New Soho opening: Impala

Impala opened in Soho on March 26, giving chef Meedu Saad his first solo restaurant after years leading the kitchen at Kiln. (hot-dinners.com) The restaurant is at 14 Dean Street and is built around an open charcoal grill in the dining room plus a wood oven. Saad named it after a cherry-red 1964 Chevrolet Impala he drove during summers in Egypt. (standard.co.uk) (hot-dinners.com) Saad said the project had been in development for five years. He is joined by Fanny Derozier, another Kiln veteran, who leads front of house. (standard.co.uk) The food pulls from Saad’s Egyptian family background, his north London upbringing and his classical French training, rather than one single national cuisine. Early dishes included baked river fish, spit-roast mutton, grilled sea bass and bream, and rice baked with ghee in clay pots. (standard.co.uk) (hot-dinners.com) The opening also extends the reach of Super 8, the restaurant group behind Kiln, Brat, Smoking Goat and Mountain. Hot Dinners described Impala as the group’s fifth restaurant and compared the buzz around it with Mountain’s opening three years earlier. (hot-dinners.com 1) (hot-dinners.com 2) Design is part of the pitch. Super 8 co-founder Benjamin Chapman worked with designer Dan Preston on a room they said was meant to mix the feel of Cairo Friday markets with a Soho bar, using concrete pillars and polished veneers. (hot-dinners.com 1) (hot-dinners.com 2) Before the opening, Saad and Ikoyi chef Jeremy Chan staged a one-night dinner on March 7 to preview Impala’s flavors. The 10-course menu centered on charcoal grilling and paired Saad’s north Africa-to-north London influences with Ikoyi’s spice-led cooking. (standard.co.uk) By early April, The Standard’s David Ellis called Impala “a brand new type of restaurant in a copycat world” and gave it five stars. Hot Dinners, after a March 31 visit, said it was “the restaurant everyone’s talking about right now.” (standard.co.uk) (hot-dinners.com) For Soho, the result is another live-fire restaurant from the team that already helped define the area’s recent dining boom. For Saad, it is the first restaurant carrying his own name, references and grill style from the start. (hot-dinners.com) (ft.com)