Kofler & Kompanie to run Serpentine's Magazine restaurant

Kofler & Kompanie has won the tender to operate a new restaurant space designed for the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, to be called Magazine.

The German-based food business, which first came to the UK in 2011 with its Pret-A-Diner pop-up restaurants at the Royal Academy of Arts and 50 St. James Street, is expected to launch its first permanent London offer later this month on 28 September.

At one point the restaurant looked set to be run by Dublin-born Michelin-starred chef Richard Corrigan, who is understood to have been in negotiations with the Gallery in the spring of 2012.

However the chef-patron of London restaurants Corrigan's Mayfair and Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill is believed to have walked away from the deal.

The restaurant will be housed in a new extension to the historic Magazine building, a former munitions depot that has undergone a major renovation programme and will open its doors to the public for the first time in its 206-year history.

The 900 sq m extension, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid, is expected to accommodate a gallery, the Kofler & Kompanie restaurant, and event space.

Hadid was the first designer to contribute to the Gallery's annual Pavilion project, which sees a new temporary structure erected in front of the venue each year, and also the only architect to contribute twice. This year's structure is by Sou Fujimoto of Japan.