Why London Restaurants Are Expanding to New York City

New York City is home to the most diverse culinary scene in the world. On one Manhattan block, diners can often choose between Italian, sushi, Mexican, Thai, Persian, Chinese and more, all within a few steps of each other. A city where restaurants are opened without competition, but because of that, attracted by palates that enjoy discovering new foods and new ideas.

However, recently, there has been a new trend: restaurants with an ethos close to their hometown, London, are crossing the Atlantic and setting up shop in New York City. Whether they serve Indian, Irish, British or Japanese food, these restaurants share one thing in common: they have already achieved great success in London. Simply put, a wave of London-based restaurants are now opening in New York, regardless of where they source their food.

The movement raises a few obvious questions: why now? And why New York?

After speaking with several restaurant owners jumping into the New York market, two similar headlines emerge. Some extend to NYC because New Yorkers are very similar to London diners in taste and manners. Others head regionally because they’ve identified a gap in the New York restaurant scene—one that fits well with the food they serve.

Farmer J falls squarely into the first camp. The fast-casual restaurant, known for its custom-made, high-quality, “anti-slop-bowl” Fieldtrays, has become a lunch staple at its 18 London locations. Last month, the brand opened its first New York location in midtown Manhattan, aiming to tap into the weekday crowd craving fresh, healthy food.

“We decided to expand to New York because, like London, there are a lot of people here who want good quality food made with good ingredients and delivered quickly,” Alice Henderson, US managing director of Farmer J, told the Observer. “A fast-paced location in New York made sense, and we knew we had the right product.”

As Henderson notes, London did not serve as a testing ground—18 sites in one city speak for themselves. The real test, instead, was whether a city across the ocean might crave the same type of food for the same reasons. For the most part, the answer is yes.

That said, some differences needed to be addressed. New Yorkers, Henderson explains, expect more customization, so Farmer J now allows diners to customize their orders a bit. They’re also more grab-and-go than their London counterparts, more likely to head straight to their desks than linger over lunch.

For Rik Campbell, founder of the Indian restaurant group Kricket, the decision to enter New York was driven less by similarity and more by absence. “We looked at New York before Covid-19 and saw a lack of Indian restaurants,” he told the Observer. “In 2019 and 2020, the market was under the index. You see places like Semma now, but it’s still a long way from what the UK has, which is very comparable to the Mexican food scene here in New York.”

While the pandemic delayed Cricket’s initial plans, the group now aims to open its first location in New York in the spring of next year. And although Campbell plans to bring the same menu and experience that London diners know well, New York presents its own challenges.

“Many of the chefs in Indian restaurants in New York are Mexican,” noted Campbell. “That would be unusual for us. In London, there are a lot of Indian cooks: 80 to 90 percent of Indian restaurants have Indian staff. That may be part of why there are fewer Indian restaurants opening here. Employment is something we really have to consider.”

The same mix of familiarity and opportunity drew Matthew Carver, founder of British restaurant group The Cheese Bar, to New York. While he realized that British and American audiences share a deep passion for cheese, he also noticed a lack of a specific type of cheese-centric dining experience in NYC. That realization helped inspire the first New York edition of Pick & Cheese—his most successful London restaurant—set to open this April.

“I think New York’s food culture is as good as London’s,” Carver tells the Observer. “Neither country has a deep cheese-making tradition, but both have developed a fun, old-fashioned food culture over the last 20 or 30 years. I spent a lot of time in New York visiting cheese and wine bars, and I really felt that there was a gap for a place that focused on local cheese. I had a hard time finding that.”

Add to that the growing difficulty of operating restaurants in the UK, the size of the US market, the lack of a language barrier and the palpable enthusiasm New Yorkers have for new openings—and the way across the pond becomes clear.

Ultimately, these entrepreneurs—and many other London-based success stories preparing for their New York debut—all identified something missing from the city’s restaurant scene. And as New Yorkers, our role is simple: show up hungry. After all, who has ever said no to opening a new restaurant?