Hot openings across the capital and beyond this May - from rooftop bars, to FREE bao buns, add these to your dining lists for May.
Chez Roux
Image credit: Raffaella Bichiri
Michel Roux is opening a new restaurant in Palm Court at The Langham. The menus will retrospectively nod back to the 1960s inspired by Michel’s childhood memories growing up in rural Kent coupled with some of the faves from the original 1960s menu of Roux’s recently gone, but not forgotten, restaurant Le Gavroche. Try Welsh Rarebit with stout and Montgomery cheddar and main course Lamb Chops Reform - herb-crusted lamb, faggot and Reform sauce. Cocktails will also be reflective of the era with retro-sounding Queen’s Dubonnet and Madeira Cobbler and the like. The restaurant is open for dinner only taking over the Langham’s central dining room, Palm Court.
Opens 22 May
Pergola Brixton
Brixton’s getting a new floral party pad. Tropical greenery and bright colourful murals will fill the rooftop restaurant and bar Pergola Brixton. The roof’s retractable so rain won’t spoil any fun - pretty essential with the great British weather! Visit for £5 Margaritas on Thursdays, bottomless brunch on Saturdays and Sundays pay homage to ‘The Spritz’. DJs and a live band with steel drums, bongos and a saxophonist, will liven up the weekends. We hear you hire out the whole venue too!
Opens 4 May
Six by Nico Oxford
A Six by Nico opens in Oxford’s Westgate this month. The restaurant group’s USP is a regular rotating affordable (just £50 each!) tasting menu that changes every six weeks, drawing inspiration from a memory, place or idea. For launch, a nostalgic chip shop-inspired menu “The Chippie” experience will be plated up. We’d queue for the dessert alone - ‘Deep Fried Mars Bar and Irn Bru sorbet’. You can push the boat out with a selected wine pairing for an additional £30.
The Chippie will be running from opening on Monday 20th May to Sunday 30th June.
Opens Wednesday, May 22.
Opens 20 May
Master Bao Stratford
Photo Credit: Karolina Wiercigroch
Set your alarms…. Master Bao is heading East, opening in Westfield Stratford City this May. Plus they're giving away 150 bao buns daily first-come-first-serve from 23-26 May. Get your hands on their signature hot chicken bao buns (which will be a menu exclusive to Master Bao Stratford). There's Beef noodle soup, Taiwanese fried chicken, and a milk tea with tapioca too. The opening joins the original Mr Bao in Peckham in 2016 and Daddy Bao in Tooting.
Opens 23 May
All'onda
Photo credit: Anton Rodriguez
If you LOVE risotto, get yourself down to Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia this month for the opening of All'onda. You guessed it - risotto is the menu focus. The restaurant will showcase a series of refined risottos, using the classic Italian dish as a springboard to explore seasonal flavours and textures such as cuttlefish ink - cuttlefish, nduja and parsley (pictured). Head Chef Andrea Granzarolo comes with experience under the helm of Hélène Darroze as well as The Greenhouse and The Square. The interiors are sleek and minimal with soft lighting.
Now Open
Riverside East
Photo Credit: A Dash and a Splash
More news from Stratford as new hangout Riverside East is set to open at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park later this month. The whopping 300-cover Café has a menu designed by Lulu Cox, (formerly of Rochelle Canteen, Bocca di Lupo and St. John) and dishes will align with an overriding focus on sustainability and wellness, using low-waste suppliers. Housing even more foodies, the Yard - will offer a 1000-cover outdoor space with an array of street food traders.
Opens 20 May https://www.riverside-east.co.uk
Doughnation
Photo credit: Stephen Joyce
3 Henrietta Street in Covent Garden has a pizza brand incoming. Doughnation will launch on the ground floor of the townhouse dining offering on the piazza. You can expect artisan-crafted pizzas on stretched dough, with funky flavours like Potato Pizza and Truffled Mushroom Ragout. An al fresco Doughnation terrace will also open on Covent Garden’s piazza opposite the restaurant, featuring a gin-spritz menu for the summer months.
Opens 16 May
INIS
Hackney Wick's Fish Island welcomes INIS (Irish for island) this May from local couple Lynsey Coughlan and Lindsay Lewis. You can expect seasonal Irish and English dishes in the all-day affair such as Irish breakfast with hand-cut belly bacon, sausages, roast potato farls, black and white pudding and roasted tomatoes, with potato sourdough, French toast with mascarpone, stewed rhubarb and brown butter crumble, and whiskey smoked salmon with crème fraiche and pickled onion on Irish brown bread. It sounds like a smashing cocktail menu to match: try their cold brew Irish coffee, refreshing beer and mezcal spritz with mandarin and bergamot soda. Head Chef Craig Johnson's worked at Arbutus, The Corner Room and Newington Table prior and the wine list has been curated by Clara Rubin (Hawksmoor, The Draper’s Arms, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, Home House).
Opens 8 May