Islington Restaurant Says It Was Just a Pop-Up Following Sudden Closure

The four month-young second restaurant from chef James Cochran inside Angel Central shopping centre, in Islington, has closed. Hot Dinner reported the news this morning, saying the restaurant “quietly closed its doors a few weeks ago.” Confirmation of James Cochran N1’s closure has now been issued on the restaurant’s website: “This Pop-Up Location is now closed. Please visit our E3 site or look out for our next POP-UP.”

This however is contrary to the messaging that accompanied the restaurant’s opening. In other words — this is the first time it has been referred to as a pop-up. Indeed the Twitter page, which at the time of writing, is still active (though hasn’t posted since 14 November), includes this bio: “New Restaurant by James Cochran in Angel Central, Islington. New food, in-house DJ, outside seating, artwork, take away bar and wine bar.” No mention of pop-up.

The informal snacks-and-flatbreads concept followed Cochran’s other eponymous restaurant in EC3 (The City), a restaurant that received plaudits from local and national media. Cochran had spent five years at the The Ledbury, and the food at EC3 is in that same style of Modern European fine-dining, but includes influences from the chef’s Caribbean “heritage and roots” — signatures such as jerk chicken and treacle cured salmon.

James Cochran N1 was described by ES Magazine’s Grace Dent as a “strange restaurant,” “selling flatbreads for £14 in a badly lit room, upstairs in a shopping centre.”

• James Cochran closes his Islington restaurant [Hot Dinners]