18 New Upcoming London Restaurants We’re Excited For

It’s already been a bang-up year for new London restaurants, bars, cafes and pubs – but there’s still plenty more to come. In the coming months, the capital will see the launch of a new Japanese diner from the Eel Sushi and Dorian team, a duo of schmick hotel restaurants from big-name chefs, a spin on a classic pub by A Wong’s chef-patron Andrew Wong and more. Read on to find out the openings we’re excited about – and if you’re keen to check out the best of London’s new spots, read our round-ups of the best new restaurants, bars and casual diners of the year so far.

A Wong chef-patron Andrew Wong will bring his beautiful Chinese cooking to Kong, a new pub opening in Shoreditch in cahoots with Dishoom’s co-founder Amar Radia. They’re taking over an 18th century pub, melding east London’s pub legacy with a Chinese kitchen that’ll serve dumplings for breakfast, noodles at lunch and grilled food at dinner. Pints in the sunshine will be on lock, too, thanks to its sprawling courtyard.
Opening autumn.

Bloomsbury’s brutalist Brunswick Centre will soon house Karam’s, a charming all-vegetarian restaurant by Jikoni’s Ravinder Bhogal. It’s a tribute to Bhogal and her husband and business partner Nadeem Lalani Nanjuwany’s ancestors, and the menu will feature dishes like panki – a sort of savoury pancake cooked in banana leaves – and dhal dhokli, a sweet and sour dhal with handmade chickpea flour pasta cooked in it.
Opening 2026.

Two of London’s coolest operators will join forces when Kid opens in September. The new fire-driven Turkish restaurant is a partnership between chef Sertaç Dirik – who helped turn his family’s restaurant Mangal II into one of the city’s hottest tables – and David Carter, the restaurateur behind Oma, Agora and Manteca. The menu will centre around the cuisine of Central Anatolia, where Dirik’s family hails from, with dishes like seeded sourdough pide grilled on the mangal then brushed with kaymak butter and kid goat cooked in a wood oven in a clay pot.
Opening September.

Over the past couple of years, the team behind Dorian and Eel Sushi have hosted a couple of residencies in its grocer Supermarket of Dreams. Urchin was a Japanese bistro, while Robin’s Ramen focused on, well ramen – and now both concepts will unite in a new multi-level restaurant, Nakimushi. A ramen bar will take over the ground level, while the rest will be devoted to “hot” Japanese food, also including ramen.
Opening September.

Beloved Soho restaurant 10 Greek Street has its last service on August 8 – and something quite different will take its place this autumn. The address will soon house the third outpost of Portuguese bar and restaurant Bar Douro, bringing regional Portuguese dishes (some incorporating a rare breed of beef that’ll be served in London for the first time here), an expansive wine list and a respect for the Iberian nation’s culture into central. Opening October.

Ignore the moaners – there’s still plenty of appetite for more smashburgers in London. Dumbo – the Parisian smashburger sensation that opened its first UK diner in Bethnal Green last year – is banking on it. It’ll open its second London spot in Soho next month, where it’ll serve its tight menu of burgers with crisp-edged patties, fries and chicken nuggets. Opening September.

Fans of Gabriel Waterhouse’s cooking at his Bethnal Green restaurant The Waterhouse Project, which closed in June, will soon have a new spot to eat his food not too far away. Waterhouse – what he and business partner and wife Patricia Wakaimba say is a more refined vision of their restaurant – is coming to a former Victoria warehouse just off Columbia Road this month. The multi-part restaurant will take inspiration from Waterhouse’s native Northumberland and its produce.
Opening August.

The Lita team will open a huge West End restaurant, Salone, bringing Italian cuisine to a multi-level space around the corner from Burberry on Regent Street. Each floor will boast an open kitchen, with a pizzeria on the ground floor and a live pasta station on the first level. Leading the menu is Luca Natalini, of Milan’s Michelin-starred Autem.
Opening autumn.

LA and Sydney are riddled with affordable, high-quality sushi counters. Soon, London will be getting its own, with the launch of Saltwater by Elliot Milne, the founder of Milk Beach. Handrolls – which are made like maki, but aren’t sliced into rounds – will include bluefin tuna with avocado and fermented chilli, and chicken schnitzel with avocado and spicy mayo. There’ll also be donburi bowls and nigiri.
Opening August.

After a series of popular pop-ups, pétanque bar Circle 13 is going permanent. Unusually, its highballs will start off zero-proof, with the option to add alcohol. That means its Yuzu and Plum Fizz can become a Yuzu and Plum Collins with the addition of umeshu, sauvignon blanc and vodka. It’ll also do a menu of pintxos – and, naturally, a pétanque piste.
Opening summer.

London’s oldest chophouse will get a second life when it reopens as Cloth Cornhill. Formerly known as Simpson’s Tavern, it’s been at the heart of the City since 1757, and was frequented by the likes of William Thackeray and Charles Dickens. Now, the team behind Farringdon’s Cloth will relaunch it with a produce-driven British menu alongside classic steaks, chops and sausages – and “lots and lots” of bottles of wine, according to co-owner Joe Haynes.
Opening TBC.

After a seven-month residency in Borough Market, Barang will bring its bold Cambodian flavours to a permanent site in Soho later this year. Details are light on the ground, but in the meantime you can catch Barang and its chef-owner Tom Geoffrey leading another residency at Mare Street Market in King’s Cross.<br Opening autumn.

The team behind beloved Peckham restaurant and bar Levan will open Cassette, a restaurant inspired by Parisian bistros with an ex-Planque chef on the pans. It’ll fuse comfort food with confident cooking, with dishes like coq-au-vin jaune pie and terrine of fromage de tête and tarragon.
Opening September.

The owner of Quince in Islington, Anna Higham, will open Clementine, a new cafe. Just yards away from Quince, it’ll celebrate British produce – but unlike its sibling it’ll serve breakfast, brunch and lunch. Expect dishes like porridge, soup and toasties, tattie scones, pies, buns and scones with jam and cream.
Opening September.

Bubala’s Middle Eastern cooking will find a fourth home when it opens in Covent Garden this autumn. Fans know the drill: veg-forward dishes like halloumi with chamomile and fennel honey, and the crispy confit latkes with toum, as well as its eternally popular Bubala Knows Best set menu. The new spot will have a larger focus on wine and cocktails, with bottles sourced from the Middle East and Europe, and cocktail ingredients built around what’s being used in the kitchen.
Opening September.

Multiple venues will launch in the London Museum when it opens its new home, in the former Smithfield General Market, in November. And some big names are involved. Expect an all-day restaurant headed by Robin Gill (Darby’s, Sorella, etc), a bar by Mr Lyan, a coffee house open till late and an incubator kitchen for emerging chefs.
Opening November.

Two big-name chefs are opening restaurants in London’s upcoming Waldorf Astoria hotel, which is taking over the historic Admiralty Arch near where Trafalgar Square meets Whitehall. Core chef-patron Clare Smyth will launch Coreus, a celebration of the UK’s coastline and the waters that surround it, while French chef-restaurateur Daniel Boulud returns to London with a restaurant for the first time since 2021 with a rooftop all-day restaurant Cafe Boulud.
Opening autumn.

“Australia’s hottest club” – frozen yoghurt brand Yo-Chi is coming to London. It specialises in build-your-own fro-yo bowls, with nine yoghurt flavours and more than 30 toppings ranging from fresh fruit like strawberries and blueberries to choc-chunk cookie cake, granola, mini mochi and a variety of sauces and spreads. The party comes courtesy of a disco ball and DJ booth.
Opening summer.