CODE Bulletin Catch Up

Catch up on the latest industry news stories of the week from the CODE Bulletin

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Walter’s

Dulwich residents are looking forward to the arrival of Walter’s, Rob Hampton and Matt Lovell’s new 50-cover restaurant set for January. You probably know the duo by way of The Oystermen, their excellent seafood site in Covent Garden (why their £80 platter of whole Dorset crab and Dorset clams, Maldon oysters, Cornish mussels and prawns isn’t a bigger deal we do not understand). Anyway, Walter’s has been named after Walter Hathaway, a local master milliner, costumier and the first owner of the Park Hall Road address. On the menu will be dishes like trout skin with cod’s roe dip, truffle arancini, a Bloody Mary crab salad, artichokes with orzo, and roast hake with romesco sauce. Behind the dishes is head chef Khalid Hassan, formerly of Social Eating House, L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, and Murano. Hampton and Lovell said: “We have had such a journey since opening The Oystermen, our first bricks and mortar site just over four years ago. Walter’s feels like a very natural next step for us – we are moving down south to a neighbourhood we know and love. We can’t wait to create a spot for people to relax and enjoy great food at any time of day.”

St Leonard’s 

St Leonard’s in Shoreditch will hand over the stoves to Daniel Watkins next month for a “fire-cooked Christmas feast” residency. Watkins, known most recently as one half of ACME Fire Cult with Andrew Clarke, will begin his guest tenure on 1 December. Diners can expect coal roasted Cornish mids with tahini mayonnaise and hispi cabbage, grilled leeks with winter truffle, monkfish with crab mojo rojo, and herb-fed chicken with miso and hen of the woods. “Here at St Leonard’s, cooking with fire is a way to really enhance flavours and allows exploration with quality, seasonal produce,” said Watkins. “Alongside this, we’re using ancient techniques such as fermentation and preservation which lend themselves to these simple, flavourful dishes.”

Yatay

A new Japanese robatayaki restaurant has opened in Chinatown. Yatay, inspired by the “new-age izakayas of Tokyo” – an increasingly popular concept in the UK right now – serves the food and drink similar to that found on Tokyo streets, with classic skewers, raw dishes, spiced salads and plenty of sake and beer. Menu highlights include stuffed shiso leaves, monkfish karaage with gochujang mayo, torched mackerel with wasabi, and seaweed salad. An announcement said the interiors are a mix of classical Japanese design and modern polished concrete. An underground bar called Zoku will launch in the months to come. Ex-Sushisamba chef Marco Ardemagni is leading the kitchen, and Jay Newell, formerly of Chiltern Firehouse and the Mandrake, has been entrusted with front-of-house. 

Veeraswamy

Veeraswamy, the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the UK, is celebrating its 95th anniversary with a new look and a reinvigorated regional menu. Dishes have been picked “by a brigade of specialist chefs from all over the Indian subcontinent” and there are highlights from across the country. Expect Kashmiri Rogan Josh, lobster curry from the Malabar coast, roast duck vindaloo, Malvani prawn curry, Bengali chor chori, and Hydrabadi lamb chops. The decor, meanwhile, is now even more “luxurious and exotic”, capturing “1920s Indian glamour, period art, sculpture and artefacts, an eclectic Rajasthani turban collection, and beautiful hand-woven carpets”. It’s sometimes easy to forget Veeraswamy, which opened in 1926 and has been Michelin-starred since 2017. If not forget we perhaps take it for granted. So, attention required. 

Loulou Groupe

Paris’ own Loulou Groupe is heading to the UK for the first time next year with plans for a fine dining restaurant and a cocktail lounge. Mayfair is the obvious choice for restaurateurs who have expanded to St Tropez, and a Grade II townhouse on Charles Street with a history of high society 1920s shindigs makes sense. As Hot Dinners pointed out, the building was once owned by Dame Margaret Greville, who once threw a ball there as part of her role as matchmaker for the Queen Mother and the then Prince Albert. We think Loulou Groupe’s commitment “to restore 16 Charles Street to its former glory and bring it into public use for everyone to enjoy” sounds suitably genteel. 

Catch

A sustainable fish restaurant in Weymouth is beginning to make waves, having just been added to Michelin’s list of notable green gastronomic ventures (this doesn’t mean it has a green star, though). Catch opened in July but has kept quiet until now in the hope of solidifying its offering in a difficult market. Chef Mike Naidoo, formerly of Pollen Street Social, is ready to shout louder, and is doing so with an ever-changing menu of local seafood in the Grade II listed Old Fish Market building on Weymouth’s working harbourside. Lobster thermidor croquettes, scallop ceviche, and roast brill with salsify should get diners down to Dorset.

Asma Khan

Asma Khan of Darjeeling Express will launch a new cookbook on 17 March. Ammu, a term that means either “spiritual mother” or “mother” in South East Asia, is a “delicious collection of childhood recipes that celebrates the power of home cooking, and the inextricable link between food and love”, an announcement said. Included in the book are dishes that have nourished the chef’s life, from simple comfort food from Calcutta to the curries she craved and learned to cook when she moved from India to the UK. There will be more than 100 recipes in Ammu, from chicken biryani to sikandari raan, nine jewel korma to buttermilk chicken pakoras. Khan said: “In this book, I celebrate a woman who was fiercely independent in her thinking – a woman ahead of her time who managed to gently shake the patricarchy and was unafraid to be different from those around her, becoming a female founder of a food business. Ammu’s footprints are too big for me to match them, but I am following her path…”

Kerth Gumbs

Great British Menu finalist Keith Gumbs has been appointed head chef at the new London restaurant Boiler & Co, which will open at the former Camino site on Canvey Street in January. Gumbs, who appeared on the BBC show last year, is the former head chef of Ormer Mayfair; he will be given more licence to cook his own food at Boiler & Co., particularly drawing on influences from his home on the island of Anguilla in the Caribbean. As well as his crab cakes with Scotch bonnet mayo and roe – the dish which saw him progress on GBM – will be an a la carte menu featuring grilled ox tongue with crispy potatoes and green peppercorns, and roasted scallops with carrot and coconut curry sauce. His tasting menu will be paired with cocktails. Gumbs said: “It has long been a desire to cook, create and serve food in a place that better reflects my personality. Each dish will be fun, vibrant and tasty. I’m really excited and can’t wait to have everyone experience what Boiler & Co. has to offer.”

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