London restaurateur Neil Rankin, who has worked at the likes of Pitt Cue Co and Smokehouse, is to open a whole-animal BBQ restaurant called 'temper' this November in Soho.
The chef will be specialising in rare breeds such as beer-fed Dexter beef and Berkshire pork, cooked over the restaurants own £4.5 million fire pit in the basement. Temper will be able to host 42 covers and there will also be the option of ordering hand-made tacos on street level next to a small bar specialising in wine, reports TheCaterer.com.
Although temper will be meat-focused, it will be serving vegetable dishes, such as heritage tomatoes, peach and mint, grilled leeks to go along with dishes such as soy-cured raw beef, Dexter kofta and grilled cheese arepa, reports Hot-Dinners.com.
Discussing the new restaurant, Rankin said: "It’s really just meat - cooked well and served with bread, salad, condiments and a nice glass of wine. I have often felt that some meat-focused restaurants are overly masculine and put the emphasis too heavily on large cuts of meat. I wanted to create a restaurant that offered choice, not only in terms of portion size, but also in animal breeds, sides and sauces – giving back the control to the customer and allowing them to decide what they eat."
Elsewhere in London, Robert De Niro's plan for an 83-bedroom boutique hotel in Covent Garden has been granted planning permission by Westminster City Council, according to TheCaterer.com. The hotel, which will merge six adjacent buildings, is to include two restaurants, one of which will be able to hold 150 covers, a spa as well as a private member's club.
Work on the hotel will start next year with the aim of completing it by 2019, and is described as being “a homely yet arty brick-built hub for moneyed hipsters looking to stay in a grand but relaxed New York home”.
