Gloria, Circolo Popolare, and Ave Mario owners Big Mamma — gregarious, kitsch, fabulous restaurateurs par excellence — are reportedly planning to open a fourth site, this time in west London’s High Street Kensington.
Both Propel Hospitality and Hot Dinners are reporting that the company, which made its debut in Shoreditch in 2019, will open its fourth restaurant in three years at 92 Kensington High Street, between a branch of Ole and Steen — the Scandi all-day cafe — and an Ivy, which requires little further explanation.
Reports state that the new site will be smaller than recent projects, offering just the 180 seats in what was a former HSBC bank branch.
Big Mamma’s Victor Lugger, Tigrane Seydoux — renowned Parisian restaurateurs — made their high-profile, noisy London debut in 2019, and have continued to open restaurants at maximum decibels ever since. Circolo Popolare opened just off Oxford Circus in Rathbone Place later in the same year, while Ave Mario opened in Covent Garden in the late summer of 2021 — delayed by 18 months as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Where Gloria is inspired by the Amalfi coast in the 1970s, Circolo pledged to deliver “Sicilian coast sunshine to the heart of Fitzrovia,” and Ave Mario a 280-seater mega restaurant loosely inspired by Florence, and other optimistic version’s of Italian pop culture.
No doubt the fourth restaurant will, too, be dedicated to abbondanza.
Eater contacted Luger for further comment but did not immediately receive a response.
More soon.