The London Restaurant Openings To Know This Week

May always feels like London loosening up a little. The evenings stretch longer, plans become more spontaneous, and suddenly the city feels hungry again, not just for dinner, but for somewhere new to talk about.

It is also when the restaurant scene begins to hit its early-summer stride, with terraces, lighter menus and openings that feel designed for that first glass of something cold after work. This week’s arrivals are a particularly strong mix: big-name chefs, reimagined neighbourhood institutions, fire-led counter dining and one of Chelsea’s most loved seafood names expanding into something bigger.

From Exmouth Market to East Dulwich, Shoreditch and Pavilion Road, these are the London restaurants worth having on your radar now.

Vesper, Exmouth Market

Jackson Boxer follows the success of Dove with Vesper, a new Exmouth Market restaurant that feels perfectly timed for longer evenings in the city.

Taking over a double-fronted corner site, the restaurant is named after the evening star and brings together a bar, candlelit dining room and terrace, the kind of London room that feels made for late dinners and one-more-drink decisions.

The menu has Boxer’s signature mix of elegance, instinct and appetite: oyster with green apple and Chartreuse, croquette Arnold Bennett, raw beef and smoked pepper tostada, chicken liver agnolotti, grilled prawns with green garlic, roast chicken with bread sauce and salted lemon, and chocolate porter cake.

Designer Jermaine Gallacher is behind the interiors, so expect character, warmth and atmosphere rather than anything too polished. With Boxer at the helm, Vesper already feels like one of the month’s most quietly exciting arrivals.

Opening: 26 May

Where: 8-10 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QA

The Victory, East Dulwich

On Lordship Lane, The Victory brings new life to the former Franklins site, with Jamie Younger of The Begging Bowl behind the relaunch.

In the kitchen, Seán Breen, formerly of Noble Rot, leads a British ingredient-led menu with a French bistro edge. Expect the kind of food that feels both familiar and elevated: steak tartare, Cornish crab, roast chicken and larger sharing dishes designed for long, easy tables.

The drinks list leans into martinis, while the setting offers a more polished take on the classic London pub. It is the sort of opening that should quickly settle into the neighbourhood, not by shouting, but by becoming the place locals quietly want to return to.

Opening: 26 May

Where: 157 Lordship Lane, London SE22 8HX

Appalachia, Shoreditch

Taking over the former Counter 71 site in Shoreditch, Appalachia is one of the week’s more distinctive openings, an intimate counter-dining restaurant inspired by the mountainous Appalachian region of the US.

Leading the kitchen is Alistair Borer, formerly of Smoking Goat, whose fire-led cooking gives the concept real edge. Dishes include smoked eel devilled eggs, BBQ quail with blue cheese slaw and country-fried rabbit with chorizo gravy, bold, smoky, deeply flavoured food that feels built for the room.

The drinks programme comes from Fraser Stancombe, formerly of Three Sheets Soho, with cocktails including a Banana Pudding Sazerac and Kentucky 75. With its tight counter format and characterful menu, Appalachia looks set to give one of Shoreditch’s best restaurant spaces a very exciting new chapter.

Opening: 27 May

Where: 71 Nile Street, Shoreditch, London N1 7RD

Website: appalachia.co.uk

The Sea, The Sea, Chelsea

Chelsea favourite The Sea expands on Pavilion Road this week with a new bistro and fish shop opposite its original outpost.

Upstairs, the 40-cover bistro will be led by head chef Nick Marsden, with a focus on ethically sourced seafood direct from low-impact fishing vessels. The menu is a serious love letter to British coastal produce: smoked eel consommé, pickled Fowey mussels, cuttlefish with pickled salsify, skate wing with Trombetta courgette, grilled half Cornish lobster with Vin Jaune sabayon and whole plaice for sharing.

Downstairs, the new fish shop adds dry-ageing cabinets, oyster shucking, a seaweed counter, lunch boxes and oven-ready seafood dishes, making it as much a destination for home cooks as for diners. There is also a 28-cover terrace, which may well make this one of Chelsea’s loveliest alfresco tables as summer arrives.

For a brand already known for treating seafood with real seriousness, this feels less like an expansion and more like a natural evolution.

Opening: 29 May

Where: 243 Pavilion Road, London SW1X 0AW

Website: theseathesea.net