rice dishes.
HALF-CUT MARKET
Half Cut Market launched back in 2021, at the top of York Way in that halfway point between Caledonian Road and Kentish Town. It started as a bottle shop, deli and wine bar, with a rotating line-up of guest chefs, but has now settled more firmly into wine bar territory, though you can still buy bottles to take away (and there’ll still be be the odd pop-up). As part of this, there’s a new permanent head chef, a very lovely young chap called Aidan Richardson (only 28!). Aidan used to work at Brat amongst other places, so no surprise to see a few Basque touch points on the menu. Don’t miss the smoked ricotta and courgette on toast; the beef tartare crostini with lard and greengage; spring cabbage with Comte custard; the standout piri piri grilled monkfish; and the incredible chocolate and cherry eclair for dessert. Wine is a big part of the Half Cut experience of course and there’s an excellent line-up of bottles to choose from. The list is firmly in natural / low intervention territory, curated by Half Cut co-owner Holly Willcocks, who also heads up the wine program at Mountain in Soho.
LAHPET LARDER
Dan Anton and Zaw Mahesh, the founders of one of London’s few Burmese restaurants have been on a mission to build up the cuisine’s base in the city. Lahpet originally opened in Shoreditch in 2018, introducing many of us to its eponymous dish, a tea leaf salad popular in Myanmar, as well as the likes of coconut chicken noodles and mohinga fish stew. A second site opened in Covent Garden in 2022 and this summer saw the arrival of Lahpet Larder in to Bermondsey, the group’s first site south of the river, and named after the area’s historic nickname, ‘London’s larder’. The Lahpet Larder menu is structured slightly differently – by salads, meat, fish and veg rather than the size of the plates – so it’s better set up for sharing. Don’t miss the sweet potato & shan tofu puffs, the sweetcorn & split pea fritters, the Rakhine salmon ceviche, the braised aubergine and the bubble waffle paratha for pud. Living up to its larder name, the restaurant is also stocked with both home-made and imported products to take home.
KOYN THAI
Just under two years after opening the doors to modern izakaya KOYN, Samyukta Nair (who also spearheads Mimi Mei Fair, Jamavar, Bombay Bustle and Socca) has opened a Thai restaurant. KOYN Thai is an entirely new concept but not a new space – it’s taken over the darker, moodier downstairs space at KOYN’s Grosvenor Street location, so now the restaurant is Japanese up top and Thai down below. Exec Chef Rhys Cattermoul is still heading up the kitchen but Nair has brought in Bangkok-born chef Rose Chalalai Singh (known for her eponymous restaurant Rose Kitchen in Paris) to create the menu. The relatively concise menu – compared to the Japanese one at KOYN at least – covers a lot of bases. Flavours from different regions of Thailand are showcased and there are classics like green papaya salad, chicken satay, tom yum prawn soup, pad Thai and kra paow gai alongside some more inventive plates like wild garlic, green chilli and Thai basil escargots and jumbo tiger prawn choo-chee with panang curry sauce. The Chiang Mai platter, featuring homemade sausage and nam prik, the lamb shank massaman curry and the black pepper beef are also not to be missed. The food here is elevated but the dishes haven’t been fiddled with at the expense of flavour, so you still get a true taste of Thailand, just in a high-end setting
AGORA
AGORA is one of two new restaurants in Borough from David Carter, the mastermind behind Smokestak and Manteca. OMA is the slightly more refined restaurant upstairs whereas AGORA is the bustling, walk-in only spot downstairs modelled on a classic Athens taverna. The menu is split into spreads, skewers and salads, which you could roughly think of as snacks and starters, and then braises, flatbreads, and rotisserie meats, which are cooked on an incredible open-fire rotisserie at one end of the room. We love the hummus topped with crushed hot crisps, the ezme salata, the spicy pork sausage with spit roast pineapple and hot honey, the lamb adana with spiced tomato and garlic yoghurt, the slow
grilled chicken thigh, and the Greek salad topped with fresh galomizithra cheese. AGORA is great fun – the casual taverna vibe and the no-bookings policy means it’s a great shout for an impromptu dinner after a few drinks around Borough Market.
IBAI
Ibai is a new Basque steak restaurant from Nemanja Borjanovic and Will Sheard, the team behind meat supplier Txuleta, and chef Richard Foster. If you’ve ever had their Galician blond steaks at one of the many London restaurants they supply, you’ll know just how good they are, so it’s brilliant to see the team open up their own place. Ibai is in Farringdon close to Restaurant St. Barts and hot new opening Cloth, in a big old site that used to be Lino. Before you get to the main event of those standout steaks, there’s a whole load of snacks and other bits you’ll definitely want to order, especially the Croque Ibai, four little golden bites of boudin noir, carabinero prawns and ossau-iraty cheese stuffed into soft, toasted bread. For the steaks, there’s a choice of wagyu from Norfolk; Black Angus from Spain; and Galician blond ex-dairy from Spain, which is definitely the one to go for. The beef is superb, beautifully cooked medium rare on the grill and served with a big bowl of fries and optional sauces like the ossau-iraty and pepper.
THE HERO
Phil Winser and James Gummer, the duo behind The Pelican and The Bull, Charlbury (both of which we loved) have just opened another new pub, The Hero in Maida Vale. It’s a beautiful old building dating back to 1878 and the guys have done a great job stripping it back and restoring it to its former glory, including a grill restaurant upstairs, a PDR, and The Library, a nice little lounge bar with cocktails and a banging sound system. In the main pub the menu offers comfort food classics done to perfection – and actually at a very reasonable price too, especially for bougie west London. You won’t wanna miss the incredible scotch egg; the chicken liver pate’ the deep fried cod cheeks with curry sauce; half roast chicken with salad; ham, egg and chips done with a nice juicy bacon chop; the cheese and onion pie; and the sticky toffee pudding.
MIGA
Miga is a ‘modern Korean kitchen’ that opened on the quiet on Mare Street in the summer of 2024. Run by two brothers and their dad, who takes sole reins in the kitchen, it’s a real family affair – Miga actually has a bit of a longer history than this current new opening, starting down in New Malden 22 years ago by their grandma. There are two menus for lunch and dinner, with highlights including fresh steamed tofu with grilled kimchi, which is made in house; sanchaeg bibimbab topped with fresh crunch vegetables like spinach, soya bean sprouts, courgette, radish, and dry napa cabbage; the ox bone broth, which is made to a family recipe passed down by the boys’ top chef grandma; the soy-braised shortribs; the spicy noodles with beef jeon; and the cucumber and spinach roll with miso sauce. A few things have come and gone on this site in recent years but we think these guys have nailed it, with a modern east London aesthetic combined with warm, family-run hospitality.
Ed McIlroy, one half of Four Legs, aka founders of The Plimsoll pub in Finsbury Park and creators of possibly the best burger in London, has expanded his presence in north London with a new seafood spot on Tollington Park. Tollington’s, which has opened on the site of an old chippie of the same name, is a homage to its former resident but with an Iberian twist. The old tiling, Formica and original chip fryers have stayed put but the new Tollington’s takes inspo from the Ed’s time spent in Spain and its relaxed dining culture. That means a regularly changing menu featuring dishes like devilled crab, pickled anchovies, pollock pil pil, chips bravas, prawns on the plancha, and pork neck & broad beans, plus Estrella, vermouth and wines all available by the glass.
CAFE BRITALY
After working at Bocca Di Lupo, general manager Richard Crampton-Platt and chef Alex Purdie have struck out on their own, opening their version of an Italian restaurant with Café Britaly. They’ve been heavily inspired by the city’s old-school caffs but have thrown plenty of modern touches into the Rye Lane site (formerly home to Supa Ya Ramen). Not much has changed in terms of the layout but the space now bears green lino flooring, pink banquette seating, colourful abstract prints on the walls and Italian liqueur bottles lined up in shelving nooks. The menu is just as cheery as the place looks; as the name suggests, the kitchen is mashing up British and Italian dishes, so prepare for food that isn’t traditional but is a lot of fun, including a carbonara made with cream and a fried egg, deep fried pizza, a porchetta Sunday roast and rice pudding arancini with sour cherry sauce.
Michelin-starred chef Akira Back operates 25 restaurants around the world, in cities including Bangkok, Las Vegas, Singapore, Paris, Dubai, Seoul and Istanbul, and London has been added to the list with his eponymous Akira Back restaurant inside the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair in Hanover Square. As you’d expect from a luxury hotel, the 148-cover restaurant looks the part, with a triple height sky roof and spiral marble staircase bringing the drama. The menu showcases Back’s modern Japanese food, with signatures, like the AB Tuna Pizza with umami aioli and shiso (a must-order) sitting alongside exclusive dishes for London, including Dynamite Lobster with pickled shimeji, turbot with white asparagus and sake butter, and Highland wagyu striploin with yuzu kosho jus. Don’t miss the Jeju domi sea bream, octopus crudo, the Jidori chicken with potato purée, or the moon cake dessert either. And the fun doesn’t stop once you’ve finished your meal as late night cocktail bar ABar Lounge, next to the restaurant, is shaking up inventive cocktails and has a DJ programme running on the weekends.
Set in a Grade II-listed building (and nestled next to some of the oldest residential buildings in London), Cloth is all about seasonal food and an approachable list of excellent, affordable wines. The wine bar and restaurant is the result of a collaboration between two wine importers, Joe Haynes and Ben Butterworth, and a chef, Tom Hurst (whose impressive CV includes Brawn, The Marksman, Levan, Salon, Larry’s and, most recently, Lasdun). Expect seasonal dishes that celebrate the best of British produce, as well as a great value set menu on offer at lunch, priced at £25 for two courses and £29 for three. As for the wine, half of the list comprises bottles from Joe and Ben’s own import and supply businesses – including grower champagnes, new-wave Bordeaux and German wines. The other half is made up of wines from suppliers who champion small, independent, and sustainable producers (such as Emile Wines, The Winery, Fingal Rock, Carte Blanche, Winemakers Club and Raeburn). Plus, there are always by-the-glass options and £5 corkage on Mondays. Cheers to that.
ROE
Roe is the latest opening from Will Murray, Jack Croft and James Robson, the trio behind Fallow and FOWL. It’s located out in Canary Wharf, close to where Hawksmoor is, at the bottom of a tall circular residential tower. It’s a huge space, seating around 300 inside, and more on the riverside terrace. Similar to Fallow, Roe is all about local, seasonal ingredients, with a zero-waste sustainable ethos. The menu is split into Snacks; Small Plates; Skewers; Flatbreads; Large Plates; Steaks; Sides; and Feasts, which are for two or more. Don’t miss the maitake mushroom Cornish pasty served with an amazing walnut ketchup; the Cornish scallop flatbread with bacon butter; the cuttlefish fried brioche with sesame and chill jam; the breaded mushrooms with garlic mayonnaise; the Wildfarmed sourdough with smoked roe; and the blooming onion with picked onion powder and garlic mayo. And with caramelised banana parfait, made to look exactly like a plain peeled banana, served with peanut and toasted vanilla sauce, on the dessert list, you’ll wanna leave room for pudding too.
OMA
David Carter, of Smokestak and Manteca, has opened two new Greek restaurants in Borough Market. AGORA downstairs is loud and boisterous, with tables and stools packed in around an alluring open wood-fired rotisserie grill. Upstairs, is the slightly more genteel OMA, which offers a leisurely sit-down experience complete with reservations. If AGORA is inspired by the tavernas of Athens, then OMA is designed to give you that slower-paced feel of a holiday on a Greek island. With dishes like açma stuffed with wild garlic; scallop XO labneh; lobster bisque borek; spanakopita gratin; charred lamb belly, hummus, shallot and mint salata; and wild red prawn giouvetsi finished with red prawns and deep-fried prawn butter, and a bottle of the numerous Greek wines on the list, you’ll defo be transported. We’re big fans of OMA and love the look and vibe of AGORA too, so it looks like both Borough Market and David have another couple of hits on their hands.
TÓU
TĀ TĀ Eatery founders Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng are back with katsu sando concept TÓU, which is in residence upstairs at The Globe Tavern on the edge of Borough Market. It’s a short, sharp menu, summed up neatly by a bright red poster on the wall that tells you everything you need to know: PET NATS / SANDOS / SUNDAES. You can get the lot, starting with house made daikon and carrot pickles, and the Iberico pork and potato spiced croquettes, before moving onto that sando. It’s a rich, fatty slab of Iberico pork neck with cabbage, onion, raspberry sauce, and XO shallot sauce sandwiched between thick slices of toasted brioche, with chilli powder and Sichuan pepper-sprinkled fries on the side. The duo has teamed up with Stefano Cazzato to offer a large selection of pet nats by the glass and bottle (around 17 in total), which makes for a very nice pairing with the food. Don’t miss the coffee and biscuits sundae for dessert either.