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A shallow, floral-patterned china bowl of the gumbo, now with white rice and spring onions added.
Gumbo, by Decatur’s Tom Zahir Browne
Michaël Protin

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The Biggest London Restaurant Openings to Watch in 2022

A big-ticket food hall, several residencies and supper clubs making their first fully fledged restaurants ... And some macho gastrotourism

by James Hansen

Restaurants announce new restaurants all the time, but London’s early starters are already making serious moves for 2022. After a brief nightmare over Christmas, when rising omicron cases led diners to avoid going out and restaurants to avoid exposing staff, both for fear of being enforcedly alone on 25 December, January is already looking more hopeful. Case growth is declining in the city, and as of now no more Covid-19 restrictions linger on the horizon, let alone in the near future.

And many of these openings are much longer-laid plans than just a few, tumultuous weeks. Some are first permanent restaurants for successful pop-ups; some are hopes for resurrection after being forced to close in 2021. And, the gastrotourism lads club is coming, whether the city likes it or not.

Here are the biggest London restaurant openings to watch in 2022.

The biggest tickets in town

London’s food hall obsession continued with arcade food theatre
Arcade Food Hall as it opened in 2019.
Paul Winch-Furness

Arcade Food Hall

Address: 103 — 105 New Oxford Street, WC1A 1DB
Key people: JKS Restaurants.
What to expect: A very ambitious new restaurant and dining counters from one of London’s most successful groups, in a food hall space that deserved better that it got in its original guise.
Projected opening: 2022

A bowl of nkatekwan, a groundnut soup, with omo tuo, a mashed rice ball, in the centre, topped with black benne seeds
Tatale is making the move from supper club to restaurant without losing its conversational impetus.
Cyrille Sokpor

Tatale

Address: 66 — 68 Great Suffolk Street, Southwark SE1 0BL
Key people: Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, of outstanding supper club Tatale and Co / Mensa, Plates and Friends.
What to expect: Less a straight-forward “graduation” to restaurant, and more a continuation of the culinary and cultural dialogues the supper club format engenders, now assisted by its base at the Africa Centre.
Projected opening: January 2022

Pasta-making at Ombra
Ombra’s new space will allow for even more rolling of fresh pasta.
Michaël Protin

Forno

Address: Vyner Street, Hackney E2
Key people: Ombra chef-owner Mitshel Ibrahim.
What to expect: A pastificio and forno linked “resentfully” to the Vyner Street restaurant Ombra, which will both allow enhanced wholesale production and bring a new string to the operation’s bow.
Projected opening: Spring 2022

Nuno Mendes, photographed in 2017
Chef Nuno Mendes will make a big return with Lisboeta.

Lisboeta

Address: 30 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia WC1B 4AF
Key people: Former Taberna do Mercado, Viajante and Chiltern Firehouse chef Nuno Mendes.
What to expect: A tripartite “love letter to Lisbon,” comprising a ground-floor and upstairs restaurants, and a basement dedicated to Mendes’s version of a chef’s table.
Projected opening: Spring 2022

Chef Chantelle Nicholson in portrait, against a blue background
Chef Chantelle Nicholson will open Apricity having launched a pop-up, All’s Well, in 2020.

Apricity

Address: 68 Duke Street, Mayfair W1K 6JU
Key people: Former Tredwell’s chef-owner Chantelle Nicholson.
What to expect: A restaurant talking the talk of sustainability that actually seems prepared to walk the walk, adding the welfare and finances of its workers to the conversation beyond where its carrots might come from.
Projected opening: Spring 2022

Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, Corbin and King, owners of the Wolseley, Delaunay, Brasserie Zedel, and more
Chris Corbin and Jeremy King’s Soho restaurant will have been a long wait coming, after delays owing to Covid-19 and investor difficulties.
Corbin and King

Manzi’s

Address: 1 — 8 Bateman’s Buildings and 55 Greek Street, Soho W1D 3EN
Key people: Corbin and King’s Chris Corbin and Jeremy King.
What to expect: A new seafood palace for Soho, with over 240 covers and outdoor dining space, three years in the making.
Projected opening: 2022

Resurrections and permanent footings

The restaurant signage for the Ledbury in Notting Hill — white capital letters on a grey fabric awning background
The Ledbury abruptly shut in summer 2020, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been closed ever since.
Ola Smit

The Ledbury

Address: 127 Ledbury Road, Notting Hill W11 2AQ
Key people: Brett Graham
What to expect: A revamp and redesign for the legendary, formerly two-Michelin-starred restaurant. This will definitely extend to the dining room and building — what it means for the food is still to be revealed.
Projected opening: Summer 2022

Coffee bar at Kapihan, Battersea
The coffee bar at Kapihan’s original location in Battersea.
Michaël Protin

Kapihan

Address: TBD
Key people: Nigel, David, and Plams Motley.
What to expect: A revival for one of the best bakeries and cafes in London, grounded in Filipino ingredients and culinary histories.
Projected opening: 2022

A chef in a black apron sits over the bowl of gumbo with a spoon and a glass of red wine.
Tom Zahir Browne’s duck and andouille gumbo, as served at Decatur’s Quality Wines residency in autumn 2021.
Michaël Protin

Decatur

Address: TBD
Key people: Tom Zahir Browne.
What to expect: Definitely: some more pop-ups challenging pastiched imaginations of Southern cooking; hopefully, a permanent restaurant dedicated to that pursuit.
Projected opening: 2022

A Dexter beef and fermented ramson laab, as served at one of Anglo Thai’s residencies in 2019.
A Dexter beef and fermented ramson laab, as served at one of Anglo Thai’s residencies in 2019.
Jeremy Nothman

AngloThai

Address: TBD
Key people: John and Desiree Chantarasak.
What to expect: A central London home for one of the most exciting exponents of uncynical “fusion” cooking out there, whose push-pull between the language of Thai cooking and its traditions and British ingredients resolves its tensions in thrilling dishes.
Projected opening: Spring 2022

The gastrotourists are back

A rubik’s cube plated dessert on a white pedestal, on a wooden table.
The famous rubik’s cube dessert from Björn Frantzén’s eponymous Stockholm restaurant.
Martin Botvidsson / Stefan vdKG

Frantzen

Address: Harrods, 87 — 135 Brompton Road, Knightsbridge SW1X 7XL
Key people: Björn Frantzén, of the three-Michelin-starred Stockholm restaurant that bears his surname.
What to expect: A shrine to international gastrotourism.
Projected opening: Autumn 2022

Mauro Colagreco
Chef Mauro Colagreco.
Matteo Carassale/Mirazur

Mauro Colagreco at Raffles

Address: The Old War Office Building, Whitehall SW1A 2EU
Key people: Mauro Colagreco, of three-Michelin-starred and former “world’s best” restaurant Mirazur, in Menton, France.
What to expect: A three-part shrine to international gastrotourism.
Projected opening: Late 2022

A trio of sculpted patisserie fruits — and one choux — by Cédric Grolet, on a white plate, on a marble table.
A trio of sculpted patisserie fruits — and one choux, from Cedric Grolet’s Le Meurice boutique in Paris.
Le Meurice

Cedric Grolet at the Berkeley

Address: Wilton Place, Knightsbridge SW1X 7RL
Key people: Cedric Grolet, of eponymous patisserie boutiques in Paris.
What to expect: Trompe l’œil fruits and elegant flowers, and a whole load of influencers.
Projected opening: Early 2022

Foursquare

Westerns Laundry

34 Drayton Park, , England N5 1PB 020 7700 3700 Visit Website
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Bao

83 Rue De La Gauchetière Ouest, Ville-Marie, QC H2Z 1C2 (514) 875-1388

TŌU

101-103 Oxford Street, , England WC1A 1DB Visit Website

E2

, , England E2
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TĀTĀ Eatery

152 Old Street, , England EC1V 9BW Visit Website

Ji

Chalk Farm Road, , England NW1 8AH 07398 682956

Xier

13-14 Thayer Street , London , W1U 3JR Visit Website

Colbert

50-52 Sloane Square, , England SW1W 8AX 020 7730 2804 Visit Website
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Santa Maria

11 Bond Street, , England W5 5AP 020 8840 4998 Visit Website
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The Wolseley

160 Piccadilly, , England W1J 9EB 020 7499 6996 Visit Website

Mere

74 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 4QH Visit Website

Lamb

94 Lamb's Conduit Street, , England WC1N 3LZ 020 7405 0713 Visit Website

Jolene

54 Great Jones Street, Manhattan, NY 10012 Visit Website