London’s dining scene is a fast-paced thing – restaurants constantly opening and closing, menus changing and staff shifting between venues like culinary musical chairs. Layered over the top of that is any number of chef residencies and pop-ups happening around the capital at one time. And it’s at these where some of London’s most exciting cooking is happening right now.
This spring, there’s a leading Spanish chef taking over a Mayfair hotel bar, a cross-pollination between a nose-to-tail Italian restaurant and a Chinatown diner and Mexican spice bags at a Hoxton pub. Here’s what’s in store in the coming months.
Dumplings Legend and Manteca, Shoreditch
Prawn toast focaccia. Wonton agnolotti with crispy chilli oil. Pig-skin ragu bao buns. In a first for the Shoreditch nose-to-tail Italian diner, Manteca is teaming up with Chinatown favourite Dumplings Legend on a one-day-only set menu, available at Manteca at lunch or dinner. The restaurants share a reputation for precision – whether it’s in making delicate hand-made dim sum or house-made salumi – and these techniques will be on show through the menu, which also includes steamed har gau with Manteca’s crab cacio sauce, and hotpots filled with Dumplings Legend’s hand-made noodles, beef, tripe and pig’s intestines and Manteca mortadella.
March 16, with select dishes available at Dumplings Legend until the end of the month.
mantecarestaurant.co.uk
Thrift Taco at Howl at the Moon, Hoxton
Hoxton’s Irish party pub Howl at the Moon has welcomed Thrift Taco into its hole-in-the-wall kitchen – and the team has risen to the occasion with a menu of playful Irish-inflected Mexican dishes designed to be enjoyed with pints. Thrift Taco began as a Hoxton Market stall in early 2025, and has since grown its fanbase at pop-ups across east London – most recently at Stoke Newington mezcal bar Doña. Devotees can expect Thrift’s original tacos, carnitas and house-made fermented hot sauces, alongside a Mexican spice bag and churros with dulce de leche infused with Beamish, the Irish stout.
Ongoing residency.
hoxtonpub.com
Lyaness and BiBi, South Bank
A decade-long friendship between mixologist Ryan Chetiyawardana, aka Mr Lyan, and Chet Sharma, chef-patron of Mayfair contemporary Indian restaurant Bibi, has given rise to a collaborative menu at Lyaness. In this five-day pop-up at the award-winning South Bank bar, the set menu will showcase the pair’s shared belief that flavour can travel seamlessly between plate and glass, with the same ingredients expressed in different forms. Dishes are shaped by Sharma’s research into historic Indian cuisine, and particularly the use of spice in both food and drink. Diners will start with oysters with pear jal jeera (a zesty summer drink), then try the lamb neck nihari with kulcha (a type of stew with flatbread), and finish with cherry blossom and chocolate mousse. Naturally, every course is paired with a cocktail designed to echo and deepen the flavours of the food.
From March 9–13.
lyaness.com
Nieves Barragán Mohacho at The Donovan Bar, Mayfair
Bilbao-born chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho has been pivotal in shaping how Londoners dine out on Spanish food, first as executive chef at Barrafina, then her own Michelin-starred restaurants Sabor and Legado. And for three months from next week, she’ll bring her authoritative cooking to The Donovan Bar at Brown’s Hotel – the latest in a run of residencies that has recently included A Wong’s Andrew Wong and Tom Kitchin from Edinburgh’s The Kitchin. Barragán Mohacho will bring small, drinking-friendly plates not on the menu at her other venues, including seared tuna with ajo blanco, confit artichoke with lovage aioli and arroz melosa – a short-grain rice dish that’s like a soupier paella. Donovan’s bar team will pour cocktails designed to meld with the menu.
From March 9 to June 6.
roccofortehotels.com
Louis-Arnaud Jose at Giacco’s, Highbury
Wine bar Giacco has roped in a raft of great chef residencies lately, including Portuguese dining from Tasca and Japanese-Italian fusion from Paris-based chef Akira Sugiura. Up next is Bordeaux-born chef Louis-Arnaud Jose, who’s an alum of Gordon Ramsay’s Grand Hotel Bordeaux, as well as Parisian bistros Amagat, Jones and Donna. His rustic French cooking, which also incorporates Basque and Italian influences, will bolster Giacco’s low-intervention wine list from March 10. Visit for black mullet sashimi with fennel salad and Thai basil, a shiitake and seaweed vol-au-vent, ox ragu pappardelle, and a black cardamom and anis star crumble tart.
From March 10 to May 17.
giaccos.bar
This article was updated on March 5, 2026, to reflect the postponement of Phed Mark's residency at Platapian.
