Here's what's coming to the new Arcade food hall in Covent Garden

For a while, we've been waiting for an official announcement on the latest Arcade food hall, and now we finally have it. And it's all opening sooner than you might think.

The food hall is taking over what used to be a particularly large TGI Friday's site in Covent Garden. It's a big corner site opposite the local Nando's, and while it's 12,500 sq ft and seats 385, it's still going to make this the smaller of the three Arcades.

Inside the new Arcade, there will be seven new food spaces, with those announced so far being:

Zylia - a standalone Greek/Cypriot taverna from ex-Kiln Head Chef and the co-owner of Singburi, Nick Molyviatis.

Manna - The smash burger (and fried chicken) restaurant from the people behind Bake Street. They'll have their own space at Arcade Covent Garden.

Solis - The chicken and steak grill from TaTa Eatery's Ana Gonçalves and Zijun Meng. Dishes here include flat iron steak with pepper sauce and spatchcock chicken in smoked Aji-Aji oil.

Gracey's - This will be the third London location for the New-Haven-inspired pizzeria that started life in St Albans.

Hero - North Indian fast food, previously seen at Arcade Tottenham Court Road.

Plaza Khao Gaeng - The third location for Luke Farrell's Southern Thai restaurant, which will be a standalone affair at Arcade.

And in addition to the above, there will also be a Mexican taqueria. They do have Mexa from the team behind Sonora Taqueria in Tottenham Court Road, so it could well be something new from the same team. We should find out soon.

Another new addition to the Covent Garden space is Studio Coffee, which is being created with Rich Woods, aka The Cocktail Guy. That's focused around coffee during the day, but given who's behind it, you won't be surprised to hear that it turns into a bar at night. So during the day (or the evening if you don't have any fear of caffeine at night), drinks include their Black Sesame Latte and Gochujang Hot Chocolate. In the evening, cocktails are going to include the “OFF WHITE” Russian (a mix of a flat white and a white Russian) and a Chocolate Orange Negroni.

After seven Dials Market, this will be Covent Garden's second food hall and very handily placed for both tourists and theatre-goers. We can see this doing very well.