Summer may officially be over but the good news for the gourmand is that hospitality is back from holidays and there’s a spate of new restaurants to visit in September.
In London, the owners of Gymkhana and Trishna are opening an upmarket Punjabi restaurant in Mayfair, while over in Hackney, the site once belonging to much-loved Pidgin begins life as a new restaurant founded by two of its former team members. Over in the US, New York and Los Angeles welcome French restaurants with a difference and Sydney gets a promising new venue from an owner and a head chef who both have impressive CVs.
Finally, if you can’t bear the prospect of dark evenings and single-digit temperatures just yet, escape to a luxury hotel in Italy, where its new restaurant is offering two exciting tasting menus with views of the rolling Tuscan countryside.
Read on to discover the most exciting new restaurants to visit this September.
The best new restaurants to visit in September 2024
Ambassadors Clubhouse
London, UK
JKS Restaurants, the company behind Michelin-starred restaurants Trishna, Gymkhana and Sabor in London has opened a new restaurant in Mayfair that celebrates Punjabi hospitality. The rich and opulent interior of Ambassadors Clubhouse is inspired by the ‘abandoned party houses’ of northern India and the menu features Punjabi street food, tandoori and grilled kebabs, classic curries cooked in iron woks and earthen clay pots, as well as biryanis and pilaus. Being in Mayfair, this is far from the average Indian restaurant: dishes include a rabbit keema, lobster korma and quail pilau, and there is a club room called Ambassy where DJs will play from 10pm-2am at weekends. The drinks served include fashionable cocktails given Indian twists, so a mezcal Margarita incorporates green chilli, coriander, ginger and chaat and the Jal Jeera is The Macallan 12 YO whisky with apple eau-de-vie, chaat bitters and ginger ale. There are three private dining rooms available, as well as an outdoor terrace.
Open now, ambassadorsclubhouse.com
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Table Manners
Sydney, Australia
Table Manners is a new restaurant in the beachside suburb of Bronte in Sydney, opened by Alex Cameron, who is already an experience restaurant manager in the city. For this first venture of his own, he has secured the services of Luke Churchill as head chef, who has previously worked in the kitchens of fine-dining restaurants Parlar and Oncore by Clare Smyth. Italy, France and the UK are cited as the major influences on the menu, with starters including mussels, pumpkin agnolotti and tuna crudo. Main dishes include cod, pickled carrots and sauce Jacqueline, as well as duck, Madeira, beetroot and lentils. The wine list hosts an impressive range of countries and runs to around 400 bottles with around 30 by the glass – ‘stepping out of your comfort zone’ is encouraged and there are a number of bottles limited to one per table for wine lovers and/or special occasions. Cameron has engaged a design agency for the interior and the result is a comfortable and calming mix of muted greens, browns and linens.
Open now, tablemanners.com.au
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Starling
Esher, UK
He achieved a new level of recognition courtesy of 2023’s series of Great British Menu but Nick Beardshaw has been successfully plying his trade alongside Tom Kerridge for the past 14 years. The chef is now going it alone with his own bistro in his hometown of Esher in Surrey and two of his eye-catching dishes from the BBC programme feature on the menu: an orkney scallop with a green Thai curry veloute and marinated cucumber (with optional caviar) is amongst the starters, while the raspberry cheesecake chocolate torte makes the list of desserts. Mains include saddle of lamb with tomato, malt vinegar, green pepper, feta and mint; duck with cherry ketchup, duck pastilla and tardivo; and a selection of dry-aged steaks. The wine list has five sparkling wines, including trusty Charles Heidsieck and Bollinger, above around ten whites and ten reds, with wines from South Africa, Australia and Argentina represented alongside European producers.
Open now, starlingbistro.co.uk
La Rocca
Tuscany, Italy
Sicilian chef Davide de Simone is the brains behind the food at La Rocca, a new 24-seat restaurant at Castelfalfi, a luxury hotel to the southwest of Florence in Tuscany. He has devised two tasting menus, one called ‘My Own Country’ and a vegetarian option called ‘The Tuscan Garden’. This is the classic haute cuisine you might expect of a restaurant in a five-star hotel, with courses including smoked sea bass with black tea, yellow tomato sauce, coriander, pine nuts, beetroot and oyster sauce (pictured); veal cheek with red prawns, potato millefeuille, celeriac cream and herbal oil; and perlina baby aubergine, soy sauce, crispy purple potato, menta, miso butter with citrus and white chocolate. The landscape around the hotel is breathtaking and there is a big emphasis on using ingredients from the estate and local farms, so there’s a good chance on a clear day that you’ll be able to see where most of the restaurant’s food comes from. Naturally, you can expect an impressive range of famous Tuscan wines to complement the menus.
Open now, castelfalfi.com/la-rocca
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Third Falcon
New York, US
Chef Cali Faulkner has had stints at Eleven Madison Park and Oxalis in New York, as well as Verjus in Paris, but is now opening her own restaurant in the Fort Greene district of Brooklyn. Third Falcon will serve food inspired by northern France (think Brittany and Normandy), so there will be seafood in the form of oysters, prawns, langoustine, scallops and more, as well as chicken in crab butter and cote de veau with apples, cream and Armagnac. The wine list is short and almost exclusively French and, naturally, there are ciders from Normandy too. The decor of the dining room suggests casual but elegant dinners, plus there’s a raw bar and a patio for drinks and food outside.
Opens 6 September, third-falcon.com
Sesta
London, UK
Sesta is a new restaurant occupying the space in Hackney that was once Pidgin, the fine-dining restaurant with an ever-changing menu and, at one point, a Michelin star. It’s not complete change, however, as Sesta will be run by Drew Snaith, who was head chef at Pidgin, and Hannah Kowalski, who was the manager. An a la carte menu is touted to ‘champion British seasonal ingredients’ but expect dishes to have creative twists that employ heat from spice and live fire cooking. The inhabitants of East London are now almost stereotyped as lovers of natural wine but it is indisputably popular in this part of town and Sesta will duly oblige with a completely natural list.
Opens 11 September, instagram.com/sesta.dining
Camelia
Los Angeles, US
In LA’s Arts District, a new venture from the owners of Japanese restaurant Tsubaki inventively blends French brasserie-style food with Japanese touches. The menu at Camelia features dishes such as duck croquette, smoked daikon remoulade and kohlrabi; Croque Madame of ham katsu; scallops with corn, squash, coco beans, ikura, yuzu kosho sauce; and beef cheek in red wine sauce with bok choy, creamed pearl onions and kizami wasabi. The wine list is a mix of French bottles and sake, divided into sparkling, classics and ‘newcomers’ (skin-contact/orange wines and the like), and there’s also an interesting introductory page on the team’s ‘obsessions of the moment’, which most recently were Aligoté and Gamay from Burgundy, plus summery styles of sake. The restaurant is as beautiful as the food coming out of the kitchen and the bar serves impressive cocktails too.
Open now, cameliadtla.com
The Blue Stoops
London, UK
The revival of Allsopp’s, a brewery based in Burton-upon-Trent, has led to the opening of this new pub in Kensington. While the primary motivation for The Blue Stoops might be about getting the brewery’s beers into the hands of Londoners, owner Jamie Allsopp also understands the importance of good food to get punters over the threshold. To that end, he has recruited Lorcan Spiteri, the founder of barge-based London restaurant Caravel, who also has experience from Quo Vadis and Rochelle Canteen, to create a menu offering traditional British pub classics. Expect dishes like steak with asparagus and potato rosti to be taken up a notch by the quality of the sides and sauces.
Opening date in September TBC, thebluestoops.com
