A Wong

The restaurant line-up at Bloomberg Arcade just keeps getting stronger with the news that A Wong will open there in spring next year. The hugely popular (and newly Michelin-starred) Victoria site has been open since 2012; the second branch will be more casual all-day dining, still along Andrew Wong’s modern classic Chinese ideas. Chef-patron Wong says “I’ve been considering the idea of somewhere we would be able to open all day for a while. When the opportunity for the Bloomberg Arcade came along, we knew it would be perfect.”.

The Coach Makers Arms

Cubitt House has a good array of independent pubs in smart corners of London, now joined by new opening The Coach Makers Arms on Marylebone Lane. We say new, the actual pub has been there for 140 years but has will now offer smart pub food in a 50-seater first-floor dining room as well as craft beers and more from a bar on each of the three floors. The Coach Makers Arms opens in early December, just in time for the area’s hangry Christmas shoppers.

Upstairs at Trinity
 

We’re fans of Adam Byatt’s Clapham restaurant Trinity and applaud the latest idea for its first-floor space, a series of dinners in aid of the homeless charity Centrepoint. The Home Charity events are the brainchild of Aaron Potter, Byatt’s senior sous chef and will feature guest chefs such as Ben Marks of Perilla, Mark Birchall of Moor Hall and  Jon Parry of The Mash Inn among many others. The first three will be on 12 and 27 November, and then on 15 January. All proceeds go to Centrepoint and you can get more information on Instagram @homecharityseries.

Granary Square Brasserie

It takes someone with quite some profile to take on the large site that was Grain Store at King's Cross, so it’s not surprising that it will become part of the swiftly expanding Ivy Collection. Conscious of being at the axis of office workers and pleasure seekers, the Granary Square Brasserie will have both DJs as a regular fixture and large spaces where visitors can hold informal meetings. Breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner are on offer in the 250-seat space, which opens on 6 December.

Kitchup

Exactly two years after it was created by twin team Emma and Charlie Jones, Kitchup is raising £100,000 via crowdfunding. This will enable expansion of the clever idea which puts underused kitchen and catering spaces together with food enterprises looking for somewhere to operate from. The commercial spaces earn extra revenue, the chefs/ entrepreneurs can access flexible and negotiable places for their enterprise (Smokestak used them back in the day). Kitchup currently operates across London but the Jones’s have global plans for their Airbnb-style matching service.

The Perception

From Friday, a little bit of Hackney arrives in the very different environs of Leicester Square. Magnus Reid has many fans for his Legs restaurant in east London but the W Hotel has lured him across town with a ‘dining series’ that will run from this week until the new year, in its newly unveiled bar The Perception. There will be booths and a long, shared table at which Reid will serve his eclectic dishes. With cheerful confidence, he says "I guess the W are just smart, they want to triumph food, and realised that to do so needed to take some chances.” Other chefs will take on the residency after Reid. 

Simon Rogan

Simon Rogan has announced the return to London of his first, temporary venture in the city. Roganic was a long-term pop-up in Marylebone back in 2011, winning plaudits for Rogan and his team. Now after The French in Manchester and a spell at Claridge’s, the chef is opening both the ultra-discreet, tiny Aulis concept (in Soho) and the larger Roganic, in the old L’Autre Pied site on Blandford Street. Opening in December, Rogan says that the new restaurant will have elements of his Lake District two-Michelin-starred L’Enclume.

Edwin Cookson

Edwin Cookson has been appointed restaurant manager at The Cleveland Arms in Paddington. Fay Maschler loved the pub when she reviewed it in August and Cookson’s appointment (he’s from Quo Vadis via waiting and events departments) finalises an elegant revamp that has preserved the best of the 150-year-old site while making it a stylish, modern place to drink and eat.

Manager, Tuscan Farm Shop
 

Tuscan winegrowers’ winebar-deli-tasting cafe seeks Manager.

Care for, explain and promote our superb produce from Montalcino and the Val d’Orcia to customers while enthusing and motivating staff to the highest levels of customer service and presentation.

Have you: energy, positive attitude, ability to run an attractive, customer inspiring food and wine environment?

We offer: Professional salary. Beautiful coastal location. Good life/work balance, with lower living costs. Learning time in Tuscany among artisan producers. Staff benefits.

Click here to read more and apply

Chief Operating Officer, The Indian Gymkhana Club

The Indian Gymkhana Club London has been established since 1916 and is the longest-standing and largest British Asian sports club in the United Kingdom. The club is looking to hire an experienced hospitality/sports club manager to lead a major change program. These changes would include significant improvements across facilities and services. The role will require leadership of all commercial areas of the club, and associated staff, which includes the bar, dining facilities, gymnasium and banqueting.

Click here to read more and apply

The ICA is now firmly back on Fay Maschler’s radar thanks to the newly opened Rochelle Canteen

Grace Dent finds herself unusually content in west London thanks to Clare Smyth’s new restaurant.

What happened when we spent 24 hours in Claridge's kitchen

Great restaurants you’ve probably never heard of

Tues 24 Oct

• Ribera del Duero: Wine, Gardening and Biodynamics
 
• Carousel presents: Vitor Claro
 
• Portfolio Tasting | Totem Wines

Weds 25 Oct

• Mac Forbes takeover at Lorne: finale

Thurs 26 Oct

• WEST at Peckham Levels x Spike + Earl

Fri 27 Oct

• Friday night at the Garden Cafe
 
• Dandelyan x Licoreria Limantou

Apparently an avocado restaurant is opening in London. Enough said.

Despite their runaway success with Hawksmoor, Will Beckett and Huw Gott haven’t always had it so good. At a lunch last week at their Seven Dials restaurant for the launch of their new cookbook, Gott recalled Fay Maschler’s review of their gastropub, The Marquess Tavern. The headline read “Getting it wrong from A-Z doesn’t spell success”. But clearly no hard feelings between the two restaurateurs and the Standard critic as Fay was attending the lunch.

To the Tate Modern last Thursday for The Evening Standard’s Progress 1000. The food world was well represented on the list of London’s most influential and The Dumbwaiter spotted Jeremy King, Thomasina Miers, Ewan Venters and Russell Norman all in the crowd.

Joan Rivers’s daughter told the Daily Telegraph last week that she’s been travelling around the world scattering her mother’s ashes in special places. “I’ve scattered her ashes in the lobby of The Ritz, in the Wolseley and a little bit in Harry’s Bar.” All three get the nod from The Dumbwaiter.

From Seven Dials to Selfridges. Click here for The Dumbwaiter’s best bites of the week.

Baz and Fred

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London Cocktail Club Shaftesbury Avenue

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