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Hummus at Bubala in Shoreditch

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The Most Anticipated London Restaurant Openings This Summer

A Sephardic hit heads for Soho; a long-anticipated pan-African restaurant finally comes to life; and Sichuan fried chicken pitches up in Hackney

by Adam Coghlan and James Hansen
Hummus at Bubala, which will open a new restaurant in Soho in July 2022.
| Bubala

As spring moves into summer, the restaurant opening cycle continues to return to some kind of normal — though what was once under pressure from COVID-19 now faces rising costs, inflation, and the ever-present problem of staffing.

Still, openings there are, and among the highlights: a Pan-African restaurant aiming to reconfigure expectations; the return of one of the city’s most quietly excellent cafes; and a second opening for some of the most exciting vegetable cooking in the city. It’s all here.

Here are the six most anticipated summer openings in London.

A bowl of nkatekwan, a groundnut soup, with omo tuo, a mashed rice ball, in the centre, topped with black benne seeds
A bowl of nkatekwan, a groundnut soup, with omo tuo, a mashed rice ball, in the centre, topped with black benne seeds. It’s served at Tatale, coming in July.
Cyrille Sokpor

Tatale

Address: 66 Great Suffolk Street, Southwark SE1 0BL
Key people: Akwasi Brenya-Mensa.
What to expect: A self-consciously pan-African restaurant, designed to provoke conversation and cross-pollination between different cultural disciplines.
Projected opening: 14 July 2022

Hummus at Bubala in Shoreditch
Bubala’s acclaimed hummus at its original restaurant in Shoreditch.
Bubala

Bubala

Address: 15 Poland Street, Soho W1F 8QE
Key people: Helen Graham and Marc Summers.
What to expect: A follow-up from the vegetarian, loosely Sephardic restaurant in Spitalfields, bringing over its hero dishes and adding a Japanese grill.
Projected opening: Summer 2022

Sichuan Fry’s mapo chicken burger.
A mapo chicken burger from Sichuan Fry’s test kitchen.
Sichuan Fry

Sichuan Fry and Dumpling Shack

Address: 2 Westgate Street, London Fields E8 3RN
Key people: John and Yee Li.
What to expect: A first full restaurant for one of London’s most queued-for street food hits, with Sichuan fried chicken on the ground floor and its inimitable shengjianbao pork soup dumplings in the basement. Hackney be ready.
Projected opening: August 2022

The exterior of Black Swan Coffee, with a hatch for serving coffee and buns.
The original Black Swan Coffee, also in Bermondsey.
Black Swan

Black Swan & Little Bread Pedlar

Address: Unit A1, Swan Court, 9 Tanner Street, Bermondsey SE1 3LE
Key people: Currently closed cafe Black Swan, and bakery Little Bread Pedlar.
What to expect: A meeting of great minds in the coffee, pastry, and restaurant arena, for an all-day space that brings one of the city’s most essential cafes back to life.
Projected opening: Summer 2022

Pasta-making at Ombra
Pasta production at Ombra, which will be a cornerstone of Forno when it opens.
Michaël Protin

Forno

Address: Vyner Street, Hackney E2 9DG
Key people: Mitshel Ibrahim, chef-owner of the original Ombra, and co.
What to expect: A pasta and charcuterie production site that will be open to the public for pastries, soups, and Roman pizza, in the vein of London Fields favourite E5 Bakehouse. A long-time coming, Forno is Ibrahim’s pandemic baby and everything so far suggests that is nailed on to become Londoners’s third favourite Italian restaurant.
Projected opening: Summer 2022

Fish curry and roti prata on a green plate at Hawker’s Kitchen in King’s Cross
Fish curry and roti prata at Hawker’s Kitchen.
Adam Coghlan

Hawker’s Kitchen

Address: TBD, Caledonian Road
Key people: The Hawker’s Kitchen team.
What to expect: Expansion for one of London’s best new Malay roti, curry, and noodle specialists. This time, the group which has taken the city by storm, in large part thanks to the obsessive roti prata documenting done by Vittles’s Jonathan Nunn, there will be many more seats for customers to occupy; the two existing sites — in King’s Cross and Brick Lane — are focused on delivery as much they are on dine-in.
Projected opening: Summer 2022

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Bubala

65 Commercial Street, , England E1 6BD Visit Website
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OMBRA

1 Vyner Street, , England E2 9DG 020 8981 5150 Visit Website
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Little Bread Pedlar

34 Moreton Street, , England SW1V 2PD 020 3941 6298 Visit Website

Dumpling Shack

Brushfield Street, , England E1 6BG Visit Website