Robin Gill to open Maria G’s in Fulham

Robin Gill and his executive chef Aaron Potter are to open a second Maria G's restaurant, in London's Fulham, in partnership with LXA Hospitality.

Following the launch of Maria G’s Kensington earlier this year, the new restaurant on the Thames Path will offer a seafood-focused menu and a terrace overlooking the river.

As with the Kensington restaurant, Maria G’s Fulham will be inspired by Gill's time spent working in the south of Italy and his love for the village of Marina Del Cantone. The chefs have created a substantially new menu for Maria G’s Fulham, but with a raw bar and a focus on seafood.

While Italian at heart, dishes will be centred around British produce, such as fresh day-boat fish from The Sea, The Sea, and meat from Farmer Tom. For specialist ingredients that can’t be found in the UK, Gill will use Alfonso from La Sovrana, for citrus and cheese from his family’s farms, and Collatura di Alice from Amalfi.

Dishes from the raw bar will be available individually or together as a seafood platter, including:

• Hand-dived scallop crudo with green mandarin, chilli and coriander
• Razor clams dressed in gremolata
• Citrus-cured chalk stream trout
• Oysters per 1/2 dozen from Connemara

Sharing pasta dishes will be delivered to the table in big bowls or pans, with dishes including a baked lobster orzo with winter tomato, fennel and vault vermouth, and spaghetti alla ‘Nerano’, a famous Amalfi pasta dish made with fried courgette and provolone cheese.

Other new dishes exclusive to Fulham will include a seafood fritto misto, mussels al forno, and baked chocolate and piedmont hazelnut panettone with vanilla gelato.

Favourites from Maria G’s Kensington menu which will travel to the new site will include aged Parmesan fries, herbed focaccia, sage and anchovy fritti, and Florentine steak, with chicory, gorgonzola and aged balsamic.

Maria G’s Fulham will also have a separate 50-cover bar overlooking the Thames, with its own small outdoor terrace. Led by bar manager Emmanuel Ferris-Hue, who previously worked as the head bartender at the Ned and Disrepute, the cocktail list at Fulham will feature fresh spritzes, highballs and classic Italian cocktails. The wine list will be predominantly Italian.

On the ground floor of a new residential development the Maria G’s dining room will open out onto a 45-cover outdoor terrace, while inside there will be an open kitchen with a marble dining counter and leather seats, and booths at each end of the dining room.

Gill said: “The plan was always to open two Maria G’s restaurants, each with a totally unique identity. The reaction we’ve had for Kensington has been wonderful and now I’m absolutely thrilled to share the new seafood-focused menu we’ve created for Fulham – and the riverside setting of the new restaurant is just incredible.”

Potter added: “The food at Maria G’s is exactly how I like to cook and eat – simple, fun, delicious dishes made with beautiful ingredients. Developing the menu with Robin has been a real joy – we bounce ideas off each other naturally and it’s great to see the new menu for our Fulham restaurant develop that way. We can’t wait to share what we’ve created with everyone.”

Gill owns restaurants, including Brentford's Rye by the Water, Darby's in Vauxhall, Sorella in Clapham, and Bermondsey Larder. He closed his Clapham restaurants, the Dairy and Counter Culture, after the pandemic hit in 2020.