Imad Alarnab opens second Imad's Syrian Kitchen in Shoreditch
The Syrian chef's third London venue opens at British Land's Norton Folgate scheme in Shoreditch, minutes from where he once ran pop-up dinners.
Imad Alarnab is opening a second Imad's Syrian Kitchen, on Blossom Street in Shoreditch, inside British Land's Norton Folgate development.
The restaurant will be Imad Alarnab's third venue in London and the second to carry the Imad's Syrian Kitchen name, after the daytime café Aram, which he opened inside Somerset House in autumn 2024. It joins a growing food and drink line-up at Norton Folgate, British Land's mixed retail-and-dining scheme built around Blossom Street and Elder Street, a short walk from Shoreditch High Street.
Imad Alarnab's third London site
British Land calls the opening proof that hospitality is built on people and resilience, not just food.
Alarnab opened the original Imad's Syrian Kitchen in Soho's Kingly Court in 2021. He moved it a few doors down in 2023, into a larger space, after outgrowing the first unit. The Blossom Street restaurant extends that run to a third address, and marks Imad Alarnab's first venue east of the West End. Once it opens, he will run three sites across the city at the same time: the Soho restaurant, Aram, and Blossom Street. That original site sits a short walk from where Solis opened its first standalone Soho restaurant earlier this year.
Norton Folgate's dining tenants already include Xi Home, Kolamba East, Osteria Angelina, Urban Greens and Blank Street Coffee. Kong, a Chinese pub from two-Michelin-starred chef Andrew Wong and Dishoom co-founder Amar Radia, opens next month as the development's anchor tenant. Once Imad's Syrian Kitchen signs its lease, one restaurant unit remains available at Norton Folgate.
British Land on the letting
Alice Keown, leasing director at British Land, frames the deal as part of the scheme's wider story. “Stories like Imad's are exactly what make places special,” she says. “Great hospitality is about more than food; it's about people, resilience, community and creating destinations that people want to return to time and again.”
Imad Alarnab arrived in the UK as a refugee from Syria and ran pop-ups across east London before he had a permanent restaurant. Shoreditch, in that sense, sits close to where his business began, before it moved west to Soho in 2021.
Imad's Syrian Kitchen is due to open on Blossom Street later this year, weeks after Kong's launch at the same development, giving Norton Folgate two high-profile restaurant debuts within a single quarter.
