Record number of new restaurants were launched in London last year
Thursday, 16 August 2007
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London's diners are experiencing a "golden age", with more restaurants launched in the capital over the past year than ever before, an industry guide said yesterday.
The latest edition of Harden's guide concludes that the restaurant revolution sparked in London a decade ago has reached its pinnacle, with London's eateries now rivalling their New York counterparts.
Peter Harden, a co-editor of the guide, said there had been a particularly strong rise in restaurants specialising in traditional British food. "Traditional British cooking is a favourite among openings, and it is part of a general variety in London which shows a maturity of the restaurant scene that perhaps we have not seen before. London has been playing catch-up in a lot of different kinds of cuisine, but now it's quite hard to see areas where it is weak," he said.
But there is a sting in the tail for the industry as the rate of restaurants that are closing has sped up along with openings.
The latest guide recorded 158 openings in the capital in the past 12 months - 13 per cent higher than the 136 openings over the same period the previous year. The number broke through the former record of 142 restaurants which were launched in 2005.
Mr Harden said a culture of eating out among Londoners had helped to create a rising demand for good quality cooking. "This is a golden age for the London restaurant-goer, with the restaurant scene reaching a stage which would once have seemed inconceivable.
"It continues to evolve - generally for the good - faster than ever. We are now seeing new openings annually at about three times the rate of 15 years ago, just before London's restaurant revolution began," he said.
Meanwhile, the number of restaurants closing is up by a third, with 89 closures last year, including Bank Aldwych, which was reportedly sold for £3.5m, and the high profile Astor Bar and Grill in Soho.
Mr Harden said the relatively fast rate of closures could be seen as the "flip side of progress".
"As more exciting and better restaurants open their doors, there is obviously greater pressure on unsatisfactory concepts, and on tired restaurants which are moving towards the end of their days. But the good thing is that they are not closing as fast as they are opening up.
"There is a great deal more churn than there used to be, and the golden age always runs the risk that it might have reached its end," he added.
But he warned that the rate of closure was likely to rise before it abated. "Closures move on a five- to six-year cycle, and history suggests that, once established, a rising trend in closures will last at least two years. The coming year may, therefore, see restaurants shutting up on quite a scale, quite possibly exceeding the record number of 113 noted four years ago," he said.
A rising disposable income among twenty- and thirty-somethings in the capital, as well as the influx of high- quality chefs, have helped to drive up standards. But Mr Harden pointed out that the current difficulties in obtaining visas for international chefs was working against the industry.
Harden's London Restaurants, which was established in 1992, will be published on 28 August
New London restaurants
Bacchus
Fashionable Hoxton eaterie which specialises in adventurous molecular gastronomy in the style of El Bulli in Barcelona, which provided the inspiration for Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck in Berkshire.
L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
A stone's throw from The Ivy in central London, this is billed as "so good it should be illegal" by Peter Harden. It serves bite-size cuisine on tasting plates and the focus is on 'luxury grazing'.
Rhodes W1 Restaurant
Gary Rhodes' latest venue in Marble Arch, in which he delivers "British classics in what may be his best restaurant to date," according to Harden. The chef is known for his innovative take on traditional home cooking, with dishes including faggots and Jaffa cake pudding.
La Petite Maison
The French Mayfair restaurant also makes a virtue out of grazing on bite-size portions and is described as fashioning itself as a piece of Nice in central London.
St Alban
Situated in the heart of Theatreland, Jeremy King and Christopher Corbin's eaterie is regarded by many as the latest high-profile media haunt with its Italianate cuisine a secondary feature to being seen with the "in" crowd.
