Liam Nichols opens The Northwic, his first solo restaurant
The Michelin-starred chef behind Store swaps a Georgian townhouse in Lower Goat Lane for an 18-seat counter, two tasting menus and a kitchen he finally controls alone.
Liam Nichols has opened The Northwic, his first solo restaurant, on Lower Goat Lane in Norwich.
The 18-seat restaurant occupies the site of Biddy's Tea Room, which closed in December 2024. Nichols announced the purchase in July 2026 and spent the months since building an open kitchen with counter seating, plus a ground-floor private dining room for up to ten guests.
Nichols made his name at Store, the Norwich restaurant he joined at its 2021 launch and helped win a Michelin star. He left in August 2024 to travel through Southeast Asia with his partner, Becca. Store has since closed, leaving a gap in the city's tasting-menu dining that The Northwic now fills. Before Store, Nichols worked at Midsummer House, Restaurant Sat Bains and Tom Kerridge's Bar and Grill — three of the country's most demanding kitchens.
A deliberately small restaurant from a chef who already proved himself at Store.
Two tasting menus at The Northwic
The restaurant runs two tasting menus built around that open kitchen, so the 18 guests at the counter watch each course plated a few feet away. A five-course menu costs £75, with a wine pairing for an extra £55. A longer "Full Send" menu costs £95, with pairing at £75.
The opening menu moves from Szechuan pork and a scallop with lime and chilli, through hake with celeriac and truffle and venison with beetroot and cauliflower, to a yuzu raspberry dessert. Running two parallel tasting menus for 18 covers is already one of the most fixed-cost formats in the business — the economics behind that structure leave little room for a quiet Tuesday.
"I can't quite believe I've bought a restaurant," Nichols said when he announced the plans in July. "It's going to be fun and it's going to be good."
A deliberately divisive opening
Nichols has been upfront about the restaurant's character. "Some people are not going to like this, but that's OK," he told trade press around the opening — a line that fits a chef better known on Great British Menu for cooking with conviction than consensus.
Norwich's fine-dining scene has thinned since Store's closure, leaving room for a chef-led tasting-menu restaurant back in the city centre. With 18 covers and a launch that stayed deliberately low-key, The Northwic is a modest bet rather than a big one — exactly the kind Nichols says he can now run on his own terms.
