A comeback King, sushi masters and contemporary cuisines: The UK’s most exciting restaurant openings in 2024
Like Beyoncé, restaurants move in formation, and the new openings in 2024 are no different.
When the Rouxs taught England that food was more than just meat and two veg in the Sixties with Le Gavroche, Michelin started to pay attention. When the late and great Russell Norman started serving small plates, everyone scrapped three-course menus and followed suit, not to everyone’s taste, mind you. When some of the biggest restaurant groups started to collapse only to renovate, rebrand and rise from the ashes, retired restaurateurs started plotting.
The year 2024 might see a restaurant rebirth if Jeremy King’s return to the scene in the coming months is anything to go by, not long after Jamie Oliver bravely put his reputation back on the line with a new opening in Covent Garden earlier this year (spoiler: I hated it).
However, I have high hopes for the second chances the new year might bring to dining in the UK. Much of it is in the capital, naturally, with three highly anticipated openings from the aforementioned comeback King, a second site from sushi master Endo Kazutoshi that will probably be even more luxurious (and eye-wateringly expensive) than the first, and the reopening of beloved A-list haunt Julie’s under new management.
The Singaporean chef Ellen
