New openings: Denmark’s Noma to hit London; seven up for Pho

25 April, 2012

Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant that frequently appears at the top of the world’s best restaurant lists, is to set up a temporary home in London for this summer’s Olympic Games. Meanwhile, Pho, Ed's Easy Diner, TGI Fridays, Draft House and Hotel Chocolat have also announced new openings.

Noma will operate from Claridge’s Hotel for ten days, from 28 July to 6 August. It will offer a five-course ‘Taste of Noma at Claridge’s’ menu for £195 per person—though the price tag is unlikely to stem what will no doubt be a flood of interest in the venue. The temporary restaurant coincides with a closure of the original Noma for refurbishment. The move continues the trend of big-name pop-up restaurants in the capital.

Vietnamese chain Pho will open its seventh restaurant after picking up a site in Spitalfields in east London. It will take over the former S&M Café there. It joins Pho branches in Clerkenwell, Soho, Oxford Circus and Westfield centres in east and west London as well as Brighton.

TGI Friday’s will open its biggest ever restaurant in Manchester this summer. It hopes to launch the two-floor site on Cross Street in June. It says the launch will create 140 jobs in Manchester.

The Draft House pub group will open its fifth site in Fitzrovia in July. It will succeed the Northumberland Arms on the corner of Charlotte Street and Goodge Street, joining Draft Houses in Tower Bridge, Battersea, Clapham and East Dulwich.

Ed’s Easy Diner will reach double figures with a Basingstoke opening this week.

Chocolatier Hotel Chocolat is to enter the restaurant sector with a launch in central London, Retail Week reports. It is currently searching for a location that it will brand Boucan London. It will add to a restaurant launched on its plantation in St Lucia in the Caribbean.