For eight years the room at 383 King's Road was Chicama, where Cornish fish went into Peruvian ceviche. Now the ceviche has made way for feta, a cobalt-blue donkey keeps watch from a canvas, and the olive oil on the table is made by the executive chef's father. Bottarga reopened the site in autumn 2024 as a Chelsea bistro that takes its cue from the Greek islands.
A founding chef returns
Adam Rawson, the Pachamama Group's founding chef, came back to help shape the menu with executive chef Tzoulio Loulai, who trained in Athens. The olive oil connection is literal: Loulai's father produces it in Greece. The group began in 2014 with Pachamama in Marylebone, followed Chicama in 2016, then turned Greek with zēphyr on Portobello Road in 2022. Bottarga is its more casual sibling, and Nina in Marylebone and Lagana in Shoreditch followed in 2025. Bottarga itself is cured, pressed fish roe, grated over pasta and bread around the Mediterranean.
The olive oil comes from the executive chef's father, which is about as local as Greek gets in Chelsea.
The room
This is a date-night bistro. Expect low light, real wax candles, glassware cabinets, exposed pipework and a busy open kitchen, with chilled house music over it all. There are also wooden floors, panelled walls, narrow white-clothed tables and crockery gathered from antique markets by brand director Yaroslava Malkova, with mixtapes from the Greek DJ Georgios Kalamotousakis. Think modern Mykonos meets West London. The pavement terrace is built for lingering, and the bar counter overlooks the kitchen for anyone dining in pairs.
What to order
Begin with bread, grilled sourdough or pita, for the spicy feta dip and whipped red pepper. The saganaki tapioca bites, rolled in sesame and finished with thyme honey, are gooey enough to pass for mozzarella. Courgette fritters, kolokithokeftedes, are another early pick, and calamari rings arrive crisp outside and tender within.
The dish to order first is the golden bottarga orzo: a rich, paella-style pan of orzo that tastes strongly of the sea, here with grilled almond-dusted prawns. For the main event, an ex-dairy ribeye on the bone, UK-reared and supplied by Txuleta, is cooked over charcoal and served with a stifado jus built on bone marrow, generously sliced and deeply marinated. The lamb belly is rich enough to be a one-person affair, and the confit potatoes in brown butter are the side that gets finished first.
Dessert is, in the restaurant's words, non-negotiable. The burnt chocolate cheesecake, made with Original Beans' Piura Porcelana chocolate, arrives under a pour of salted caramel sauce and is enormous. The orange pie with kumquat is the alternative.
The hedge is practical rather than culinary. Tables are narrow, those near the door can be turned quickly, and the cocktail glasses are smaller than expected. Not a cheap evening, either, though fair for the King's Road.
Drinks
A Negroily adds a splash of olive oil to a Negroni, the pisco sour winks at the Peruvian past, and a Margarita Icarus carries Bird's Eye chilli, habanero and kumquat. The wine list stays with Mediterranean grapes and European classics.
A group that made its name on pisco and ceviche now trades on feta and orzo, and Chelsea seems happy to follow. Book the terrace, and go hungry.
- The vibe
- Candlelit L-shaped bistro, open kitchen, Greek-island mixtapes, terrace on the King's Road.
- The food
- Bottarga orzo with prawns, charcoal ribeye, saganaki bites, burnt cheesecake.
- The drink
- Negroily with a touch of olive oil, or the chilli-led Margarita Icarus.
- A tip
- Ask for a table away from the door, per Fabric's review.
