The new season is here and it’s ushering in a crop of exciting restaurants to add to your ‘must visit’ list. Here in London, there’s a much-anticipated opening from chef Chantelle Nicholson, whose hyper-seasonal, sustainability-focussed restaurant Apricity opens in Mayfair in mid-April. Acme Fire Cult will also zero in on sustainability when its low-waste menu arrives in Dalston, east London. The restaurant will also feature specially brewed beers, as well as a compact wine list compiled by an ex-Noble Rot sommelier.
Seoul welcomes a stylish new addition to its restaurant scene in April with the opening of Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura, showcasing Gucci’s signature opulent style in its décor and boasting a menu that aims to combine the culinary traditions of Italy and South Korea – a tall order for the flagship store-topping restaurant, but with one of the world’s best chefs at the helm, anything is possible. Things are turning Italian over in Singapore too, where Nancy Silverton’s Osteria Mozza is opening in the new Hilton Singapore Orchard. The new site will serve classic dishes from Silverton’s Michelin-starred LA original, and will sit alongside the hotel’s fellow fine-dining restaurants Ginger.Lily and Shisen Hanten.
There are plenty more exciting new global restaurant launches to be discovered, so keep reading below for our curated selection of the best ones to visit this April.
New restaurants opening around the world in April 2022
Acme Fire Cult
London, UK
The restaurant world has a new obsession: food and fire. As well as restaurants there have been book releases and even whole magazines dedicated to barbecue culture in recent months. Joining in on the trend is Acme Fire Cult, and as the name might suggest, it’s all about cooking over flames. The new restaurant from chefs Andrew Clarke and Daniel Watkins, both St Leonard’s alumni, will open in Dalston this month on the 40FT Brewery site. The menu will have a low-waste ethos and, unusually for a fire-focused menu, put vegetables centre stage – as seen in dishes like flatbread topped with coal roasted celeriac, mushroom-kelp XO, coco bean miso and salsa verde made with foraged mushrooms and hand-gathered seaweed. Expect ten beers on tap from 40FT, plus a wine list curated by ex-Noble Rot sommelier Holly Willcocks, and a small but creative cocktail menu.
Open now, acmefirecult.com
Enter via Laundry
Melbourne, Australia
Moving from pop-up to permanent is chef Helly Raichura – an Indian-Australian chef set on creating original curries in an intimate dining space. Formerly a supper club where guests had to literally enter via the laundry room, the new restaurant will remain bijou (seating just 20 guests), with 12 diners at a communal table in the back and eight in a more conventional dining room. A 20-dish Bengali banquet awaits, a departure from Raichura’s usual Gujarati cooking, featuring Murray cod jhol curry with eggplant and lamb chops smoked with paperbark. Instead of far-flung ingredients, though, dishes will use native Australian produce such as bush tomatoes and saltbush. The Bengali menu will be offered for at least six months before Raichura explores other Indian regional cuisines.
Open now, entervialaundry.com.au
Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura
Seoul, South Korea
The lines between food and fashion are blurred in the Gucci Osteria da Massimo Bottura restaurants. The latest decadent dining room from the global fashion house is now set to open in Seoul after much success from sites in LA and Tokyo. The restaurant will open on the top floor of the Gucci Goak flagship store and will boast the same eclectic interior design as its sister restaurants. The menu, developed by the legendary Michelin-Starred chef Massimo Bottura in collaboration with the chef team of other Gucci restaurant outlets will bring the cultures of South Korea and Italy together in a series of both classic Italian and Korean dishes. You can expect to see dishes found on other Gucci menus – like the Emilia burger and tortellini with Parmigiano Reggiano cream, as well as new seasonal dishes incorporating South Korean ingredients.
Open now, gucciosteria.com
Place des Fêtes
New York, USA
Want to feel like you’re sipping on wine in Spain when you’re really at a neighbourhood restaurant in Brooklyn? Well, Place des Fêtes is the ‘place’ for you. From the team behind Oxalis, a Michelin-Starred fine-dining restaurant in Brooklyn, comes a new venture based on the wine bars of Spain and Portugal. Based on a 2020 back garden pop-up, the restaurant will serve an a la carte menu that focuses on grilled and raw seafood, including fried skate wings, mussels in squid ink and raw scallops with hazelnut, kelp and horseradish. Chef Jacob Harth, named one of Eater’s ‘Young Guns’ last year, will focus on sustainable sourcing for his small plate menu and the wine list will include bottles and wines by the glass from Spain and the Americas.
Open now, www.pdfnyc.com
Apricity
London, UK
Multi-award-winning New Zealand chef Chantelle Nicholson is set to open her much talked about restaurant this month following the success of her Hackney pop-up ‘All’s Well’ last year. The socially conscious restaurant will open in Mayfair, and will focus on veg-forward, sustainable cooking. With ingredients sourced from small-scale farmers and even locally foraged, the menu is set to be inventive and highly seasonal. There’ll be a dedicated tasting menu celebrating British vegetables, as well as a menu showcasing the very best meat and fish from the British Isles. Dishes will include Cornish mackerel and Shetland mussels with sambal butter and pickled pear as well as roasted kuri squash with fermented fire flame chilies, miso aioli, squash seed crumb and Thai basil. As for the wine list – expect low-intervention wines from English vineyards, alongside a selection of innovative zero-waste cocktails.
Opens 12th April 2022, apricityrestaurant.com
Osteria Mozza
Singapore
It’s been a long wait for fans of Osteria Mozza. The original Michelin-starred restaurant in Los Angeles was a firm favourite with diners, and the Singapore outpost ran with great success until its controversy-steeped closure in July 2018. Now, it’s reopening as part of a brand-new Hilton Singapore Orchard. The Nancy Silverton-helmed restaurant will feature a revamped menu of Osteria Mozza classics from the LA original, such as her famous pies, as well as new dishes specifically developed for the Singapore outpost. For drinks fans, there will be a carefully selected wine list of Italian bottles and creative Italian-inspired cocktails on offer too.
Opens April 2022, hilton.com
Villa Frantzén
Bangkok, Thailand
Björn Frantzén’s namesake restaurant opens up a new outpost in Thailand this month, taking over a 400sqm villa in the centre of the Thai capital. The opening of the new site follows the staggering success of Frantzén’s original Three-Michelin-Starred restaurant in Stockholm, which is also currently 6th in The World’s Best Restaurant list. Villa Frantzén will offer a similar Nordic-inspired menu, featuring dishes like quail barbecued with green peas, maitake and Japanese mustard, but this time with Asian influences. Frantzén is certainly one to watch, as the former army chef is also planning to open a restaurant in the iconic Harrods department store in London later this year, so watch this space.
Opens April 2022, frantzengroup.com
