Tom Brown, the chef behind Cornerstone in Hackney Wick — one of London's most consistently praised seafood restaurants — has confirmed he will open a second site under the same name in London Bridge this autumn. The move will bring Brown's approach to modern British seafood cooking to a new part of the city while the original Hackney Wick operation continues as a distinct entity with its own identity.
Brown, who trained under Nathan Outlaw before launching Cornerstone in 2018, has spent the past eight years building the Hackney Wick restaurant into a neighbourhood institution that sits comfortably alongside the capital's best fish restaurants while retaining an informal, accessible quality that many of its peers have sacrificed in the pursuit of critical recognition.
The London Bridge site
The second Cornerstone will occupy a ground-floor space on Bermondsey Street, seating approximately 65 covers — noticeably larger than the original's 45-seat room. The kitchen will be designed around the same whole-fish approach that defines Hackney Wick, with Brown committed to using every part of every fish that comes through the door and building the menu around what is best and most abundant at any given moment in the British fishing calendar.
Brown said the decision to expand came from a desire to make the cooking accessible to a broader audience rather than from commercial pressure.
"Hackney Wick will always be where this started and it'll keep doing its own thing," he said. "London Bridge is a different neighbourhood with different rhythms. We want to build something that feels right for where it is, not just a copy of what we already have."
Seafood sourcing
Cornerstone's sourcing programme — which maintains direct relationships with day-boat fishermen in Cornwall, the South Coast and Scotland — will extend to the London Bridge site, with Brown using the increased volume to deepen existing supplier relationships rather than broaden the supply base.
The wine list at London Bridge will be developed separately from Hackney Wick, though both sites will share a commitment to producers who work with minimal intervention and a particular emphasis on coastal and island wine regions that share a philosophical kinship with the seafood focus of the kitchen.
An opening date in October 2026 has been indicated, with reservations expected to open in August.