French restaurant group La Nouvelle Garde has announced it will officially open its first London venue on July 9 – and bookings are now open. Brasserie Olivia will sit off Sloane Square in Chelsea and bring the group’s relaxed take on French dining to a London crowd.
Since La Nouvelle Garde was founded by Charles Perez and a group of friends in 2019, it’s helped redefine French dining for a younger generation at venues including Paris’s Brasserie des Prés and Brasserie Dubillot, and brasseries in other French cities like Lille and Lyon. It’s an approach the group will bring to Chelsea, where the kitchen will be helmed by Rachide Sambu Balde (ex-Galvin La Chapelle, Angler, Morchella). He’ll work closely with the group’s executive chef and chief operating officer Thibaut Darteyre.
Brasserie Olivia will open from morning till night, serving French classics, La Nouvelle Garde’s more contemporary signatures and London-exclusive dishes. For breakfast, it’ll be house-made viennoiserie, eggs benedict and galette complète. Later in the day, classic dishes like soupe à l’oignon, pâté en croûte and stuffed gougères will kickstart meals, and complement La Nouvelle Garde specialties like barbecue duck skewers and fish crudo.
Seafood will be an anchoring element. An oyster counter and a tank of lobster – destined to be cooked with shellfish butter sauce – will show off the day’s catch. A parade of larger share-style plates will come from the open fire, including the group’s signature saucisse purée (sausages and mash), with sausages made to La Nouvelle Garde’s recipe by London butcher HG Walter. Other French standards like steak frites and cassoulet will round out the menu. For dessert, the group’s showstopping paris-brest: rings of crisp and airy choux pastry cradling mousseline cream with a praline crunch and crushed hazelnuts.
To maintain a cross-cultural conversation, the group will work with British suppliers – including Natoora and Flourish – as well as French vendors. This approach continues in the drinks list. Wine is entirely French, and alongside bottles of crémant and champagne from established houses, the brasserie will stock its own cuvees. Beers are from Cornwall’s Harbour Brewing Co and tea is from The Tea Makers of London, while head bartender Jennifer Le Nechet has worked with Cognac-based distillery Merlet on a house aperitivo.
Vibrant colours and patterns define the design of La Nouvelle Garde’s venues, and Brasserie Olivia’s design – by longstanding collaborator, London’s B3 Designers (Lita, Lyle’s) – will be no different. The kitchen will open into the dining room, which will have a glass ceiling and checkerboard tiling, and be decorated with vintage advertising and postcards from the south of France.
Head downstairs and Venus Bar, a ’70s-inspired speakeasy, will be decked out in wood panelling. Drinks here will lean experimental: a cucumber and gin milk punch that tastes like tzatziki and a tomato-infused Negroni.
“We established La Nouvelle Garde for one reason, to preserve the French art de vivre and bring a new golden age to the traditional brasseries everyone is used to,” Perez said in a statement. “We’re so excited to be bringing this to London.”
Brasserie Olivia officially opens on July 9. Bookings are now live.
