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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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