AQUA SPLASH OUT

Joe Warwick

IN what looks set to be London's big budget autumn opening of 2009, Hong Kong restaurant group Aqua have announced details of their plans for the top floor of 240 Regent Street, part of the redevelopment of what was Dickens & Jones, the site having lain dormant since the failing department store shut up shop for the final time in January 2006.

The company, which currently runs a stylish octuplet of establishments in Hong Kong and further foursome in Beijing, will open Aqua London this September.
Using the group's Hong Kong flagship as a template, Cantonese is nowhere on the menu at the new venture which will come in three parts and feature Aqua Kyoto, a modern Japanese with a sushi bar and charcoal-fired sumibiyaki grill, Aqua Nueva, a San Sebastian-inspired modern Spanish, and Aqua Spirit, a snack-serving cocktail bar. Sitting atop what will become new homes for H&M and Nokia, Aqua's design will incorporate three impressive terraces housed within fifth-floor extensions to the original Grade II listed building.

www.aqua.com.hk 

  

Aqua

Galvin La Chapelle

  

GALVINS NAME THEIR NEW BABY

The Galvin brothers' third restaurant after Galvin Bistrot de Luxe on Baker Street and Galvin at Windows in London Hilton Park Lane has finally been christened ahead of its late autumn 2009 opening. Located in the City in the Grade II-listed St Botolph's Hall between Bishopsgate and Commercial Street, the new venue will be called Galvin La Chapelle, its name a nod to the famous Rhone wine Hermitage La Chapelle, vintages of which will feature on its wine list. Galvin La Chapelle will comprise three dining areas - a restaurant based in the main hall, a cocktail bar in the old Curate,s House and an all-day café with outdoor seating looking over Spital Square.

www.galvinrestaurants.com   

 

  

HOWARD STEPS IN 

The trend for haute cuisine's finest British-based technicians to slip into something more comfortable after years of pursuing Michelin-star status is well established. Tom Aiken has Tom's Kitchen, while Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal, Marco Pierre White, Claude Bosi and Nigel Howarth have all opened pubs that put the emphasis on the food in recent years.

Taking a slightly different tack, while doing something much more laid-back than his day job, is Philip Howard, the culinary clout behind The Square, who's just announced a partnership with Rebecca Mascarenhas, the restaurateur behind the well-regarded local destinations Sonny's in Barnes and the Phoenix in Putney.

The pair will work together on an as-yet-unnamed new venture on the Kensington site that was previously Bistrot Eleven, Mascarenhas' short-lived revamp of what she previously ran as Abingdon Road.
Howard will continue as chef-proprietor at The Square, where he's run the kitchen since it opened in 1991 and held two Michelin stars since 2007, while working with Mascarenhas to oversee the autumn launch of what will be an infinitely less formal neighbourhood joint.

www.squarerestaurant.org
www.bistroteleven.co.uk