Speedboat Bar, London: ‘Completely Irresistible Style’ – Restaurant Review
The Manchester-born chain Rudy’s Pizza Napoletana, which has opened over a dozen sites across the UK since its 2015 launch in Ancoats, has announced a new 8,000 sq ft outpost on Portland Street in the city. As well as space for 120 diners it will be home to Rudy’s Pizza Academy, a training school in the craft of pizza, and an interesting response to a shortage of kitchen staff across the hospitality business. It will also house the Rudy’s Bake at Home business, which will make their pizzas available across much of the UK from later in the spring. At rudyspizza.co.uk.
Leamington Spa is to get a new Greek restaurant, born out of a lockdown business. During the pandemic Matt and Alex Crowther, who run the Pugs Pub business in and around the Warwickshire town, launched a Greek food delivery service, based on Matt Crowther’s four years of experience working in Greece. That has now spawned Taverna Meraki, on the site of what was a Café Rouge. It will open towards the end of May. Visit tavernameraki.com.
And sad but perhaps inevitable news from Edinburgh. Following the sudden death in December of the much-admired chef Paul Kitching, his restaurant 21212 is to close. ‘The passing of Paul has devastated all the team and the passion that runs through every fibre of the restaurant is not as evident as it was when he was alive,’ his partner Katie O’Brian told industry journal The Caterer. ‘To us that is unacceptable to his memory.’
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