Celebrated Chef Jason Atherton Has Closed His Marylebone Tapas Restaurant

Updated 5.06.2019: Richard Vines reports that Jason Atherton has closed his tapas restaurant and wine bar, Social Wine and Tapas on James Street in Marylebone.

Star chef, Jason Atherton, the owner of the Social Company restaurant group and chef-patron of flagship Michelin-starred restaurant Pollen Street Social, is actively trying to find a buyer for his tapas restaurant and wine bar, Social Tapas and Wine on James Street in Marylebone.

Eater has learnt that the site, described as a “rarely available restaurant site,” is listed with a £135,000 annual rent. It is understood to have been on the market for a number of months.

Atherton’s bid to sell his tapas restaurant on a street that has significantly changed as a restuarant destination in the past two years, follows his decision to close and rebrand his small Mayfair bistro, Little Social, which will reopen next month as No.5 Social, with chef Kostas Papathanasiou in charge.

Atherton closed his City bar Temple and Sons at Tower 42 last August, as well as his izakaya-like Japanese restaurant Sosharu in Clerkenwell in July 2018, a year after it first went on the market.

At the end of last year the chef did announce a new opening, Home, a small 16-seater development kitchen in Mayfair, next-door to his flagship.

Should Atherton close Social Wine and Tapas, the chef will be left with six restaurants in the capital: Pollen Street Social, No.5 Social, Social Eating House, Berners Tavern, Hai Cenato, and City Social. He owns and operates a total of 16 restaurants worldwide.

More soon.