Follow the red rabbit down Chiltern Street and you’ll encounter
another London omakase set to open (three in as many months). Only,
this Marylebone restaurant has a slightly different backstory to
the other chef-led Japanese joints popping up. The team behind
Mayha started the restaurant in Beirut (and run a few other
Lebanese restaurants), but this will be their first London outpost,
with a daily-changing menu featuring up-to-the-chef offerings.
Seating will be at a curved stone counter, but head downstairs and
you’ll find a hidden courtyard housing a refined izakaya. A
Japanese-influenced bartending team will serve pre- and post-dinner
drinks, alongside a raw seafood menu. It’s opening in January.

Starting the new year with a bang, the Big Mama group is to open
its fourth London restaurant, this time in the well-heeled W8
postcode. Mirrored walls, disco balls and everything excessive will
fill a former bank building on Kensington High Street, with the
team behind Gloria, Circolo Popolare and Ave Mario promising
all-out Italian madness (more Versace mansion than the blown-up
trattoria traditions seen at the group’s Shoreditch spot). Food
will be typical of its OTT style – think XXL profiteroles and
pasta-filled cheese wheels – and we’ve also been promised a drinks
menu dedicated to all things frothy.

A restaurant opening from the man behind London’s most excessive
dining rooms (Sexy Fish, The Brasserie of Light) always promises to
be a visual feast, and this one in Connaught House doesn’t
disappoint. Richard Caring’s Bacchanalia is large and lavish,
housed within a vast Mayfair dining space with Renaissance-style
frescoes on the wall and four gigantic Damien Hirst statues
featuring unicorns, lions and embracing lovers erupting from
central columns. If there was ever a sign that minimalism is
retreating to the edges of the hospitality world, it’s this. Just
take a peek at the loos: mosaics, mirrors, dancing nymphs – the
lot. A menu of Greek and Italian plates emphasises the classical
slant, with house Caesar salads, Roman flatbreads and risotto Nero
providing cheeky nods to the empires of old.

All hail Artfarm; the growing success of the hospitality group
launched by Hauser & Wirth’s founders proves that it’s not just
gallery curating they’re good at. Mount St. is the latest offering
(after The Fife Arms in Braemar and Somerset’s Roth Bar &
Grill). Opened in October, this first-floor eatery has already had
our new sovereign in for supper, and no wonder, as the
London-inspired menu is a real canzone to the capital (or should we
say sonnet?). Breakfasts include Stepney kippers and old-fashioned
kedgeree. For lunch? Try the smoked eel and potato salad. Come
dinner, it can only be pigeon, served with duck liver, bacon and
red cabbage. Interiors, meanwhile, are primed to showcase the art:
look down while you’re dining to spot the terrazzo-style mosaic
floor by Rashid Johnson.

Another October opening we’re still trying to secure a booking
for, the first launch from Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver in
over a decade sees one of London’s most-respected (and most
influential) restaurants notching up a third branch, with chef
Fintan Sharp at the helm. This one is a London take on Tuscan
wine-bar culture, so expect a good drinks list alongside the
typical nose-to-tail treats. The restaurant is open all day,
starting with St. John doughnuts for breakfast (complete with a
champagne chaser) and then a daily-changing blackboard menu as the
day progresses, which will include the group’s much-loved bone
marrow on toast.

FoodTok has entered the chat. If you thought your favourite
social app only offered dirty burgers and alarming candy creations
in the food department, think again. One of its stars, Thomas
Straker, has made video-scrolling a stepping stone to owning his
own restaurant. We’re exaggerating – a bit. Straker also has
kitchen pedigree, having worked at The Dorchester and Dinner by
Heston Blumenthal, but it was his pandemic-era posts that made him
one to watch – and set London abuzz over his just-opened
restaurant. Head there to eat small plates and sharing platters
centred around sustainability and seasonality. At only 40 covers,
we’re expecting it to be a difficult reservation to pin down –
especially if his followers are around.

Goodbye, Pret sandwiches. We’ve been patiently peering out of
our Soho office windows for signs that Nessa is about to open. The
public-facing part of a new private members’ club opening on the
corner of Brewer Street and Warwick Street, this neighbourhood
bistro – set to start cooking in spring 2023 – will have Tom Cenci
in the kitchen (formerly of Duck & Waffle and Loyal Tavern),
plating up British classics with a playful, inventive edge.