Italian eaterie to replace Brian Turner venture

London's Millennium Mayfair hotel is to launch a new Italian restaurant to replace Brian Turner's eponymous venture which closed last week.

Avista, due to open in October, will be a 75-seat restaurant with direct entrance from Grosvenor Square. It will include a main dining room, a bar and a 12-seat private dining room, with interiors designed by David d'Almada, whose previous restaurant projects include La Petite Maison and Zafferano.

Head chef will be Michele Granziera, who previously spent six years at the London Fine Dining Group's Zafferano under head chef Andy Needham.

The menu will focus on sharing platters with signature dishes such as octopus salad with pigna beans and sweet roast pepper, and Fiorentina with bone marrow and balsamico, as well as a range of pasta dishes.

Granziera told Caterersearch he was delighted to be opening his own restaurant. "Avista will be a rustic Italian restaurant and both the interiors and the food will combine traditional and contemporary elements," he said.

"Michele is one of the great chefs in London and we are really looking forward to the opening of the new Italian restaurant at Millennium Hotel London Mayfair," said Richard Hartman, chief executive of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels.

Turner, who ran his restaurant at the Mayfair for five years, is understood to be on the lookout for a new London venture. He still runs the Turner's Grill restaurants at the Copthorne Hotel Slough-Windsor and the Copthorne Birmingham Hotel.

By Kerstin Kühn

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