London Cocktail Week is back this year with an extended run from Friday 7th to Sunday 16th October. There will be tastings, parties and boozy master classes with top mixologists happening all over town, plus the LCW bus to take you from one to the other. (The buses are sponsored by Bacardi so there will be bartenders serving mini cocktails at each stop). This year the ‘week’ has been extended to include The Whisky Show at the Vinopolis (7th-8th October) and RumFest at Olympia (15th-16th October). Register now for a free wristband so you can enjoy bespoke £4 cocktails at over 100 London bars - twice as many as last year. We’ll be posting maps, suggested crawls and more info nearer the time, so watch this space.
Can’t wait for Cocktail Week? Head for Pearl Restaurant & Bar in Holborn where executive chef Jun Tanaka and mixologist Anthony Balik have created a quirky liquid salad bar. From now until 30th September, cocktail aficionados can enjoy three summery cocktails with side salad garnishes, priced at £13.75 each. Try the classic Waldorf – walnut vodka muddled with celery, apple and grapes – or the Greek – a Mediterranean blend of gin, delicate tomato consommé and cucumber, served with feta and olive mini skewers. We like the look of the Thai – a sunset yellow blend of chilli-infused cachaça, mango, papaya, lime and palm sugar syrup. The Thai noodle salad on the side is a perfect amuse bouche before moving on to the dinner in the restaurant.
Following the success of last year’s £1 sale, Cafe Luc will be doing it all again from 8th August to 8th September. If you book a table on the designated secret booking day, you could enjoy a set menu for lunch or dinner at their Marylebone brasserie for a quid! You can choose your preferred date between 8th August and 8th September and there will be ten set menus to choose from each day. To find out when to book, simply subscribe to their mailing list, join them on Facebook or follow them on twitter.
D&D London have announced their plans to redevelop the ground floor and basement of the Old Bengal Warehouse on New Street off Bishopsgate. The 10,000 sq ft development will include a specialist wine shop, bars and two restaurants – a steakhouse and a fish restaurant. Both venues will have al fresco seating within the building’s walled courtyards. It is set to open to the public in Spring 2012.
This September, Wolfgang Puck will launch his first European restaurant, CUT, at the Dorchester’s Park Lane Hotel. The restaurant, which is named after the original in Beverly Hills, will feature a 76-seater ground floor dining room and a central staircase leading up to a mezzanine library and Bar 45. The recently revealed menu boasts ‘the widest and best selection of beef available in London’, with prime cuts sourced from the USA, Australia, Chile and New Zealand. Diners can also enjoy dishes like bone marrow flan with mushroom marmalade; Scottish lobster with black truffle sabayon; and strawberry and cream Baked Alaska. The breakfast menu includes American-inspired treats like blueberry buttermilk pancakes with whipped bourbon-maple butter and salt beef hash cake with poached eggs.
Spanish Openings – Jose Pizarro’s tapas bar has received rave reviews from critics and locals alike, so it’s great to hear that his restaurant – Pizarro – will open in October. The more formal eatery will be taking over the Bermondsey Kitchen site at 194 Bermondsey Street and will feature a traditional Spanish menu and London’s first Cava bar. Meanwhile, Iberica’s excecutive chef Nacho Manzano will open a second restaurant at Cabot Square this Autumn. The Canary Wharf outpost will offer the same traditional Spanish dishes as the Great Portland Street original, as well as beers and wines that were previously not exported outside Spain.
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