Honey & Co restaurant group owners Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer always knew that 2026 was going to be a huge year. The 10-year leases for two of their sites – the Honey & Spice deli on Warren Street and Honey & Smoke Grill House on Great Portland Street – were coming to an end. Not to mention that in May, their fifth cookbook, Honey & Co Daily, would be released. The question was: what would be next?
When it came to the Warren Street site, the answer was to say goodbye. “We needed a bigger space,” says Srulovich. “Over the years it’s been our more experimental, adventurous space, but we now have a clearer understanding of what our guests want, and how to give it to them.”
But with the larger Great Portland Street restaurant, the husband-and-wife team wanted to begin a new chapter. The dream was to continue serving their style of Middle Eastern cuisine, honed over nearly 15 years of owning their own restaurants, and before that, cooking with the Ottolenghi team – but in keeping with how Londoners dine now. As Srulovich explains, the concept for the new Honey & Co Great Portland Street began with a wine conundrum.
“Ever since we opened [in 2012] we had the big question: what do you drink with Middle Eastern food? It’s not a foregone answer.” Instead of following a “northern European paradigm of really fancy wine, and it feeling performative”, over the years the pair have honed a wine list with “a Mediterranean spirit… something that’s easy, accessible, fun”. But they knew that they needed to expand their wine programme even further.
When the time came to renew the Great Portland Street lease, and refurbish the restaurant, things clicked into place. “Combining those two projects unlocked a really amazing energy for us,” says Srulovich. “We thought, why don’t we do things in reverse: look at the wine and think about the food as a complement?”
To do this, the pair continued their collaboration with Keeling Andrew, the Bloomsbury-based wine importer founded by the co-owners of wine bar and restaurant group Noble Rot. “They are our neighbours on Lamb’s Conduit Street, and really understand our ethos,” says Srulovich, “so it was a no-brainer to work with them”. The result is a long wine list that roams from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon to Greece, Spain and Italy – with some Californian and English in the mix, too. “Our wine list is similar to our food ethos: small family producers, real attention to the grapes, and looking at the Mediterranean, predominantly,” he says.
Dishes are designed to pair with the wines. Instead of Honey & Co’s usual mezze starters with 10 to 12 different things on the plate (“lots of flavours are really difficult to drink with!”) the menu is a more focussed selection of dishes designed to be shared. Srulovich describes it as more “democratic… you can have a three-course meal, you can have nibbles, you can have something more casual or committed.” Some Honey & Smoke favourites will remain on the menu, including the charred half octopus with crispy potatoes, and of course, the group’s famous honey and feta cheesecake.
New dishes include grill-kissed whole charred prawns with preserved lemon and fermented chilli relish, and larger plates like Greek-style lamb chops and cauliflower rice with flaked almonds.
The redesign of the space reflects the restaurant’s ethos of accessibility. “We call it ‘cosy casual’,” says Srulovich. Warm and intimate, the front of the space will function as a deli counter by day, neighbourhood wine bar by night – leading into a candlelit dining room with table linen and burgundy and ivory walls.
Srulovich hopes that the new space will be accessible at many levels – from a takeaway sandwich in the deli to a few small plates and some wine, or a blowout birthday meal. “People can’t necessarily spend as much, but if you have a place that you love, then maybe you can go there for a sandwich, made with the care that your blowout meal is made with. We want to be as open to as many people as we can.”
Honey & Co Great Portland will open on Monday April 13. Join the mailing list to be first to know when bookings go live. Honey & Spice will close on Saturday March 28.
