Four New Restaurants Head to Fitzrovia At Once

Aqua restaurant group, which operates two restaurants at the Shard and a self-contained trio on Argyll Street, near Oxford Circus, will open a new restaurant on Great Portland Street in Fitzrovia. The restaurant will replace the all-day café operation Villandry, which went into administration in summer 2018.

Plans, approved by Westminster City Council, cover the basement and ground floor at 170 — 172 Great Portland Street, converting Villandry’s former retail section into restaurant seating and thereby changing the layout. Aqua intends to put four distinct, if loosely connected restaurant operations into the new site: a Japanese restaurant; a dim sum “library”; a café; and in the middle of it all, a Spanish deli.

The latter, which will go toe-to-toe with Iberica up the road, will seat just 14, while the café, dim sum library, and Japanese restaurant will total 200 covers between them; the library will also include private dining rooms. The model follows the split-operation at Argyll Street, which includes a bar, a Spanish restaurant, and a Japanese dining room; the inclusion of the deli nods to Villandry’s unsuccessful retail legacy.

It will be an all-dayer, with proposed opening from 7a.m. until 12a.m.; the café will open out on to Great Portland Street.

More soon.