Yet Another Restaurant Closure Appears on Islington’s Upper Street

Eater London has learnt of yet another restaurant closure on Islington’s Upper Street. La Porchetta, an Italian neighbourhood spot, part of a mini chain across central and north London, has placed signs in its windows announcing that it is to close down.

The restaurant, which opened on the site in 1998, says the decision has been made because it has come to the end of its lease on that property. A new lease, as has apparently been the case for so many others on the hard-hit stretch, has been deemed too expensive to make work.

La Porchetta is left with four remaining sites: in Holborn, Camden, Clerkenwell, and Finsbury Park.

Eater has reported on the flux on Upper Street: Although there is an unusually high concentration of restaurants in the neighbourhood, in the past six months, James Cochran N1, Cabana, Jamon Jamon, and 15-year-old The Elk in the Woods have all closed on what had been, a reliable, high-footfall dining thoroughfare.

But these are tough times for a restaurant industry hit by rent increases and rising costs. Only yesterday did chef Nuno Mendes tell Eater that he believed that “greedy landlords” coupled with the Brexit vote, and its subsequent impact on the economy, would lead to the closure of at least 50 percent of the “good restaurants we like” in the next two years.