Chef Jackson Boxer reveals further details of new restaurant

Chef Jackson Boxer will close Orasay in London’s Notting Hill on New Year’s Eve to relaunch the space as Dove.

 

Orasay opened in 2019 with the aim of serving seafood from dayboats around the UK and in 2021 it was awarded a Menu of the Year Catey for its “care and attention” to every ingredient.

 

However, Boxer admitted in an Instagram post earlier this month (4 December) that Orasay was “never a very lucrative business”.

 

“Though we’re busier than we’ve ever been in terms of guests through the door, those guests have considerably less freedom to spend than perhaps they once did, and as such, being unable to raise prices, and being unwilling to work with a cheaper and inferior product, we have decided to imagine a bold new future for ourselves in quite another direction,” he said.

 

Boxer alluded to the challenges of the market in an interview with The Caterer last month, when he said: “Restaurants have never been more expensive to run. Labour costs are very high, food and drink costs are very high, and people don’t have nearly as much money to spend.”

 

Orasay will hold its last service on New Year’s Eve before Boxer will relaunch the space as a new restaurant that he said “won’t be specialising in fish and seafood".

 

Boxer added: “I have a pretty good sense of what it’ll look like, and I’m very excited to return to Notting Hill in the new year to bring it to life.”

 

He has since confirmed the restaurant will be called Dove, serving dishes that he "wants to cook and eat right now".

 

Boxer added: "It’s not re-inventing the wheel, but re-inventing the restaurant for today’s economy."

 

Example dishes include fried pizzette, burrata, ham (£14), lemon and ricotta dumplings, lobster cream, lime leaf (£22), pork and duck meatball (£24) and roast chicken, fennel and blood orange (£29).

 

The chef also operates Brunswick House in London’s Vauxhall, Henri in London’s Covent Garden and dive bar Below Stone Nest in London’s Soho, among other restaurants.