South London’s Leading Restaurateur Announces Biggest Opening Yet

Robin Gill will open his biggest restaurant project to date at the Nine Elms development in Battersea. The restaurateur behind The Dairy, The Manor — now Sorella — and Counter Culture in Clapham — is the first high-profile restaurant announcement at the development.

Darby’s will open on the 10th floor of Embassy Gardens Towers, a retail/residential development right next to the new U.S. Embassy. The ground floor restaurant will be paired with a poolside bar operated by Gill and the restaurant team, according to The Evening Standard. The generation of an entirely new neighbourhood at Nine Elms — bolstered by the Circus West restaurant development at Battersea Power Station — has parallels with the upcoming retail and restaurant development at Hudson Yards in New York, though it’s not quite time to presage the portentous future anticipated across the pond.

Food will be focussed on Irish produce and provenance, with live fire cooking taking a key role: Gill has explained that, “Darby’s is named after my father. He spent a lot of time in the States and his era was 40s and 50s and for me it’s like what he would have loved.”

Gill has been one of the city’s most successful new-wave chefs over the last four years, promoting a style derivative of Noma (where he once worked) that uses a modern tasting menu format to pay tribute to his Irish roots and seasonal British ingredients. The Dairy opened in 2013; The Manor followed in 2014 and Counter Culture in 2016.

More soon.