As the nights draw in and the festive season edges closer, London’s restaurants are doing the opposite of hibernating. November brings new openings for every kind of evening out, from a walk-in bar where you can graze at the counter to a long, lingering tasting menu, so it’s worth clearing a few dates in the diary before the Christmas rush fills them.

Lunette – Strand

Florence Knight, who made her name as head chef at Polpetto in Soho and went on to launch Sessions Arts Club in Clerkenwell, opens her first standalone restaurant this November on Level 11 of Nick Jones’ St Clement hotel at 180 The Thames. She calls it a restaurant in a hotel as opposed to a hotel restaurant, and the menu follows suit, with one menu that changes often, four dishes at lunch and six at dinner, and optional supplements and pairings. Knight has likened the experience to a Western take on omakase, and the dishes trailed ahead of opening include a pomme soufflé with smoked eel, roe and nasturtium flowers, and slow-cooked pork loin with anchovies, a Cinsault sauce, creamed coco beans and fresh figs. A milk custard with Cévennes onion sauce and caviar-topped baked petals completes the picture.

Lunch costs £70 and dinner £110, with service from Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm to 1:30pm and 5:30pm to 9pm. The room has been furnished with as much care as the menu, with most plates by Japanese potter Tetsuya Otani and glassware by Danish glassblower Alexander Kirkeby, whose work extends all the way to the bill weights.

Where: Level 11, 180 The Thames, London WC2R 3DA

When: 3 November 2026

More info: lunette.london

Edmondo – Bank

What’s more thrilling than a Big Mamma launch on the horizon? This time, Bring Mamma brings a slice of 1930s Milan to the City with Edmondo, an Italian osteria with more than 200 covers inside a Grade II-listed building at 6 Lombard Street. Its Art Deco lines nod to Piero Portaluppi’s Villa Necchi Campiglio, and the layout gives diners plenty of ways in: a vast central bar for quick pit-stop drinks, a place at the open kitchen counter for front-row views of the action, or a slip through emerald drapery to three private dining rooms seating 10 to 24. La Libreria is the loudest of them, with columns shipped from Italy and Enzo Ferrari memorabilia.

Head Chef Alfonso handles the food, sourcing Italian produce from the Alpine valleys to the tip of the boot and putting Cornish crab and turbot to work alongside it. Meals open with towering XL focaccia, move on to creamy Gnocchi al Gorgonzola from Lombardy and Big Mamma’s largest selection of native-breed Philip Warren steaks. Pastry Chef Angelina covers dessert with an Italian chocolate cake that has a melting centre and a take on the classic affogato, and Bar Manager Ilaria keeps the glasses full with a house barrel-aged Boulevardier.

Where: 6 Lombard Street, City of London EC3V 9LJ

When: Opens 6 November 2026

More info: www.bigmammagroup.com/italian-restaurants/edmondo-london

Cervecería Los Primos – Borough Yards

Harts Group, the team behind Barrafina, is reshuffling Borough Yards, where Parrillan has made way for Cervecería Los Primos. The new bar takes its cue from the neighbourhood locals found all over Spain, the kind many Londoners have returned home wishing for, and it follows the same rules, with no bookings and walk-ins only. The room has been reworked around a steel-topped bar, where the day’s tapas are laid out for guests to point at, in the style of San Sebastian.

The food sticks to the classics, with tortilla, lomo de cerdo and chorizo or egg bocadillos on the menu, along with crispy fried pig’s ears, bomba stuffed with txistorra sausage, chorizo cooked in cider and tuna empanadas. It is built for dropping in and filling up, and everything comes with beer, wine, cider or vermouth poured on tap. Bar Daskal is staying put, which gives Harts two bars in the area, and Parrillan in King’s Cross is only closed for the winter before returning in spring.

Where: 4 Dirty Lane, London SE1 9PA

When: Opens 19 November 2026

More info: @cervecerialosprimos

Aba-Ra – Soho

After 25 years of introducing Londoners to Georgian food, beginning on Brick Lane, Lia Walsh is opening her most ambitious Aba-Ra yet in Soho, a 76-cover restaurant where the cooking happens in full view. A dedicated oven in the open kitchen turns out khachapuri, Georgia’s cheese-filled bread, in smaller and more delicate formats, with meat and vegetable fillings joining the traditional cheese. Handmade khinkali, the country’s soup-filled dumplings, sit alongside richly flavoured soups served in clay pots under a crust of freshly baked bread, while an open charcoal grill handles the traditional meat skewers.

Beyond the 40-cover ground floor, where eight seats face the open kitchen counter, a downstairs lounge seats 18 and an 18-cover wine cellar offers its own fine-dining tasting menu. Georgian wine runs deep on the list, with qvevri bottles aged in clay and a sommelier brought over from Georgia, and the Dtwo Design interiors of clay and black rock showcase bespoke artworks by Georgian artist Giorgi Sisauri.

Where: Soho, London (address TBC)

When: Opens November 2026 (exact date TBC)

More info: abara.co.uk

Five Feet – Bermondsey Street

Five Feet opens in October where Dobson’s Bakery used to sit, from a trio behind Legare, Luna and WatchHouse: restaurateur Jay Patel, WatchHouse founder Roland Horne, and chef Jack Ellingham, who cut his teeth at Spring and Dusty Knuckle. At the centre of the 55-cover room is a glass-panelled dough room housing a stone mill brought over from Montpellier, the first of its kind in the UK, which Ellingham uses to mill his own heritage-grain flour blends on site.

The pan pizzas run on an aerated, centimetre-thick dough baked in black iron pans, topped with British produce from small suppliers including Bermondsey Butchery and Westcombe Dairy. Expect a hot sausage pie with fennel sausage and Calabrian chilli honey, and a white potato pie built on caramelised onions and three cheeses, with vegan versions available. Sides include wings, polenta fritta and a stracchino-filled focaccia di Recco, and dessert runs to a Pump Street double chocolate cake and a cinnamon bomboloni with Jersey milk gelato. The drinks list keeps to low-intervention wines, vermouths and Sabadi sodas from southern Italy.

Where: No. 4 Tanner Street, Bermondsey, London SE1 3LE

When: Opens November 2026 (exact date TBC); evenings Tuesday to Saturday

More info: @fivefeet.london

Osteria Panzano – Belgravia

Arjun Waney, the restaurateur behind Zuma, COYA, La Petite Maison and The Arts Club, goes Italian for the first time with Osteria Panzano, and he has chosen Tuscany as his destination. The choice is a personal one, as Waney has an estate in the region that will supply some of the produce. The osteria takes over the former Noura site at 10-12 William Street, and it comes with a cheese and charcuterie shop, which gives passers-by a reason to pop in even without a table.

Regional Tuscan dishes make up the menu, changing with the seasons. Opening dishes include cacio e pepe with black truffle, yellowfin tuna tartare with avocado and crispy shallots, and roast turbot fillet with braised herb potatoes, while the grill handles whole fish and T-bone steaks.

Where: 10-12 William Street, London SW1X 9HL

When: Opens 27 November 2026

More info: osteria-panzano.com