Flesh & Buns to open third London site amid wider redesign

Japanese-style restaurant group Flesh & Buns is to open its third London restaurant in March alongside a wider redesign of the business.

It has taken the 1 Phillimore Gardens site formerly occupied by Sticky Fingers, the restaurant owned by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, which closed in 2021 after 32 years of trading.

Flesh & Buns Kensington will offer small plates, sashimi, ceviche, maki, poké don and its signature steamed bao buns.

Dishes will include chicken yakitori cooked over hot coals on a robata grill; smoked pork rib doused in tallow chilli honey glaze; and a bao bun filled with crispy duck leg with plum sauce and beetroot pickle.

The drinks menu will offer Japanese whisky, sake, beers and cocktails, such as a yuzu margarita and umeshu negroni.

Flesh & Buns was founded by restaurateur Ross Shonhan in Covent Garden in 2013 and a second restaurant opened in Fitzrovia in 2018. Shonhan, who was also behind Shack-Fuyu in Soho and ramen chain Bone Daddies, left the business in March 2020.

The brand's existing two sites are undergoing a redesign with a new look and feel the group said would take Flesh & Buns "back to their raucous roots".

Loic Leguay, executive chef at Flesh & Buns, said: "The new brand is how we pictured the place grown up when we first opened back in Covent Garden and were blasting rock music.

"My focus for the menu will be amplification – we're all about feasting and I want to bring more of that to our Omakase and brunch menus, focusing on big groups, with a whole piglet in the middle of the table and people getting stuck in and experiencing something different."