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Historic north African Mayfair restaurant and bar Momo will reopen on 18 March, after a refurbishment from restaurateur Mourad Marouz, who is also behind two-Michelin-starred Sketch. Its new downstairs bar from Erik Lorincz — who in 2017 steered American Bar at The Savoy to win first place at The World’s 50 Best Bars Awards — will be called Kwānt London.
New executive chef Hervé Deville, who worked under Pierre Gagnaire at Sketch for seven years, has designed a new menu, which does not entirely depart from the restaurant’s history. Mechoui, classically a whole sheep or leg of lamb, is here an 18 hour cooked spiced lamb shoulder with vegetables, dried fruit, and couscous; the ‘Classic Momo Couscous’ is also sticking around, served with lamb cutlets, chicken and pistachio kofta, and spiced lamb merguez sausages. Octopus with salt-baked beetroot and genevoise — a sauce of salmon heads and red wine — and a vegetable tian with aubergine and basil, yellow and green courgettes, taggiasche olives and parmesan crumble, both demonstrate the more broadly Mediterranean slant that Marouz sees as Momo’s best direction for the future.
The new interiors, directed by Marouz, feel more opulent and maximal, but, like the menu, also a little more conventional: palms laden with lights; plush sofa-style seating intermixed with chairs. Described as “sumptuous,” pre-endeavour, it certainly fits the billing.
Lorincz’s bar, meanwhile, is still being built, with the bartender spending plenty of time on the construction site for input and also photos. It will open later than the restaurant, in April.
