Ara Restaurant to launch in East London

Chef patron Murat Kilic is set to launch Ara, a new, 76 cover (+20 outdoor), all-day dining restaurant, in East London on 1 May 2025

Ara is Kilic’s third venture following the success of its sister restaurant Amber.

The self-taught chef grew up in his native Turkey where he loved to cook with his grandfather. As a teenager, he moved to London to train as an electrical engineer before moving to the food industry and clocking up years of experience in restaurants.

Kilic started as a kitchen porter, progressing to various positions in both back and front of house. In 2012, he launched café/bistro Route in Dalston (now sold), followed by Amber near Aldgate East in 2018.

The new restaurant’s interiors, designed by Nina Woodcroft, founder of Nina and Co., who also designed Silo, incorporate materials to minimise waste, such as pineapple leather from pineapple farm discards for upholstery, galvanised steel offcuts to create light installations, elm wood from diseased trees for banquette and booth seating and recycled plastic transformed into tabletops and bar facades.

Dishes will include grilled potato flatbread with homemade cultured butter, mussels skewers with roasted chicken wings in butter sauce, blackened leeks with muhammara and XO sauce, and slow-cooked short rib with date demi-glaze.

The team will also reduce waste by using kitchen by-products for cocktails and work with sustainable drinks producers like Discarded Spirits Co. and 58 and Co. Additionally, the restaurant’s wine list will feature organic, biodynamic, and low-intervention wines that each tell their own story of sustainability.

Ara’s wine list has also been curated by general manager Wade Mundford, who co-owned The Melusine with Theodore Kyriakou, whom he met while working together at The Greek Larder.

In a departure from previous ventures, Kilic stated that his menu at Ara will be a “melting pot of global flavours without borders and influenced by his love of travel and experimentation”.