New Modern Pantry to open in July
Chef-restaurateur Anna Hansen is set to open her second Modern Pantry restaurant in early July this year.
Hansen, who opened the original Modern Pantry in 2008 in Clerkenwell, London, will open the new venture on the corner of Finsbury Square in the City.
Housed in a Georgian building, the tapas bar, restaurant and private dining room sit on the ground floor.
New York hospitality design company AvroKo has looked not only to Hansen's Danish background but also to the classic styles of mid-century Scandinavian design for inspiration.
Materials such as bent plywood, teak and oak work alongside graphic tiles and ironwork. Lighting fixtures will be made from blown glass, with milk jug-shaped lanterns in the dining room. Dark blue and off-white hues will colour the restaurant, all inspired by the Flora Danica - an atlas of indigenous Danish plants in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Head chef will be Rob McLeary, who has worked with Hansen since 2008, and the menu will feature bold flavours, colourful ingredients, and herbs and spices from around the world.
The Modern Pantry Finsbury Square will be open from 7am for breakfast followed by lunch and dinner, while the tapas bar will open daily at 11am and stay open until 11pm. The 18-seater white oak bar has a menu comprising charcuterie (the Modern Pantry's liquorice, soy and cardamom cured beef fillet and a selection from Cobble Lane), oysters (Colchester Rock, Fine de Claire), cheeses (11-month-old Manchego and Picos de Europa) and bar snacks (quinoa, caraway & sumac lavosh; pickled garlic, Iranian lime & herb marinated olives; salted liquorice macadamias; baharat pecans; amchur puffed wild rice; candied fennel).
Typical dishes in the restaurant will include: a salad of golden beetroot, broad bean, mange tout, quinoa, toasted buckwheat & pickled gooseberry,
shaoxing, verjus and Argan oil dressing; confit duck leg, anise marinated black fig, pickled pink onion & grilled endive, black cumin & liquorice dressing, olive & macadamia crumb; squid ink battered Cornish cod, date, coriander & white poppy seed besan chips, seaweed relish, brown crab mayonnaise.
Hansen said: "The Modern Pantry Clerkenwell is in its seventh year now so developing the Modern Pantry Finsbury Square has been hugely exciting. I have been involved in every aspect, which has been great fun and although the space looks different to Clerkenwell, it will feel very similar - relaxed and friendly with lots of tasty food and great sherrys, wines and cocktails. The tapas bar will be a really fun place to just drop in for a tipple and snack, or to stay all day and eat your way through the menu."
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