Benihana to open £2m Covent Garden restaurant
The restaurant will serve guests at teppan tables and it will feature 80 covers on the lower ground floor level, which includes two dining rooms, and 84 covers in the main area of the ground floor.
Benihana International has announced that it will open a new restaurant site at 31/32 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, in spring 2022.
The new site follows the closure of its Benihana Piccadilly site last month, which was open for 27 years.
Some £2m is being invested into the new Covent Garden restaurant, and the 7,717 square feet building is being redeveloped by interior designer Mathilde Le Villaine.
Additionally, guests will be served at teppan tables, each of which can seat up to 8 people. The restaurant features 80 covers on the lower ground floor level, which includes two dining rooms, and the ground floor also has 84 covers in the main area.
Benihana said the property will be “familiar to many” as the former home of pizzeria ‘Fire and Stone’, but diners at Benihana’s new international flagship restaurant “will find it changed beyond recognition” in spring 2022.
Additionally, Japanese aesthetics are “at the forefront” of the interior design, which includes natural materials “that will eventually weather with age”.
Jason Wischhoff, managing director, said: “Anyone who has visited Benihana will know that theatre is at the heart of the experience, where the chefs are the entertainers, and our guests are the stars of the show.
“We guarantee that the performance will be elevated to new heights that will set a new global standard in the world of experiential dining, or as we like to call it ‘eatertainment’”.
Wischhoff added: “Benihana is a truly international brand that is now scheduled to open in Morocco, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Fiji, Vietnam and other locations in the UK under franchise agreements. In 2020 we opened Phuket, Thailand and 2021 Niagara Falls, Canada.”