Chef Behind Three Michelin-Starred Spanish Restaurant Will Open Fitzrovia Site [Updated]

Updated 29.19.2018, 14:53, with details of the restaurant’s new name and timeline for opening.

Quique Dacosta, the chef behind the three Michelin-starred coastal restaurant by the same name between Alicante and Valencia, Spain, will open a paella restaurant in Fitzrovia next year. The restaurant will now be called Arros QD, instead of InPaella; a licensing notice seen by Eater London in 2017 previously listed the name as InPaella. The full notice is below.

The concept is being backed by the London-based Spanish restaurant group behind Iberica, which first opened on Great Portland Street and which now has sites in Canary Wharf, Farringdon and Victoria (as well as in Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow.)

The restaurant itself, apparently over two floors, will actually front on to Eastcastle Street — on the corner of Wells Street, opposite the coffee shop, Kaffeine.

Rumours that Dacosta, the author of a book called Arroces Contemporáneos (Contemporary rice dishes), would be opening in London began circulating at the start of 2017, when it was said that the site would feature “25 meters of stove, designed to provide ample quantities of paella for those keen to sample the traditional Spanish dish.”

It is thought that this will be the first of an international roll-out of the Arros QD brand, thought to be premium but not expected to gun for the same accolades as Dacosta’s flagship.

Arros QD could well be the second paella-focused restaurant that will open in central London next year. Rambla chef Victor Garvey suggested he would be opening a second Sibarita, fundamentally centred on Spanish rice dishes, just last week. That restaurant, understood to be opening on Old Compton Street in Soho under the name Bar Jaleo, remains under wraps for now.