Scully restaurant, St. James’s Market

A great many brilliant things have been produced in Yotam Ottolenghi’s kitchen, from twice baked baby chicken with chilli and kaffir lime leaf salt, to the incredibly talented Ramael Scully.

Now Scully, the creative force behind much of the menu at Nopi, is departing to open his first solo London restaurant in the shiny St. James’ Market development in the New Year. This will be a huge deal for discerning foodies internationally and will bring a new exhilarating range of flavours to London dining.

Scully, who has worked at Nopi since it opened in 2011 (and before at Ottolenghi’s Islington café), is also the co-author of Ottolenghi’s Nopi cookbook.

Whilst the food at Nopi was Ottolenghi’s trademark Middle Eastern, Scully will draw on the wide-ranging culinary traditions of his own family heritage. His mother is of Chinese and Indian descent, his father is Irish Balinese, and Scully himself was brought up in Sydney. With such a cultural mix, expect a huge explosion of flavours using sustainably sourced ingredients from the British Isles in an informal yet refined dining room.

Scully plans to do this by creating a lot of his own spices in-house: by drying his own herbs, seeds and flowers, pickling his own vegetables, cultivating plant sprouts and concocting exotic syrups and extracts, besides making his own oils.

Ottolenghi, says of the chef: ‘Scully breaks the mould on any sort of ‘conventional cooking’; he has an insatiable appetite for bold and vibrant colours and irreverent blends of ingredients; his kitchen is an exciting and unexpected place to be.’

We can’t wait to see what comes out of Scully’s kitchen.