Kricket restaurant founders to open first London bar

The team behind Indian restaurant group Kricket in London are to launch their first bar in September.

Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell will open Soma next door to Kricket on Soho’s Denman Street, in a site which was formerly a subterranean club and karaoke den.

It will open until 3am Tuesday to Saturday with a drinks menu devised by Will Rogers, the group’s head of beverage, and bar manager Angelos Bafas, previously of Aqua Shard.

Cocktails will include a Gooseberry Chaat Margarita with tequila, triple sec, gooseberry cordial and a touch of chaat masala; and a Pickled Mooli Martini with vodka, dry vermouth, lightly pickled mooli and fennel oil.

Guests will sit around a 23-cover nine-metre bar surrounded by a midnight blue single track curtain in a nod to the bar’s theatre land setting. A separate lounge area will feature low tables and sofas, ideal for groups and events.

Bowlby and Campbell said: “It feels great to be emerging from such a challenging period with a project that we’re so excited about.

“People have always loved the cocktails we offer at Kricket and we’ve always talked about launching a standalone bar, but it’s the space that gives Soma its modern speakeasy feel, with a backstreet underground setting in Soho and seemingly non descript entrance.

“We see Soma as the latest addition to people’s Soho ‘stumblings’ and we can’t wait to offer the hospitality we’ve become known for at Kricket in a new context.”

Kricket was founded by Bowlby and Campbell in a shipping container in Pop Brixton in 2015. Their first permanent restaurant opened in Soho in January 2017 followed by sites in Brixton and at the Television Centre development in White City.