Rowley Leigh to return to London restaurant scene with Chez Rowley

Rowley Leigh is returning to the London restaurant scene with the launch of a residency at Notting Hill’s Laylow next month.

The chef, who previously ran the acclaimed Kensington Place in Notting Hill and Le Café Anglais in Bayswater, will open Chez Rowley on 13 September.

It will serve an Italian-leaning menu with dishes such as seasonal tomatoes and stracciatella; raw bavette, cuttlefish and clams on toast; and seared mackerel with bread sauce and pickled gooseberries.

The menu will also feature poulet antiboise: a whole chicken roasted with anchovies, black olives, garlic, onion, thyme, and white wine and served with hispi cabbage and pangrattato.

Leigh worked at the Roux family's Le Gavroche and Le Poulbot in the 1970s and 1980s before opening Kensington Place in 1987. The Notting Hill restaurant was an instant success and was credited with helping to kickstart the renaissance of London dining.

Leigh left the business in 2006 and went on to open Le Café Anglais in Bayswater, which was sold in 2014.

He worked with Sam Harrison as culinary director of Sam’s Riverside around its opening in Hammersmith in 2019, but Chez Rowley is the first standalone new project for the chef since the sale of Le Café Anglais.

“The menu will slowly evolve as the seasons change,” said Leigh. “There are new dishes to be seen, and classics to indulge in. I cook for my wife every night, and she’s never had the same dish twice; Chez Rowley will bring forth a sense of comfort, holiday nostalgia and the dishes we like to eat.”

Chez Rowley is currently scheduled to run until 22 December.