When Florence Knight first stepped onto the 11th floor of 180 The Thames, Lunette was nothing more than a shell. And yet, according to the chef, something about it just felt right. “It was a real moment of realising that this incredible space was a possibility,” she tells Broadsheet. “It felt very intuitive, which sounds mad when you’re standing in a building site that’s all dirty and grey. But it was the moment where I realised this was definitely the next step.”
Lunette will open this autumn as part of the major 180 Quarter development, which already encompasses the St Clement hotel, and its all-day restaurant Cafe Clement. It will be Knight’s first solo restaurant, following her celebrated tenure as the inaugural head chef at Farringdon’s Sessions Arts Club. French for “little moon”, its name also references the lunette windows found in surrounding buildings, which guests can admire alongside views across the Thames.
But it wasn’t just the panorama that captured Knight’s imagination. “I think it was the intimacy of the space; it will only seat 30 people.” she says. “I wanted to build a restaurant where people could return, and something that felt comfortable, but still generous. Luxury is a funny one, because I think today [it] isn’t about giving people more. It’s about giving them exactly enough. I felt like I could achieve that here.”
Known for her pared-back plates of thoughtful, beautifully presented food, Knight hopes guests will enjoy the most distilled version of it yet at Lunette. “I’m always going to cook the way I cook,” she says. “I still cook in the same way, but the food has become more exacting. There are often more elements to a plate, but each one has a very specific purpose. The complexity in the kitchen means I can offer more clarity.”
Unlike the sharing menu served at Sessions Arts Club, the chef’s new venture will offer one set menu in two formats, with four dishes at lunch, priced at £80, and eight at dinner for £120, and optional add-ons for those who want to go all-out.
“Sessions was a list of dishes, and that was a really wonderful way to cook because there was less structure,” Knight says. “But Sessions became quite relentless. We were cooking at an incredible pace.”
Now, she hopes offering a set menu will allow her to control the flow of each meal, as well as more practical elements she can’t keep an eye on. “You can’t always anticipate how people order, so [at Sessions] guests could potentially order too much fried food, and table space can be tricky. And if you’re in a kitchen, you can’t see that table, so those things became more of a consideration for me, thinking about how I wanted the guests to feel and how I wanted them to enjoy the food.”
The eight-dish dinner will begin with smaller bites before moving into more substantial plates, with an emphasis on changes in colour and texture throughout. Knight is keen for guests to leave satisfied, but not exhausted by the experience. “I want people to feel like they don’t have to go out and get extra food because they’re still hungry, but also not to feel overwhelmed,” she says. “That’s the tricky balance I’ve got to find.”
True to form, the menu will follow the seasons as well as what her suppliers can provide each day. So far, dishes that the chef and her team have been testing include a cold tomato tea with oxheart tomato and tomato-leaf oil; a milk custard with cévennes onion; baked petals and caviar; and slow-cooked pork loin accompanied by anchovy, cinsault sauce, creamed cocco bianco beans and figs.
Knight is also planning to revisit one of her long-time favourite flavour combinations with a pomme souffle filled with smoked eel and topped with roe and nasturtium. “It’s this beautiful crisp pillow filled with eel mousse,” she says. “There’s roe, crème fraîche and nasturtium leaf. It’s a play on something that I’d done before, but this feels like the essence of it.”
When it comes to the experience, Knight is training her front-of-house team to tailor each interaction. “We’re there to anticipate what people need and want, whether they want to know where something comes from or whether they don’t,” she says. “Everybody wants something different. One guest wants to understand more and learn, and another is having a lovely time with their friend and doesn’t want to be interrupted. It’s really important that we give everyone a bespoke experience of what they’ve come for.”
While they fine-tune the final details, Knight is still relishing the chance to shape a restaurant on her own terms. “It’s very, very special to be in a space that feels like my own,” she says. “It’s quite daunting, but it’s exciting.”
Lunette will open in mid-September, 2026 on Level 11, 180 The Thames, WC2R 3DA. The restaurant will open Tuesday to Saturday, with lunch served from midday to 1.30pm and dinner from 5.30pm to 9pm.
