New London restaurant, bar, bakery and grocery shop Toklas has opened its doors. Housed in a brutalist building dating back to the 1970s, the new 70-cover restaurant on London’s Surrey Street, off The Strand, is the brainchild of Frieze magazine and art fairs founders, Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover. The restaurant, named after the writer Alice B Toklas, nods to the love of food she documented in her eponymous 1954 cookbook, with an elegant, mostly fish- and plant-based Mediterranean menu.Design details are carefully considered throughout by Stafford Schmool, formerly of the Barbican Centre and the British Council. Vintage design accents, such as a reclaimed parquet floor, reclaimed iroko table and counter tops and Børge Mogensen chairs, make an elegant foil for the bespoke pendant LED lights and comfortable green leather banquettes. A large 1993 Wolfgang Tillmans photograph commands the attention in the dining room; in the bakery, custom units make a continental display for the fresh breads and patisseries.
