THE JOURNAL
Contessa, Boston. Photograph courtesy of Contessa
After a year of getting intimate with delivery apps, eating out is on again and the world is a far better place for it. While our collective appetite for communal dining means securing reservations at our favourite restaurants has become as hard as scoring Coachella tickets, there’s no shortage of exciting new venues to explore.
Negotiating the events of the past 12 months has given chefs and restaurateurs an opportunity to plot their next move and, after a year of shelved plans and shuttered venues, our cities are starting to witness a renaissance in the dining sector. From hyped new hangouts and top-tier pop-ups to established chefs ripping up the rulebook, we’ve picked out seven new restaurants across the globe worth dressing up for this summer.
01.
Contessa, Boston
This sophisticated new spot atop Boston’s famous grande dame hotel, The Newbury, opens in late June and will bring glamorous all-day dining to the Back Bay district. The latest destination restaurant by Major Food Group, which is also responsible for New York’s lavish Carbone, Santina and The Grill, Contessa takes the form of an upmarket Italian osteria, with menus to match, while design cues are taken from the hotel’s famous history of rooftop soirées.
02.
Eleven Madison Park, New York
Eleven Madison Park, New York. Photograph courtesy of Eleven Madison Park
Not so much a new restaurant as a bold new chapter from Mr Daniel Humm’s triple-starred Eleven Madison Park, which will seek a more sustainable approach to gastronomy when it reopens as a vegan restaurant this June. Expect a plant-based fine-dining menu that draws on Humm’s experimentation with seasonal vegetables, fermentation and homemade vegan milks and butters, alongside a laudable new business model where every dinner purchased helps provide meals for food-insecure New Yorkers via the Eleven Madison food truck.
What to wear
03.
Ave Mario, London
The larger-than-life Big Mamma group ups the ante this summer with its third – and largest – London restaurant in Covent Garden. Opening on 2 July, Ave Mario boasts all the bombast of sister restaurants Gloria and Circolo Popolare, serving up Italian food in a 7,000sq ft space defined by tongue-in-cheek decor inspired by the city of Florence. Star dishes will include pillowy pizzas, courtesy of slow-fermented biga dough bases, an oversized cotoletta Milanese and typically OTT desserts that are sure to add swagger to London’s dining scene this summer.
What to wear
04.
Lucky Kwong, Sydney
Lucky Kwong, Australia. Photograph by Mr Tom Ferguson, courtesy of Lucky Kwong
One of Sydney’s most celebrated chefs returns with a stylish new diner set in a beautifully restored locomotive workshop in South Eveleigh. Australian-Cantonese Ms Kylie Kwong has been a fixture on the city’s dining scene since the turn of the millennium and Lucky Kwong, a laid-back, lunch-only restaurant named after her late son, will champion her Asian roots as well as native Australian ingredients across signature dishes that include prawn dumplings, steamed savoury pancakes and caramelised pork belly.
What to wear
05.
Normal, Girona
After a year that’s been anything but normal, Catalan brothers Messrs Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca attempt a return to business as usual with a new venture in Girona’s Plaça de l’Oli. The latest project in a decorated career (their three Michelin-starred El Celler de Can Roca, also in Girona, is one of Spain’s most famous restaurants), Normal will champion traditional Catalan cooking, including stews and casseroles, delivered with all the flair that first put the brothers on the map.
06.
Mirazur, Singapore
Mirazur presented by Mandala Club, Singapore. Photograph courtesy of The Mandalay
Mr Mauro Colagreco translates the success of his Côte d’Azur restaurant Mirazur, which scooped top spot at the World’s Best Restaurant Awards in 2019, to the ritzy surroundings of Singapore’s Mandala Club for a three-month summer residency. Running until 4 September, this pop-up dining experience will showcase the Italian-Argentinian chef’s lauded micro-seasonal cooking, which uses produce that, according to the lunar cycle, is at its absolute prime.
What to wear
07.
Maz, Tokyo
Mr Virgilio Martínez and Ms Pía León made their name at Central in Lima, championing a research-led approach to cooking that reimagined Peru’s landscapes, biodiversity and forgotten ingredients to spectacular effect. Now they’ve turned their attention to Japan with the opening of a 16-seat restaurant in Tokyo’s financial district that will apply a similar concept across a series of tasting menus with dishes designed to bring diners even closer to nature.