London has two more high profile restaurants, as Simon Rogan’s Roganic and StreetXO, the London outpost of Spanish chef David Muñoz, have both permanently closed.
As reported by Eater London, the Michelin-starred Roganic will not reopen its doors on Blandford Street in Marylebone, but it may not be the end of the line for the seasonally focused site, as Rogan is hoping to relocate the restaurant in the future.
Roganic first opened as a pop-up in Marylebone in 2011 to give Londoners a taste of Rogan’s two Michelin-starred farm-to-table flagship L’Enclume in Cumbria. Roganic blazed brightly on Blandford Street for two years before Rogan went on to head up Fera at Claridge’s after Gordon Ramsay left the building.
In a happy twist of fate, Roganic 2.0 reopened on the same street seven years later as a permanent site, winning a Michelin star the same year.
A number of the original staff returned to Roganic 2.0, including head chef Oliver Marlow, who worked at the original as a chef de partie, and general manager James Foster.
According to Eater London, Aulis, Rogan’s eight-seater tasting menu-only counter restaurant in Soho will remain operational.
Also saying adios to the London restaurant scene is StreetXO, daring Spanish chef David Muñoz’s debut London venture in Mayfair, which ripped up the rule book when it came to high-end dining in the affluent district.
According to Big Hospitality, Muñoz has started the process of liquidating the restaurant, which launched to much hype and media attention in 2016. The outlandish site closed in March during the first lockdown and remain closed ever since.
Muñoz is the enfant terrible of Spanish cooking and one of the country’s brightest stars. He opened his first fine dining restaurant, DiverXO in Madrid, aged just 26.
Six years later he’d won three Michelin stars at the envelope-pushing venture, which has earned him comparisons with Ferran Adrià of ElBulli.
Keen to appeal to a wider audience, in 2012 he opened casual concept StreetXO in Madrid, offering a more affordable version of DiverXO inspired by the street food he discovered while working in Asia.
StreetXO had a similar ethos and drew heavily on Muñoz’ love for Asian flavours and ingredients, which were given a Spanish twist.
Roganic and StreetXO join a growing number of high profile London restaurant closures including The Ledbury, Roux at Parliament Square, Two Lights and Indian Accent.
