Why London’s Top Restaurants Are Setting Their Sights on New York
New York City is home to one of the most diverse culinary scenes in the world. On a single Manhattan block, diners can often choose between Italian, sushi, Mexican, Thai, Persian, Chinese and plenty more, all within a few steps of one another. It’s a city where restaurants open not despite the competition, but because of it, drawn by palates that delight in discovering new cuisines and new ideas.
Lately, though, a distinct new trend has been taking hold: restaurants whose ethos is closely tied to the city they were born in, London, are crossing the Atlantic and setting up shop in New York City. Whether they’re serving Indian, Irish, British or Japanese food, these eateries share one thing in common: they’ve already found major success in London. Put simply, a wave of London-based restaurants is now opening in New York, regardless of the cuisine they purvey.
The movement raises a few obvious questions: why now? And why New York?
After speaking with several restaurant owners making the leap into the New York market, two parallel storylines emerge. Some are expanding to NYC because of how closely New Yorkers resemble London diners in taste and habits. Others are heading stateside because they’ve identified a specific gap in New York’s dining landscape—one that neatly aligns with the food they serve.
Farmer J falls squarely into the first camp. The fast-casual restaurant, known for its customizable, high-quality, “anti-slop-bowl” Fieldtrays, has become a lunchtime staple across its 18 London locations. Last month, the brand opened its first New York outpost in midtown Manhattan, aiming to tap into the weekday crowd craving fresh, efficient meals.
“We decided to expand to New York because, like London, there are a lot of people here who want really good-quality food made with great ingredients and served at pace,” Alice Henderson, Farmer J’s U.S. managing director, tells Observer. “The fast-casual space in New York made sense, and we knew we had the right product.”
As Henderson notes, London didn’t exactly serve as a test case—18 locations in a single city speak for themselves. The real experiment, instead, was whether a city across the ocean might crave the same kind of food for the same reasons. For the most part, the answer has been yes.
That said, some differences required adjustment. New Yorkers, Henderson explains, expect more customization, so Farmer J now allows diners to tweak their orders slightly. They’re also more grab-and-go than their London counterparts, more likely to head straight back to their desks than linger over lunch.
For Rik Campbell, founder of Indian restaurant group Kricket, the decision to enter New York was driven less by similarities and more by absence. “We looked at New York before Covid-19 and noticed the lack of an Indian restaurant scene,” he tells Observer. “In 2019 and 2020, the market was under-indexed. You’re seeing places like Semma now, but it’s still very far from what the U.K. has, which is more comparable to the Mexican food scene here in New York.”
While the pandemic delayed Kricket’s original plans, the group is now aiming to open its first New York location in the spring of next year. And although Campbell plans to bring the same menu and experience that London diners know well, New York presents its own challenges.
“Most chefs at Indian restaurants in New York are Mexican,” Campbell notes. “That would be unusual for us. In London, there’s a huge Indian population cooking: 80 to 90 percent of Indian restaurants there are staffed by Indians. That might be part of why fewer Indian restaurants open here. Staffing is something we really have to consider.”
A similar mix of familiarity and opportunity drew Matthew Carver, founder of British restaurant group The Cheese Bar, to New York. While he noticed that both British and American audiences share a deep enthusiasm for cheese, he also saw a lack of a specific kind of cheese-centric dining experience in NYC. That realization helped inspire the upcoming New York debut of Pick & Cheese—his wildly successful London-based cheese conveyor-belt restaurant—set to open this April.
“I think the food culture in New York is as good as London’s,” Carver tells Observer. “Neither country has a deep-rooted cheese-making tradition, but both have developed a fun, creative food culture over the past 20 or 30 years. I spent a lot of time in New York visiting cheese and wine bars, and I really felt there was a gap for a place that focuses on domestic cheeses. I struggled to find that.”
Add to that the growing difficulty of operating restaurants in the U.K., the sheer size of the U.S. market, the lack of a language barrier and the palpable enthusiasm New Yorkers have for new openings—and the recipe for crossing the pond becomes clear.
Ultimately, these entrepreneurs—and many more London-based success stories preparing their New York debuts—have all identified something missing in the city’s dining scene. And as New Yorkers, our role is simple: show up hungry. After all, who’s ever said no to a new restaurant opening?
