London’s famous Michelin-starred restaurant The Clove Club is preparing to reunite with its guests with a series of health measures and new tastes on Tuesday 1 September after the 6-month closure.
The Clove Club, which ranks 27th on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, waited for this process to pass, during the quarantine period unlike other restaurants, remaining pretty quiet and without trying other concepts such as takeaway. After the opening of its sister restaurant Luca, which initially had more open space, the owners of The Clove Club announced that the restaurant will open on September 1. “We are all so excited to get back to doing what we love, looking after people and creating special moments,” said Isaac McHale to Eater, one of the owners of the restaurant, who said that they will stick to the tasting menu that earned the Michelin star and successful in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list along with all the necessary measures.
Asked if he worried about the lack of tourism in London at the moment, he told Eater, semi-jokingly, that he had “worries about people leaving their houses,” more generally, but that he and the team were “really excited that there’ll be space for people to come and have celebrations — to come and dine with us.” McHale added: “there are plenty of people going out to eat in London restaurants.”
McHale, who opened Luca on Kingsland Road with the necessary security measures last month, said, “It made sense for us to open Luca first — there’s outdoor space and a lot more space there. We can take the lessons learned there. A lot of the procedures and the way we want to do things have been ironed out,” McHale explained. “We know that what we do works, and that customers feel safe.”
While there’ll be a reduction in the number of tables, changes made to the layout of the dining room, and very limited numbers of diners at the bar, the menu at the Clove Club will be largely unchanged. Sticking to the tasting menu format which has earned the restaurant its Michelin-starred and World’s 50 Best status, McHale said: “we’re trying to open with a few familiar Clove Club dishes that people know and a few new ones, which were currently in development.”