Internet chef Thomas Straker has opened a deli and casual restaurant called Acre, a few doors from his flagship Straker’s on Golborne Road in Notting Hill. Straker’s is temporarily closed following a fire in its ventilation system, but is popping up for three weeks at nearby Brasseria on Westbourne Grove.
Thomas is pitching Acre as “a lot quicker compared with Straker’s: think people grabbing a quick lunch before heading back to the office, or a few beers and a burger after work.”
It is also “a chance for us to do more of the food that I tend to cook on Instagram, which is a little more accessible day to day” – an approach that should guarantee queues at the door, given that he has amassed an astonishing 3 million followers on the app since launched himself on social media when the world was trapped under lockdown in 2020-21.
He added that he would like to open “four or five Acres” around London in the next couple of years.
Making the most of his global fame, Thomas also plans to open a restaurant in New York later this year, having acquired the lease of Keith McNally’s Lucky Strike in Manhattan’s SoHo, which closed in 2020 after a 31-year run.