Angela Hartnett to open second Café Murano this June

Angela Hartnett’s second Café Murano restaurant: Café Murano Covent Garden, has now been confirmed to open its doors at 34-36 Tavistock Street on Monday, June 29th, 2015. The second Café Murano restaurant will have a distinct personality, but continue to take the simple and seasonal approach to Italian cooking that can be found in the original restaurant in St. James.

The new head chef, Richard Lloyd, formerly sous chef at Harnett, Holder and Co. has worked in collaboration with Angela to produce an Italian menu inspired by recent travels around Italy itself. Fresh pasta, cooked by Angela’s chefs, is also available to take-away next door in the new Pastificio, opening on Monday, 13 July, 2015, giving diners the opportunity to take home a bottle of wine or salumi with their meal.

The 140-cover restaurant has been designed by Russell Stage Studios in a manner that encourages a relaxing, but friendly, atmosphere, featuring warm leather banquette seating, a signature Carrera marble dining counter and antipasti stations displaying fresh and cured produce, waiting to go out to guests at their dark wooden tables. The quality is consistent upstairs, with dappled light filtering in through latticed wooden tiles onto the dark lacquered walnut wood bar and the banquettes in midnight blue leather.

The menu will offer antipasti such as octopus, potatoes, capers and paprika and ricotta courgettes with preserved lemon honey. For primi, pastas such as farfalle, rabbit, peas and girolles and gnocchi, feta, rosemary and olive oil will be available, and secondi dishes of whole fish and cuts of meat will be served for diners to share. The Covent Garden menu also offers chicken milanese and lobster linguine, a previous favourite on the menu at Café Murano St. James.

Situated in the heart of Covent Garden’s newly titled ‘Opera Quarter’ and within walking distance of many of London’s most famous cultural institutions, daily set menus will be offered pre and post theatre, with two courses at £16.50 or £21 for three.

The ‘Pastificio’, next door to the restaurant, translates directly from the Italian as ‘pasta factory’. The pasta ‘fatta a mano’ that Angela has become known for, a delicate spinach and ricotta tortelli and meaty anolini, will be made in house and available to take home every day, as well as a selection of quality salumi, fresh pasta sauces and wines from the restaurant. Although taking gentle liberties with the term ‘pastificio’, the Café Murano team trust that this artistic licence with translation will be excused in the name of good quality Italian food and wine.

By Lewis Treleaven