Award-Winning Brooklyn Oyster Palace Partners on New Rooftop Restaurant in South London

Hip Brooklyn oyster and cocktail specialists Maison Premiere will partner with The Hoxton Hotel on Seabird, a new rooftop restaurant and bar slated to open 6 September in Southwark. It crowns The Hoxton’s new hotel on Blackfriars Road.

Maison Premiere, currently #91 on the World’s 50 Best Bars, won the prestigious James Beard Award for best bar program in 2016, and is highly regarded in Brooklyn and New York at large for its cocktails, oysters, seafood platters, and all-important vibe. It recently filed for bankruptcy protection millions in debt, so a relative low-lift partnership with a similarly vibey hotel chain is likely a positive move for the group. This opening will also add something genuinely different to London’s seafood restaurant scene, whose approach to oysters is currently anchored in either staid legacy luxury raw bars, or the oyster’s growing place as a blank, salty canvas for invention on internationally influenced sharing menus. Here, they will be centre stage, on a cool stage.

The menu will also benefit from the U.K.’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of day boat fish: expect Cornish plaice on the plancha with Morecambe Bay shrimps and capers; sardines on toast with harissa, rocket & lemon; and a Basque-style bouillabaisse. A plateau de fruits de mer is self-described as on “the OTT side of extravagant, with tier upon tier of the finest shellfish.”

Cocktails are currently more under wraps than might be expected for the London debut of a James Beard Award-winning bar, with the list described, somewhat bizarrely, as “exotic.” A heated rooftop terrace provides longevity for what might otherwise be a fairly seasonal endeavour, as does the more guaranteed footfall from the hotel. It sounds like a genuinely interesting partnership — more soon.