2015 begins with Kitty Fisher’s. This cool "wood grill" on Shepherd Market with "Young British Foodie" Tomos Parry in the kitchen had a soft-ish opening before Christmas but it’s fully up and running now and Parry’s burnt onion butter and aged Galician beef is all I’ll be thinking of this month. It’s hard to imagine what could compete with this place for sheer hotness, but, London being London, there are some contenders.  Step forward Inaki Aizpitarte from Le Chateaubriand in Paris. The self-taught Basque chef’s 11e arrondissement bistro is the definitive Paris "neo-bistro" and its first outpost, Le Chabanais, opening on Mount Street in March, will be huge.  Also arriving from Paris is Les 110 de Taillevent, courtesy of the legendary Taillevent restaurant. It opens mid-year on Cavendish Square and, as one might expect, there will be classical French cuisine and stellar wine.  Spain, meanwhile, will be represented by three-Michelin-star chef David Muñoz of DiverXO in Madrid who brings his street food-inspired spin-off StreetXO to Old Burlington Street in June. Muñoz has worked in London before (at Hakkasan and Nobu) so he knows the scene.  Gordon Ramsay’s recent launches haven’t grabbed me hugely but I’m hoping for something spectacular when he revives the old Aubergine site in August. 11 Park Walk was where it all began for him so it matters.  Ramsay’s former colleague Jason Atherton never stops. His Social Wine and Tapas opens in April, mere weeks before he debuts Social on Madison at New York’s new Edition Hotel. Then he’s back for more in July, with a Japanese restaurant in EC1 – quite a departure for him.  Alan Yau has kept us waiting for his trio of new openings but the good news is that his casual Turkish place, Babaji Pide, has thrown open its doors and his "Chinese gastropub" Duck & Rice follows shortly. We’ll have to wait until March for Park Chinois to finally bring its brand of Shanghai chic to Dover Street.  Jacob Kenedy’s perennially packed out Bocca di Lupo is a never-fail Soho favourite, so I’m excited about his next project. We don’t know much yet but we know is that it’s going to be a big "boisterous, accessible, affordable and utterly delicious" casual Italian, launching this spring on Cambridge Circus.  Among the newer names, Taiwanese steamed bun specialists BAO are the ones to watch. With backing from the Sethi family (whose other interests include Gymkhana, Lyle’s and Bubbledogs), they hit Soho in spring. And for the last word in luxury, there will be Biblioteka in St James’s, the £15 million behemoth from Bob Bob Ricard’s Leonid Shutov. It promises a library of fine wine, British and Russian food and "London’s most talked about dining room interior" in late 2015. I can’t wait.
The year ahead in restaurants looks set to be an exciting one, as homegrown talent takes on international stars