Vesper is the Roman name for the evening star, Venus as she shows at dusk, and Jackson Boxer has built a restaurant for that exact hour: a bar by the door, candles on the tables beyond, bistro seats on the pavement for anyone willing to trust a London evening. The name does double duty, since a Vesper is also a martini, and the bar is ready for both meanings.
Boxer's family tree
Boxer made his name at Brunswick House in Vauxhall, which he co-founded with his brother Frank and which has been going since 2010. In 2025 he turned Orasay in Notting Hill into Dove, home of an off-menu cheeseburger rationed at every service, and in early 2026 he relaunched Taq, also in Notting Hill. He is consultant chef at Cowley Manor and lent his name to Henrietta Bistro in Covent Garden. Vesper takes over the Exmouth Market branch of Taqueria, Taq's sister, which gives the move a pleasing neatness. It opened in the last week of May 2026, and Boxer describes it as his tribute to London, with adult pleasure and childish delight sharing a room.
A restaurant made for the hour between the office and the night.
The room
The designer Jermaine Gallacher, a friend of Boxer's, wanted a room built to last. The double-fronted corner has timber-framed windows, whitewashed brick (St John comparisons are inevitable), bentwood chairs, paper tablecloths and a candle on every table, with waiters in chocolate-brown shirts. The craft is in the detail. Tom Pullen carved the limestone panels by hand from Gallacher's drawings, the studded zinc bar and curved cloakroom door are Lawrence Andrew Chalk's work, and Will Jack made the steel and brass sconces and candlesticks, plus a door handle cast in pewter. The bar's studs come from an ancient door Gallacher saw in Italy; the carved stone lips borrow from a photograph in a book on New York restaurants of the 1980s. It is a classic bistro with a metallic wink. Take a stool at the bar, a long lunch behind the glass or a table out front.
What to order
Start with the salt-and-vinegar crisps, which arrive with trout roe and a smoked French onion cream: crisps dressed for dinner, and the snack everyone mentions. Then the spring onion pancake, paper-thin layers wrapped around raw tuna and Cantabrian anchovy, a single savoury mouthful. The fried potato pizzette, topped with mortadella, stracciatella and mostarda, is the dish that splits the room, a knockout when hot and a letdown when cold. Cucumber and Galia melon on cashew cream with chilli oil is the quiet, cooling plate, for anyone who fears a meaty evening.
Do not leave without the half roast chicken on bread sauce, shared: charred skin, a lift of lemon and juices that need the bread. Alongside, baked saffron rice laced with crab fat and duck fat chips. The chuck-eye steak Diane, served with grilled maitake, gives a neglected cut its moment, and dessert has run to English strawberries with baked cream. The burger is the rationed one: Gorgonzola, dry-aged beef, ask early.
The kitchen is uneven. The chicken and the crab-fat rice are the dishes to order, while the pizzette can arrive cold. The room is crowded and the tables are tight. Book knowing the room is lively rather than hushed.
Drinks
The Vesper martini gets a spritz of house-made citrus spray, the Dirty Negroni brings olives and saffron bitters, and there are a gooseberry margarita and a watermelon and lemon verbena sgroppino. The wine list leans western European and includes English bottles, among them a Walgate pet-nat.
Come at dusk, take the window and let Venus do the rest.
- The vibe
- Candlelit whitewashed bistro, studded zinc bar, terrace tables, lively and close-packed.
- The food
- Crisps with trout roe, saffron crab-fat rice, half roast chicken on bread sauce.
- The drink
- Vesper martini with citrus spray; gooseberry margarita; English bottles.
- A tip
- Ask early for the rationed burger; lunch runs Wednesday to Saturday.
