Monday Bulletin: Nieves Barrágan Mohacho’s new restaurant & The Lavery

Catch up on the latest industry news stories of the week from the CODE Bulletin

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Nieves Barrágan Mohacho

The run-up to International Women’s Day was a felicitous time for Spanish chef Nieves Barrágan Mohacho to choose for the announcement of her latest project, Legado, a new restaurant coming to Shoreditch in summer 2025. Partnering with Barrágan are JKS Restaurants, who backed her at Sabor in Mayfair, her first solo restaurant, in 2018. Barrágan’s largest project to date, Legado will be located at 1 Montacute Yards, a new development we’ll be hearing a lot about. Her neighbour there? Singburi.
Barrágan has been a serious presence on the London restaurant scene for the last two decades. The Bilbao-born chef came to the city with no job and no English in 1998, and got her start as a kitchen porter at Simply Nico. She became sous chef at the late lamented Fino on Charlotte Street, the Hart brothers’ first restaurant, in 2003, rising to head chef in 2006. She moved to their follow-up Barrafina for its 2007 launch, and led it to a Michelin star in 2014. Legado will see her draw together recipes and traditions from all across Spain, such as seafood from Galicia, stews from Asturias, and whole animal cookery from the asadors of Castilla y León. She says: “It has always been my greatest pleasure to cook food from my country, but there are still many more stories to tell about the dishes and flavours that I haven’t found outside of Spain.”

The Lavery

South Kensington is getting an elegant new restaurant, café and events space in the form of The Lavery. Opening on 25 March in the Grade II-listed former home and studio of Anglo-Irish painter Sir John Lavery on Cromwell Place, The Lavery will reunite chef Yohei Furuhashi with his former Toklas colleague Alcides Gauto, front of house. Furuhashi, who spent nine years at The River Cafe, will cook seasonal Mediterranean dishes such as pappardelle with slow-cooked rabbit, tomato and bay, and baccalà
mantecato with polenta. Interiors will pair 20th Century furniture from iconic addresses such as The Groucho Club and the Hotel Excelsior Venice with period features including the original fireplaces and ornate plasterwork.

Small Plates

• Nathan Davis, formerly chef patron of Aberystwyth’s SY23 and Ynyshir head chef, will open Vraic (meaning ‘seaweed’) in Guernsey in July. Front and centre, fire-led cooking and foraged ingredients.
   
• Caravan has successfully completed a management buyout. Private equity firm Active Partners has exited the business after eight years and CEO Laura Harper-Hinton and co-founders Chris Ammermann and Miles Kirby now have full ownership of the all-day dining and speciality coffee group. Expansion is on the cards for 2025.
   
• Just two months after announcing Locanda Locatelli’s closure, Giorgio and Plaxy Locatelli have some better news for us: their new restaurant Locatelli and espresso and maritozzi bar Bar Giorgio, coming to the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in May.
  
  
• Also making moves in the art world, Imad Alarnab of Imad’s Syrian Kitchen, who will open Aram, a Syrian café, deli and restaurant at Somerset House in the autumn. Alarnab plans to offer up part of the space for charity and community events, emerging talents, and chef refugees.
  
  
• Ivan Tisdall-Downes has stepped down as executive chef of Native less than a year since it relocated to Worcestershire. The restaurant is now closed for business. Tisdall-Downes and co-founder Imogen Davis launched Native back in 2016.
  
  
• A line-up of chefs will compete to be “Top of the Croques” at Marceline in Canary Wharf on 31 March. James Cochran and Ana da Costa are among those competing with their take on Marceline’s own croque monsieur. Proceeds to The Felix Project, Tickets, £30.
  
  
• Llewelyn’s in Herne Hill and suppliers Shrub are joining forces on “Common Ground”, a series of Monday night dinners and talks. The first is on 24 March with panellists including Eric’s Helen Evans and Shrub founders Harry Dyer and Sam Best. Tickets, £60
  
  
• Big Mamma is heading to Manchester this June to open an outpost of Circolo Popolare. It will be the group’s first restaurant in the north and will have an exclusive new menu.
  
  
• Irish bakery pop-up Dulse will be at Loop in Leyton this Saturday 15 March for St Patrick’s Day weekend celebrations. There will be soda farls, gravy rings, barmbrack, chocolate Guinness cake and more.