Chef Nuno Mendes to open new restaurant
Nuno Mendes, the chef behind celebrity haunt the Chiltern Firehouse in London, is to open a new casual dining restaurant in Old Spitalfields Market.
The new venture will be called Taberna do Mercado and will offer an informal, all-day menu, with food and wine that focuses on his home country of Portugal.
The 40-cover restaurant will be open for soft openings by reservation only from 4-10 May, and the restaurant officially opens on 11 May for walk-ins only.
Mendes left what was Viajante in the Town Hall hotel in Bethnal Green last year to become executive chef of André Balazs' Chiltern Firehouse, which opened in mid-February to a blaze of publicity.
He had fronted Viajante since it opened in 2010 and helped it win the title of best new restaurant in London in the 2011 Harden's restaurant guide, as well as a Michelin star in the 2011 guide.
Viajante has since been transformed into the Typing Room under chef Lee Westcott, backed by Jason Atherton.
Nuno Mendes leaves Michelin-starred London restaurant Viajante >>
