New opening

Coming to Dalston is a new restaurant billed as a casual dining Jamaican restaurant which is aiming for "traditional Jamaican cooking presented with a contemporary twist."

Their focus will be on "real jerk". These dishes will be marinated for 24 hours in a secret blend of herbs and spices, then smoked using pimento and sweet wood and finally cooked over coals in traditional jerk drums. 

But there's more, including lobster Jamaican

Updated 24/7 with soft launch details.

We're seeing an interesting trend in smokehouse-based restaurants of late - that's seen various cuisines crossed with traditional smokehouse fare. The most recent and obvious example has been the middle eastern smokehouse of Berber & Q and now there's Rök, which comes with a Nordic twist.

Rök, which literally means "smoke" in Swedish, will be brining, pickling and smoking various

Popular Spanish restaurant chain Ibérica is opening its sixth restaurant (and fourth permanent London restaurant) this summer. They're opening on the ground floor of the Zig Zag Building which is one element of the huge redevelopment of Victoria (the other big foodie destination is Nova).

It's a large space with room for almost 150 diners on two floors as well as a huge terrace. There'll also be two private dining rooms.

Expect the usual

Updated 21/5/19 - DF/Mexico is now known as DF Tacos

A year after opening at the Truman Brewery, Wahaca's Thomasina Myers has another of its ofshoots, DF Tacos, on the way. DF was their version of a modern Mexican diner (which we visited for a Test Drive) offering something of a cross between American and

They're best known in London for the huge subterranean Covent Garden restaurant which has been there for (blimey) over 20 years. But now, nineteen years since their last London opening in Holborn, Belgo are about to open a restaurant right in the heart of Soho on Old Compton Street (where Amalfi used to be).

If you've been to any of their other restaurants (and if you've lived in London

22/7 - Updated with more menu details

There's something of an exchange going on between London and New York at the minute. We've passed over Jason Atherton and Burger & Lobster to them for two new openings. And in return they've sent us Hotel Chantelle.

Named after a World War II safe house and inspired by the design of the rooftop dining space it occupies in

Carnaby's going through a bit of a revamp at the moment - which means new restaurants are on the way. We've already heard about Dishoom and Shotgun - and now they're being joined by Dirty Bones. 

Dirty Bones has been

It seems that all department stores have definitely caught the restaurant bug, with Debenhams the latest to reveal an overhaul. They've brought in Eddie Lim of the Mango Tree (and more recently Harrods' Chai Wu) to develop their new restaurant Chi Kitchen.

It'll open on Oxford Street for starters, and the plans are for it to appear in every Debenhams after that. It's Pan Asian - planning to pull together Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean

Marylebone continues to be a bit of a growth area for interesting new restaurants. And the latest we've heard about is Molé, a "boutique Mexican restaurant and taco bar" coming to Picton Place, right beside Selfridges. Run by the team behind nearby Cocochan the 50-seater restaurant is going to serve up modern Mexican/South American cooking (and cocktails).

80% of Molé’s menu will be gluten-free, including their tacos which they'll be making themselves from Masa

Popping into town to catch a preview of Ant Man this weekend (topline - it's brilliant and you must all go and see it) we were frankly taken aback by the unalloyed gorgeousness of the new Picturehouse Central. Esssentially it's as if a lovely art house cinema, serving up excellent coffee and Crosstown Doughnuts had transformed a West End multiplex overnight.

Not only are all the screens and seating new - there are seven of them - but there are all manner

Battersea Rise looks to be a good place for wine lovers with the opening of Humble Grape's wine bar. The wine importer - which specialises in seeking out handcrafted wines from small, relatively undiscovered vineyards around the world - crowdfunded £500k to open this, their first bar.

Upstairs customers can buy wines to take home while downstairs they can drink them by the glass or bottle at the bar for a fraction of the standard on-trade markup. Wines

The trend for single ingredient-led restaurants continues with the news that one devoted to the chip is heading our way. Come Fry with Me is going to be touring festivals and markets over the summer before opening up a permanent place in Covent Garden. In keeping with its name it'll have a 1960s air travel themed decor and fries arriving on a ‘fry carousel’ conveyor belt. 

“Crisps come in different shapes, sizes and a crazy number of flavours too," explains

Updated 13/7/15 with soft opening details

Like meat? Like truffles? Then you should probably make a date in your diary to visit Sackville's when it opens in Mayfair next week. This new bar and grill has a menu focusing on meat and black truffles. Chef Wayne Dixon is the former senior sous chef of Gordon Ramsay’s Maze Grill. He'll be sourcing all of the truffles from Istria in Croatia.

There will be five poshed up burgers including George’s

6/7/15: Updated with soft launch details and a look at the menu (check out the gallery below). 

Best known for being one of the leading lights of the Polpo group as its Chef Director, Tom Oldroyd has now set out on his own, landing in Islington for his first restaurant, the eponymously titled Oldroyd.

He's setting up in the heart of Islington, close to Camden Passage, taking over what used to be a

There's a new restaurant opening in Notting Hill with a pretty strong pedigree - it comes from South American restaurateur and designer, Juan Santa Cruz.

So with a designer behind it - the design will be worth checking out. Although unfortunately we have nothing to show of the actual place yet. What we do know is that there will be a big oval copper bar as you enter - and as for the rest, it's