The October Hit List: Bistro Freddie, Claridge’s, Solis, and More

The journey of Chishuru and its owner, Adejoke ‘Joke’ Bakare, from a trailblazing Brixton residency to a jewel in central London’s crown (and one of the year’s key openings) mirrors the growing popularity of West African cuisine in the capital, and an area in which the acclaimed chef herself has led the way in. A beautiful split-level dining room moments from Oxford Circus provides an intimate setting to enjoy Bakare’s ever-thrilling cooking, with a changing prix fixe menu the perfect way to experience an array of dishes that reimagine the region’s foodways. To drink, low-intervention French wines are favoured, as well as cocktails that highlight West African ingredients. Gathering a few friends for dinner to experience the whole menu is best, but the £35 lunch menu is a similarly excellent way to glimpse the chef’s genius.

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The modern wine bar format can be all things to all people, running the gamut from the swiftest of libations to epics that sprawl across multiple rounds of food, a few magnums of the good stuff, and impromptu attempts at sabrage in a nearby alley. The newly opened Ken’s (from the people behind the beloved Dan’s in Dalston) in Exmouth Market is already heaving with the kind of crowd that’s always just a step ahead of the pack, who arrive for lovingly poured glasses of wine from a list scratched daily on a chalkboard, candlelight, and plenty of atmosphere. Wines range from classic bottles that the owners have stashed away to low-intervention styles, while food (from an ex-Quo Vadis and Noble Rot chef) is firmly in Iberian territory, with moreish pintxos to pair with your pet-nat (don’t miss the indurain, a perfect bite anchored by tuna) plus sturdier plates like calamarata with ‘nduja and tomato, beef rump tartare, and more.

Call it a yearning for simpler times or a desire for guaranteed satisfaction when the act of eating out has to deliver, but London’s latest crop of French restaurants has turned out some gems. Among them is Bistro Freddie, a chic Parisian-ish bistro in Shoreditch (around the corner from Leroy, no slouch itself) that promises candlelight, wine, and ambience galore to go with its menu of classical bistro plates. The menu is scrawled anew each day and reads like most chefs’ idea of an ideal menu – alongside nostalgic starters (egg mayo, garlic butter snails), there’s a pie of the day for two, plus meat and fish cooked over fire. Frites are essential, and Alex Price’s French wine list hits all the notes.

More info here.

Having had several big-name chefs at the helm (Gordon Ramsay, Simon Rogan, Daniel Humm), Claridge’s flagship dining room has now been reinstated as a classic hotel restaurant, complete with a dramatic interior refit that perfectly matches the space’s Art Deco overtones. As luxury hotel experiences go, they don’t get much better – along with top-flight service and ambience (those vaulting ceilings! The stained-glass skylights!), expect cooking that lives up to the lofty billing. Chef Coalin Finn (Davies and Brook, Eleven Madison Park) expertly oversees a classic grand hotel menu that oozes luxury, lifted with contemporary touches, with highlights including a shelled native lobster with sauce Americaine, or steak au poivre with liberal shavings of black truffle and a rich demi-glace. Drop into Claridge’s bar or the Fumoir for a cheeky nightcap afterwards.

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The all-day café that transforms into a casual bar at night is not a new concept in W11, but few have felt as zeitgeisty as this debut from owner Ria Morgan. By day, there’s crusty focaccia sandwiches, house-baked cookies and espresso; meanwhile, evenings see the venue morph into a wine bar with cocktails on tap and a list that leans on low-intervention bottles and pours by the glass. Hungry? Grab a slice of Detroit-style pizza, pulled hot from the oven, flanked by herbaceous salads, playful sides (haggis pops, anyone?) and a range of drizzles and dips.

Imagine, if you will, the collision of two perfect dining concepts into a single restaurant. Here, the new Arcade Food Hall in Battersea has opened its latest offering, a grilled steak and chicken concept that combines sublime Portuguese-style birds (here served with a smokey Aji-Aji oil) with flatiron steaks grilled to perfection and accompanied by entrecôte sauce. Food comes courtesy of the creative duo of Ana Goncalves and Zijun Meng – the Neptunes of London restaurants – who have sprinkled their creative magic on a menu that includes para picar-style dishes (devilled eggs, gildas, elotes, croquetas), best washed do

wn excellent cocktails and sangria. For afters, the Basque cheesecake is eerily similar to the classic La Vina version – and probably the best version in London right now.

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The arrival of a wide range of Chinese restaurants – peep the city’s new Chinatowns – has changed the way Londoners appreciate the cuisine’s regionality, and now, restaurateur Sunny Wu has opened her debut Hainanese restaurant that reimagines the Southern Chinese cooking of her upbringing. Inside her sleek new Upper Street restaurant, a tight-knit crew of chefs (led by Irene Hua) execute dishes that speak to the region’s flavours and unique ingredients. There’s slow-poached chicken accompanied by pickled pineapple, comforting slow-braised pig trotter with Chinese spices, and a warming vegetable claypot, dense with greens, tofu, lily flower and glass noodles. While there’s a modern approach at work, there’s an inherent desire to nourish behind each plate that arrives, and it’s a delicious introduction to the region’s cuisine.

The growing trend for standing sushi counters in Japan arrives in London, with the city’s first standing sushi counter and a sister site to Tokyo’s critically praised (and Michelin bib awarded) Tachigui Sushi Tonori. This chef’s counter opened quietly at the end of September and to find it, you’ll need to head to the crypt of Mercato Metropolitano in Mayfair, where a sleek bar awaits 7 lucky guests – as well as made to order nigiri and hand rolls, expect a selection of uramaki and nigiri sets alongside a specially selected list of sakes.

More info here.

The original Peckham Cellars epitomised the modern neighbourhood wine bar and bottle shop – a buzzing wine and small plates haven from three friends who grew up locally – and the sequel has much to offer in terms of excitement. Little Cellars arrives on a Camberwell Church Street offering a distinct neighbourhood flavour, and a style-agnostic mix of wines by the glass that mixes old and new (as co-founder Luke West-Whylie describes them, ‘stone cold bangers’). Notably, on the pans is ex-Terroirs head chef Ollie Lawrence, who brings a simplicity and elegance to dishes like confit chicken with coco beans and girolles, or roasted courgettes with truffled polenta.

The little sibling to Bob Bob Ricard, Bébé Bob in Soho may be a more casual offshoot to its unashamedly luxe forebear, but just barely. Here, the focus is on rotisserie chickens from Landes and Vendee, slow roasted until perfectly juicy and tender and carved tableside, served with your choice of frites, roasted chicken fat potatoes, or cauliflower cheese. If it all sounds a little too proletarian, rest assured that there’s still a raw bar and three caviars on hand, plus a wine list stacked with champagne and Burgundy reds and whites. Like similar new openings, it sits at the intersection of two trends – Francophile eateries and roast chicken – while uplifting up the entire experience with an eye-catching dining room that feels lifted wholesale from a Miami Art Basel installation.

More info here.