2018’s Hottest Chef Duo Set Opening Date for Hebridean Neighbourhood Restaurant [Updated]

Chef Andrew Clarke and chef-restaurateur Jackson Boxer will partner on their third London restaurant in the early part of 2019. Orasay — a 50-cover dining room at 31 Kensington Park Road in Notting Hill — is named after an island off the west coast of Scotland, spelled Orosay. The restaurant, with Boxer as chef-patron, is inspired by the Outer Hebridean region where he “has spent every summer since he was a small child.” It replaces “modern Mexican” restaurant Peyotito, and will open on 4 March.

The menu will have seafood as its backbone: oysters, langoustine, scallops, razor clams, crabs, and lobster of the Hebrides. As for style and preparation, “classic techniques of European cuisine to prepare artfully simple, approachable dishes with an emphasis on seasonality.” Earlier this year, the pair opened St Leonard’s in Shoreditch — a hit grill restaurant inspired by both West Sussex and the southwest of France.

The menu reflects Jackson and Andrew’s belief in uniting over beautiful food in a thoughtful room for sparkling conversation.

That menu will draw produce from the business’ organic farm — and Boxer’s family home — in West Sussex, for salad leaves, vegetables, honey, and eggs. The restaurant will also work with farmers who share Boxer’s and Clarke’s ethos. Orasay will benefit from Boxer’s close links with the Hebrides, “and the support of those supply chains to access the region’s shellfish, flown down daily.”

Dishes currently slated for the menu include oysters with shallots and elderflower champagne, scallop with shiitake mushrooms and celeriac, and surf clams with ham and black sesame; a beef and tuna tartare with winter tomatoes will also feature.

Orasay [Official Photo]

Orasay [Official Photo]

The restaurant will be launched by Boxer as chef-patron. Both Clarke and Boxer will continue to oversee Brunswick House; Boxer will assist the vision of Clarke at St Leonards in Shoreditch. Clarke, in turn, will contribute to the creative direction at Orasay.

A “focussed” wine list will offer approximately 60 bins. Wines by both the glass and carafe wines will use (the increasingly popular) taps and kegs. The owners say that they are a “means to preserve the greatest quality in fresh, young wines, while also minimising the carbon footprint involved in production and transport.” A bottle list of reds and whites in will be weighted towards the more balanced wines of Burgundy and Northern Italy, “demonstrating a food-led preference towards tension and minerality.” Prices will range from from £25 to £125. Boxer’s own, “extensive personal cellar” will be used to list a small, often-changing list of rare older wines, which will be sold with the addition of a cash margin.

The restaurant interior — a “space which appears unpretentious from the outside, but feels considered and artful to inhabit” — will feature hand dyed linens, reclaimed antique French oak, and lime-washed walls, all designed to “reinforce the simplicity of approach.”

More soon.