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Queen’s Park neighbourhood favourite Milk Beach will open a second restaurant in Soho this summer, moving into the new Ilona Rose House building off Charing Cross Road.
It will keep the breezily Aussie all-day vibe of the original but change up its menu, taking a more “modern Australian” line now dominant in its larger cities. The opening menu is set to include the likes of a crab ravioli paired with fermented chilli oil; a whole deep-fried sea bass; and grilled prawns with tamari butter.
For coffee fans, there is more exciting news: Matthew Robley-Siemonsma, Milk Beach’s head of coffee and a veteran of London institutions Prufrock and Tap Coffee, will launch a new roastery at a similar time to the restaurant, called Album.
It will also continue its all-day guise with more Antipodean-inflected brunch dishes, including Vietnamese curried crab; folded eggs; and hash browns served with kale, bacon, and bagna cauda.
It’s something of a reversal of the dominant trajectory occasioned by COVID-19, in which restaurants formerly reliant on central London footfall looked to neighbourhood spots; Milk Beach will hope Soho is just as welcoming as NW6.
More soon.