Polpo plans new takeaway-focused Mishkin's in 2017

Polpo Restaurants is to open a new Mishkin's in the City of London in 2017, following on from the closure of the original venue on Catherine Street near Covent Garden earlier this month.

The new incarnation is due to open in an as-yet-undisclosed location near Bank station as part of a new development featuring several different operators.

It will have more of a takeaway focus than its predecessor, offering dishes such as hot salt beef sandwiches and chicken soup, and will have around 20 seats, as opposed to the 60 seats in the original Mishkin's.

Speaking to The Caterer, Polpo Restaurants managing director Luke Bishop said: "We are currently working on a big site in the City, which is scheduled for summer next year, and the plan for Mishkin's ideally will be a smaller kind of a takeaway service that is more geared to City workers."

The news comes a week after the business opened its latest Polpo restaurant, and its second outside London, in Harvey Nichols in Leeds. It follows the opening of a Polpo restaurant in Brighton on New Road in November last year.

Bishop indicated that more sites outside the capital were set to follow, with venues in Bristol and Bath both under consideration.

"At the moment, we are certainly focused outside London," he said. "It is a combination of two things - the saturation of the casual dining market in London and the fact that the property costs are just too high. We are not in a position where we can just whack up prices to pay the rent - some restaurants can but we at the casual dining end of the market can't."

He said that the company was looking at all the major towns and cities that restaurant groups would generally consider for potential new openings.

Polpo Restaurants was founded by restaurateurs Russell Norman and Richard Beatty, who opened the first Polpo on London's Beak Street in 2009.

It now has five Polpo restaurants in London, one in Leeds, one in Brighton, as well as Polpo at Ape & Bird, Polpetto, and Spuntino, all of which are in London.

Polpo Restaurants' Mishkin's closes >>Polpo to open in Harvey Nichols in London and Leeds >>Russell Norman and Richard Beatty to open Polpo in Brighton >>Are you looking for a new role? See all the current restaurant vacancies available with The Caterer Jobs >>

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