Every great London kitchen eventually has to decide what to do with the people it has trained. Clare Smyth's answer is a bistro with a cornucopia pun and a side menu devoted to the potato.
The Core family tree
Corenucopia opened on 3 December 2025 at 18-22 Holbein Place, a few steps from Sloane Square. Smyth's line runs through Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, where she spent thirteen years and became chef patron of the dining room, to Core in Notting Hill in 2017. This is the next branch, and the people running it are Core's own. Head chef Gary Mundi came from Canada in 2019. Restaurant manager Lynn van Logtestijn arrived from Denmark the same year as an intern and left as assistant restaurant manager and a certified sommelier. Head sommelier Valentin Picon has poured at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Mauro Colagreco at Raffles OWO. Smyth calls it a luxury bistro, and in February 2026, ten weeks after opening, Michelin recognised Mundi's classics.
“Fish and chips, made by a kitchen that learned its trade under three Michelin stars.”
The room
The building dates from 1889, and its recent tenants were 1771 and then the short-lived Italian steakhouse Tabisca. Tanya Gold found a ground-floor mansion-block room of small cream spaces and golden velvet banquettes, with plaster branches on the walls, still-life flowers, a copy of The Dairy Book of British Food on a shelf and a glass-fronted fridge of oysters and caviar in the hall. Photographs show cream panelling, mustard velvet seating and a white central counter lined with glassware. Downstairs, the Cellar Room has quilted brown leather walls and a crystal chandelier. Dent found it busy with well-off locals just off Sloane Square, and the banquettes expensive enough to make her wary of greasy fingers. One diner called the seating comfortable and the room pleasant. It suits a long lunch with someone who likes their nostalgia expertly done.
What to order
Start with the grilled olives on skewers with eel and timut pepper, which are pure pleasure. Smoked salmon pate under dill jelly with mini buttered crumpets is the other opener to love. Then the signature: fish and chips as Dover sole fillets wrapped around lobster mousse, served with mushy peas and triple-cooked chips, and a gilt-framed vinegar menu offering balsamic, barrel-aged sherry and champagne. The chips are crunchingly crisp outside and fluffy within.
Do not skip the potato menu, which grew out of Smyth's childhood on a farm in County Antrim. It runs from pommes Anna and dauphinoise to Davidstow Cheddar croquettes, hasselback and fondant, and it is the highlight. The vol-au-vent is brilliant. Chicken Kyiv, stuffed with cheddar and Serrano ham, and toad in the hole with Cumberland sausage and black pudding keep the nursery theme going. Pudding brings a single profiterole with Tahitian vanilla cream, a Hibernian tiramisu made with Jameson, or the sherry trifle.
Not everyone swooned. Coren read the pitch as high-low and semi-ironic 1970s, put most of the cooking at good-gastropub level and found the fondant abject, one diner was a little underwhelmed by the fish and chips, and Dent found the playlist of Status Quo, the Stones and Oasis distracting. Gold advises against truffle on the potatoes.
Drinks
Valentin Picon builds the list with Core's master sommelier, Gareth Ferreira, and the vinegar menu is a drink of sorts. Dent went for malt.
London has spent a decade insisting comfort food deserves serious technique. Corenucopia takes the argument at its word, and puts a sole where the cod used to be.
- The vibe
- Cream-panelled Chelsea bistro, mustard velvet, white counter, dad-rock playlist.
- The food
- Sole fish and chips, eel olives, vol-au-vent, Kyiv, a full potato menu, profiterole.
- The drink
- Chunky wine list from Core's sommeliers, plus a vinegar menu for the sole.
- A tip
- Order from the potato menu, skip the truffle, and ask for the vinegars. Tanya Gold.
