Monday Bulletin: Junghyun and Ellia Park are coming to London & Bar Kroketa’s new site

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

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Kiji

Junghyun and Ellia Park, the husband-and-wife duo behind Atomix, New York’s hottest Korean restaurant bar none, are coming to London. They will open Kiji, ‘an elevated Korean barbeque experience’, at luxury development 60 Curzon in Mayfair next year. Their overseas debut will occupy 8,000 sq.ft. on the storied site that was once home to historic London restaurant Mirabelle.
Atomix currently stands at number six on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and is the flagship of NA:EUN Hospitality, the Parks’ progressive Korean restaurant group that also includes Atoboy, Naro, Acru and Seoul Salon. There’s no question that their arrival in London represents a key turning point for high-end Korean cuisine in the capital. The Good Food Guide’s Elizabeth Carter, a keen follower of New York’s Korean restaurant scene, is looking forward to it: “Manhattan’s vibrant, varied Korean dining scene is centred on a few brash streets filled with fried chicken and BBQ joints. A few blocks away are the alternative, upscale visions of a Korean new-wave vanguard, like Oiji Mi and Atomix. Can such edginess, vitality and forward-thinking tranfer to London – a hard nut to crack for those not completely switched into its way of thinking? The answer lies in the fact that Kiji will be a barbeque concept, something quite different to the high-rolling Atomix or delightfully casual Atoboy. It’s Korean food we Brits know. I can’t wait.”

Bar Kroketa

Bar Kroketa teased its followers late last week with the announcement of a new site at an unspecified London location. They can now reveal that the location of their third site in as many years is Broadgate Circle in the City of London. The site, due to open its doors in mid-May with 50 covers inside, 25 outside, is their largest and most ambitious to date. As at its other locations in Soho and St Christopher’s Place, the City location will serve a menu of sweet and savoury Spanish kroketas (croquetas), blackboard specials, and an array of sherries, wines, and vermuts, and Mahou on draft.
Bar Kroketa replaces what had been set to become Bar Plaza, a new concept for Spanish chef José Pizarro. Pizarro announced it in December 2024 before revealing in February this year that it would no longer go ahead. He cited “significant financial pressures on businesses” brought about by ever-increasing operational costs and the NI increases, import duties, and rising annual business rates announced in the Autumn Budget.

Small Plates

• Veeraswamy, London’s oldest Indian restaurant, is under threat, reports The Times. The Crown Estate is renovating Victory House on Regent Street and will not be renewing the lease. Veeraswamy’s owners MW Eat is seeking an extension, but is ‘open to moving’.
   
• Studio Paskin is crossing the globe with a trio of venues. The Palomar, The Mulwray, and Jacob The Angel will all open at the 25hrsHotel The Olympia in Sydney later this year. Zoë Paskin, co-founder of Studio Paskin, is one of Hospitality’s Women of the Year 2025.
   
• What is it with smashburgers and cookies? First there was Supernova and Crème, now Paris’s Junk Group is bringing its cookie brand Puffy to London. Puffy’s first London shop debuts next door to Junk on Old Compton Street, Soho, in June. Seven flavours, including matcha and white chocolate.
  
  
• A £150 lunch only counts as a bargain when it’s at Ikoyi (currently no.42 on the World’s 50 Best list). In common with peers such as The Clove Club, Ikoyi has added a scaled down tasting menu to its offering, available Thursday, Friday and Saturday lunchtimes. It’s £350 for the full whack.
  
  
• One to earmark for the next time you head to Margate without a reservation: Pom on the Pier, a new walk-in only, wine-focused terrace restaurant on the harbour arm by Ryan Jacovides of Pomus. Noon to sunset, from this Friday 18 April.
  
  
• John Ogier (ex-Lyle’s and The Marksman) and chef Jack Coghlan (ex-Planque) are joining forces on Norbert’s, a 20-seat rotisserie chicken shop and bar, opening in East Dulwich in early May. Cocktails will includea margarita with a chicken salt rim.
  
  
• The lights are going back on at the old Leroy site in Shoreditch this May, with the opening of Duchy, a new restaurant from two former Leroy colleagues, Simon Shand and Alex Grant. Inspiration for Shand’s menu comes from the Duchy of Savoy, the historical region spanning south east France and north west Italy.
  
  
• Thomas Kochs has been appointed managing director of Claridge’s. He returns to the Mayfair hotel after eight years at Corinthia London.
  
  
• Harriet Mansell has announced that her Lyme Regis restaurant Lilac is to ‘go out on a high’ on 3 August.