Tommy Banks has confirmed that his debut London restaurant will open in Clerkenwell this winter, marking the first time the Oldstead chef has operated in the capital after building one of Britain's most admired culinary reputations entirely outside it.
Banks — who holds a Michelin star at The Black Swan at Oldstead, the North Yorkshire pub-restaurant he runs with his family, and a second site at Roots in York — confirmed the opening in an interview published this week, describing it as a move he has been considering for several years but was determined not to rush.
"London has always been there," Banks said. "The question was whether we could do something that was genuinely us — rooted in where we're from and what we believe about food — rather than a London version of something. I think we've found the answer."
The Clerkenwell Site
The Clerkenwell location — which Banks has declined to name specifically ahead of a formal announcement — is understood to be a ground-floor unit in a converted warehouse building in the EC1 area, a neighbourhood whose combination of design industry professionals, food-literate residents and proximity to the City gives it the audience that Banks's cooking requires.
The restaurant will seat approximately 55 covers and will operate as an evening dining room with a weekend lunch service. The format will be tasting menu-led, reflecting the approach that has defined both Oldstead and Roots, but Banks has indicated that the London version will have its own character rather than being a transplant of either existing operation.
The Banks Philosophy
The Black Swan at Oldstead is one of the most distinctive culinary propositions in Britain — a Michelin-starred restaurant operating from a remote North Yorkshire village, built around a kitchen garden that Banks and his family have developed over more than a decade to supply the majority of the restaurant's produce. The cooking is rooted in the landscape and seasonal calendar of the Vale of York in a way that cannot be replicated in central London.
What the London restaurant will carry is the philosophy rather than the supply chain: the commitment to minimal waste, to vegetables treated with the same ambition as protein, and to a cooking style that expresses genuine place and season rather than performing it. Banks has been explicit that he will not attempt to recreate the Oldstead terroir in EC1.
"The London kitchen will have a garden," he said. "Not the same garden. Its own relationship with producers, its own identity. That's the only way it makes sense."
A Yorkshire Chef in the Capital
Banks is among a generation of chefs who built their reputations demonstrably outside London at a time when the gravitational pull of the capital remained powerful. The Black Swan has attracted destination diners from across the country and internationally for years — the kind of audience that travels specifically for the restaurant rather than finding it incidentally. Whether that audience follows Banks to London, or whether the London restaurant finds its own following, will be one of the more interesting questions the opening poses.
A formal announcement, including the site address and reservation details, is expected before the summer.