Covent Garden gets five new restaurants this autumn
Shaftesbury Capital is leasing out roughly 10,000 sq ft of new dining space, with Noodle & Beer, Bubala and a burger flagship among the arrivals.
Covent Garden is adding five new restaurants and bars this autumn, as landlord Shaftesbury Capital leases out close to 10,000 sq ft of fresh dining space in the district.
Bubala, the vegetarian Middle Eastern restaurant group, opened its latest Covent Garden branch the week of 21 October. It joins a run of signings that developer Shaftesbury Capital says builds on a strong year of leasing activity in the area.
Sichuan-style noodle specialist Noodle & Beer is taking a second site, a 1,625 sq ft unit at 25 Catherine Street. Its first restaurant sits in Shaftesbury Capital's Chinatown development, a short walk away.
New names are filling Covent Garden's gaps faster than old ones can empty.
Noodle & Beer's second site
"Signing in Covent Garden was a natural choice, given our success in Chinatown," said Xiaoxiao Wang, the brand's founder. She said Noodle & Beer looks for prime London locations that fit its community-focused, high-quality food offer.
Artisanal Italian sandwich shop Bread & Truffle is opening a new West End flagship at 7 New Row. Burger brand Heard is taking a larger, 4,000 sq ft flagship on Wellington Street, and Junk Burger is due to open a further outpost in December.
Schofield's Bar and Puffy Cookies are also due to open permanent sites in the area before the end of the year. Pizza chain Lenny's Apizza recently converted a pop-up into a permanent Covent Garden home nearby.
Covent Garden's leasing push
Emma Matus, head of restaurant leasing at Shaftesbury Capital, said the signings reflect Covent Garden's pull as a dining destination for both independents and growing brands — the kind of pull that is also drawing openings like Casa Macellaio in South Kensington elsewhere in west London.
The wave of openings comes as the district has also seen turnover elsewhere: Christopher's, a Covent Garden restaurant, closed after 35 years earlier this year, and Kricket shelved a planned site nearby. Shaftesbury Capital's bet is that new names will keep filling the gaps faster than old ones empty.
With five more sites due to open between now and January, Covent Garden's restaurant count looks set to keep climbing through the winter.
