Monday Bulletin: Asma Khan signs new lease and Boiling Point to return as BBC drama series

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

Asma Khan finds new home

The chef Asma Khan has signed a new lease for her celeb-favourite restaurant Darjeeling Express. Khan opened her Covent Garden restaurant in 2020 after requiring a much larger space. It followed supper clubs and a highly successful spell in Kingly Court. She closed the Covent Garden site in July, explaining that she wanted her all female kitchen team to be more visible. Khan told CODE: ‘The whole team is so excited we have a permanent home! It’s a grand reunion of all the people who helped me with the build of my first restaurant five years ago. From the restaurant designer to the contractors building the unit, it feels like a homecoming working together.’ We’re looking forward to the homecoming. 

Boiling Point 

Fans of the controversial film Boiling Point will be pleased to learn that a new drama series is simmering away. The five-part spin-off will pick up six months on from where the film left off, with sous chef Carly (Vinette Robinson) head chef at her own restaurant. Many of Boiling Point’s original cast will also be reprising their roles, including Stephen Graham as Andy and Hannah Walters as Emily. ‘To be able to explore and go on a journey with our established and new characters will be a rollercoaster of feelings and emotions, but a rollercoaster you will want to keep getting back on,’ said Graham and Walters, both also executive producers of the show, in a joint statement. More.

Small plates

• The Chinatown institution Jen Cafe, long one of the city’s finest places to find dumplings, has permanently closed. The author Angela Hui told Eater: ‘I was always so mesmerised watching the aunties make fresh dumplings in the window’. 
   
• Banares executive chef Sameer Taneja has revealed plans to open an Indian fish restaurant. Taneja, who has not yet fully funded the concept, wants to open Fin to showcase Indian fish cookery in a similar style to Banares.
   
• London pizzeria Zia Lucia is continuing its rapid expansion with the launch of its eighth site. Founders Gianluca D’Angelo and Claudio Vescovo will open a new location in Canary Wharf on 25 October. 
   
• Pasero, a new neighbourhood restaurant, cafe and wine bar from hospitality veteran Genevieve Sparrow, will open on West Green Road in Tottenham on Thursday 27 October. In the kitchen is Pip MacDonald, ex-Scott’s, Cafe Murano, and Merchants Tavern. 
   
• The acclaimed chef Phil Howard has confirmed that his forthcoming pasta restaurant on Piccadilly will open under a different name. Previously called Otto, a ‘legal issue’ means the fixture will be named Notto instead.
  
  
• A new campaign, Cook For Iran, has launched in a bid to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis there. PRs Gemma Bell and Piers Zangana have teamed up with Clerkenwell Boy following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini and the subsequent protests. More here.

Tutto

The Brighton restaurant Tutto, which closed just weeks after a September soft launch (apparently due to staffing issues), has reopened. Tutto is restaurateur Razak Helalat’s fourth site and follows Burnt Orange and The Salt Room, also in Brighton, and The Coal Shed in London. ‘Expect a menu that explores and celebrates the different regional cooking styles of Italy, from Rome’s iconic cacio e pepe to a Bologna-inspired pappardelle with slow braised beef shin’, said the team.

More lobbying required

After a steady recovery post-pandemic, Britain’s hospitality industry lost 2,200 licensed premises in the third quarter of 2022, according to the market analysts CGA and AlixPartners. A sharp rise in energy, food and staffing costs have started to have a serious impact. Karl Chessell from CGA said: ‘These numbers show how hospitality’s steady recovery from COVID is now under severe threat from rising costs for businesses and consumers alike. The resilience and confidence of managed groups and their investors is impressive, and people’s appetite for eating and drinking out is undimmed. But thousands of smaller businesses are now on a knife-edge and in need of financial support.’

Fadi Kattan

The chef and restaurateur Fadi Kattan will make his UK debut with the opening of Akub, in Notting Hill, on 24 November. Kattan said the restaurant will bring ‘Palestinian cooking through a distinct lens’, and will celebrate the underrepresented culinary history of Palestine. He said: ‘With Akub, we want to share some of our poignant memories, tastes and smells, whilst embracing local seasonal produce in the UK. We chose Akub for the name, cardoon in English, as this short lived flowering thistle embodies the essence of Palestine and the quick tempo of the shifting seasons’. 

Romy Gill

The British-Indian chef and food-writer Romy Gill MBE will collaborate with Fortnum & Mason on 15 November, showcasing recipes from her new book On the Himalayan Trail. It will be the second event in F&M’s ‘Behind the Pages’ series and Romy will ‘take guests on a journey, exploring the lesser-known parts of India, through a diverse range of dishes that celebrate the real fusion of flavours and influences that make up her home country.’ A four-course menu will include dishes such as kanaguchhi gosht (lamb and morel yakhni), and chaman kaliya, (paneer in yellow gravy). Tickets from £95.

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