Itaku opens in London

Itaku has announced its opening in London’s Great Portland Street.

Featuring a “unique” produce-driven menu of Italian cuisine created utilising Japanese flavours and techniques, the new destination is an addition to the Fitzrovia and Marylebone restaurant landscape.

With interior design by Maria Morra, the white marbled flooring and skylight provides a sense of “openness”. The restaurant also said the art selected for the space combines “authentic” local talent.

According to the restaurant, it has combined its “expertise and passion” for the hospitality industry to co-create this new venture. Itaku is led by restaurateur Jean-Bernard and head chef Ivan Simeoli.

Bernard is “well-known” for his long-standing celebrity studded Cannes film festival pop-up restaurant Cosy Box, now in its 15th year, and Simeoli has contributed to some of London’s “most esteemed” restaurants; The Royal Academy of Arts and The Wallace Collection, as well as Michelin starred Osteria Francescana in Italy.

The restaurant said Simeoli brings his “infatuation” for combining Italian heritage with Japanese influences to Itaku and has devised a menu focusing on fresh, locally sourced ingredients.

The menu includes: raw mazzara red prawn, grass fed beef, carrot tartare, trout guanciale pizzetta, truffle carbonara and aged soy balsamic chicken, to name a few.

Additionally, Simeoli has created a set lunch menu offering guests a compact selection of Itaku signature dishes with a choice of two or three courses.

The drinks offering is in keeping with the Japanese-Italian motif, with a cocktail menu curated by Nicholas Medicamento, featuring bourbon angel’s envy, cocchi torino, shiraume ginjo umeshu, or madame butterfly; Belvedere vodka.