Monday Bulletin: Jolene | Dough Hands | Igni 

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PLAZA KHAO GAENG

EXCLUSIVE: Luke Farrell’s Chaiyo Restaurants is to open its third Plaza Khao Gaeng in Covent Garden on 5 May. At it’s new 75-cover home on Bedford Street, adjoining the new Arcade, it will go deeper into the borderlands of Southern Thailand with a menu of new dishes including gai gorlae chicken skewers; roti jala, a lacy net-like roti; and hor mok pla yang, a softly set fish custard wrapped in banana leaf and cooked over coals. Produce will come from Farrell’s own Ryewater Nursery and specialist suppliers in Thailand. Farrell, who launched Plaza Khao Gaeng in partnership with JKS Restaurants in 2021, comments: “Southern Thai cuisine in London has come a long way since we opened the city’s first Plaza Khao Gaeng on Tottenham Court Road. It has been a joy to see it embraced so fully while sharing the depth and variety of this regional cuisine.” Reservations open 28 April.

DOUGH HANDS

Hannah Drye’s Dough Hands is taking up residence at All My Friends in Hackney Wick on 7 May. She’ll be branching out into 20-inch pies and XL slices. New flavours too, including Lamiri harissa, aubergine and salted ricotta, and coppa and pineapple with guindilla.

IGNI

Creative Restaurant Group will reopen its Mayfair restaurant HUMO as IGNI on 22 April, under new executive chef Theo Clench. IGNI will offer a refined evolution of fire dining focused on seafood and such dishes as ‘turbot, lettuce, sake’. Set menus only, from £49.

BLACKLOCK BIRMINGHAM

Bookings for Blacklock Birmingham, launching 20 April, are now live. The chophouse promises some city exclusives including monkfish, bavette and a chophouse salad. Fear not, the ‘all in’ chops, Sunday roast and that white chocolate cheesecake will all be available too.

• Two cult London brands in one: North London bakery Jolene is opening a new Soho location inside the Aries flagship store on 23 April. One for the hypebeasts.

• Dom Chapman is opening a country pub and rooms just an hour from London. The Jack O’Newbury will open seven days for breakfast, lunch and dinner from May.

• Fowlescombe, the regenerative farm retreat led by Caitlin Owens (CODE’s 30 under 30) is launching a new Farm Table chef series. First up on 9 May: Eleanor Henson, culinary director of Spring.

• Calling all chefs aged 30 and under: entries for the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy 2026-2027 are now open. Submit your signature dish by 9 June. Judges include Angelo Sato, Will Murray and Nieves Barragán Mohacho.

• Young’s has bought the nine London pubs in Sam and Georgie Pearman’s Cubitt House group in an estimated £30m deal.

• Launching 1 May in Fitzrovia, Lokal, a contemporary Turkish restaurant from the team behind Fred Bakery, one of Good Food Guide’s 50 Best Bakeries 2026. No tiramisu buns but mezze galore.

• Richard Caring has sold a majority stake in his hospitality business to Abu Dhabi’s Diafa, owners of Zuma and Roka, valuing the group at £1.4bn. The sale includes the Ivy Collection and his group of private members’ clubs.

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WHAT WE’RE READING

London’s Best Bakeries 2026: Good Food Guide

Are you in a restaurant gap relationship?: New York Times

Impala, Soho, review: a brand new type of restaurant in a copycat world: The London Standard

Hospitality has a wage theft problem: Vittles

THE DUMBWAITER

Bar Antoine at Four Seasons Park Lane is leaning into its French heritage with a ‘Savoir-Boire’ menu of French flavours in liquid form. Croissant old fashioneds and cornichon martinis available from 7 May.

On the subject of croissants, Lannan Bakery in Edinburgh is on the hunt for a new Head of Lamination – possibly the best job description ever?

Spotted at The Red Lion & Sun in Highgate: Liam Gallagher, definitely maybe.

Piers Morgan has spent the past month celebrating his 61st birthday at some of London’s best restaurants. His “closing ceremony” as he called it was a lunch in one the PDRs at The Devonshire with most of the nation’s newsreaders.