Angela Hartnett to open second Café Murano
Chef and restaurateur Angela Hartnett is to open a second Café Murano, this time in Covent Garden.
Café Murano at 34-36 Tavistock Street is expected to open in June this year, following the opening of the original Café Murano at 33 St James's Street in 2013.
It will take a similarly simple and seasonal approach to Italian cooking in a relaxed atmosphere.
Hartnett will install Richard Lloyd, formerly sous chef at Hartnett, Holder and Co., as head chef of the new 140-cover restaurant.
In addition to the restaurant, Café Murano Tavistock Street will feature a food and wine shop adjacent to the restaurant specialising in fresh pasta, sauces and Italian wines to take away.
The menu in the restaurant will be northern Italian in focus, with an emphasis on coastal regions.
Russell Stage Studios is designing the new site, which is set across two floors. The ground floor will feature terracotta leather upholstered banquette seating and dark wooden tables, with antiqued mirror panelling adorning the walls. A Carrara marble bar will provide a focal point along the left hand wall where guests can enjoy counter dining and watch the bartenders at work. Opposite the bar, a marble counter will showcase fresh, seasonal produce, breads and antipasti. Upstairs, the 64 cover dining space will have a distinct atmosphere, with a glass roof, latticed with wooden tiles, allowing dappled natural light to fill the room. The first floor will have its own bar, and tables with banquette seating in midnight blue leather.
Hartnett said: "I am thrilled to be opening Café Murano in the heart of Covent Garden's Opera quarter. This area of London is cultured but laid back and that chimes completely with our approach to dining. I am looking forward to working with Richard, whose maturing talent I have witnessed at Hartnett, Holder and Co., and to making Café Murano Tavistock Street a unique and valued addition to the area."
In addition to her two Café Murano sites, Hartnett, who holds an MBE, runs the Michelin-starred Murano restaurant and opened Hartnett Holder & Co with hotelier Robin Hutson and chef Luke Holder in 2013. She also launched Merchants Tavern in Shoreditch in September 2013 with chef Neil Borthwick and Canteen founders Dominic Lake and Patrick Clayton-Malone.
In December 2014, she was also appointed to the board of directors of Lime Wood Group and Home Grown Hotels (the Pig hotels).
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