Last Updated on January 4, 2026
Fine dining in Belgravia
August’s restaurant of the month is Cornus, a brand new opening from the team behind Medlar in Chelsea. Heading up the kitchen is executive head chef Gary Foulkes whose career highlights include starting out with Gary Rhodes, working with Philip Howard at The Square and more recently taking the Angler to its first Michelin star. Pastry chef Kelly Cullen makes the move from Cornerstone (and previously worked at Angler too). We went along excited to discover what Cornus is all about. This is the kind of restaurant we all love to review.
Cornus is located on the top floor of the Ice Factory building, somewhat hidden away in Eccleston Yards off Eccleston Place in Belgravia. Luckily there’s a lift to speed you straight into the restaurant.
There’s a cool, sleek, airy feel to Cornus’s dining room. Lots of curved woods lend a mid-century feel and pristine white nets gently blow in the breeze coming from the outdoor dining terrace. This is a restaurant that exudes a hushed and serious well-heeledness.
One of the many delights of dining at Cornus is the steady appearance of unexpected bites of food. First to arrive and setting the scene for the delicious meal to follow was the cheesiest of gougeres – crunchy choux packed with a rich molten gruyere sauce and topped with yet more grated cheese.
Breads are presented here in a large wooden log (evoking a startling memory of the Log Lady in Twin Peaks though I’m sure this is not Cornus’s intention). I couldn’t resist trying both the focaccia and the wholemeal: both very good.
The amuse-bouches kept on coming too. Next up was the freshest of Cornish blue-finned tuna topped with n25 caviar and shiso blossom and sitting on top of a tiny potato galette. Third came a cauliflower tartlet made with perfect pastry and 96-month parmesan.
We admitted to the sommelier that we wanted to try a wine from the lower end of the price spectrum. She checked our main course choices before suggesting the 2020 Villa Mattielli Soave Classico, a smooth, perfectly chilled wine with lots of flavour. Soave is definitely back on my radar after this.
One of the many things I liked about the food at Cornus was the amount of detail on each plate. I found myself eating my starter of warm salad of artichoke hearts very slowly and in tiny mouthfuls in case I missed anything. The dish also features crispy quail eggs that summoned images of a superior Scotch egg without the sausage meat, plus summer beans, both green and yellow, and shavings of summer truffle, all bound by creamy mayonnaise. Then deep down I discovered the tiniest of croutons, adding yet more texture and interest to this lovely dish.
All the dishes at Cornus are visual treats and none more so than my companion’s starter: the handpicked Devon crab with Hass avocado, wasabi and finger lime all veiled in a light transparent jelly. The fine fresh crab, hint of heat from the wasabi and cool avocado sorbet made for a gorgeous and unusual combination.
I picked the roast wild turbot, niçoise potatoes, coco beans, summer courgettes and tomato for my main course. Again the sheer number of flavours and textures on the plate slowed me down while I savoured them all. The bed of potatoes still keeps coming to mind – essentially all the flavours of a niçoise salad (including hardboiled egg, capers and slivers of green beans but not the tuna) combined into the most perfect accompaniment for the perfectly cooked fish.
My companion went “surf and turf” for her main dish with the roast Landes chicken (Arnaud Tauzin) and Scottish langoustines. This was served with truffle sweetcorn and a roast chicken sauce. She loved the proper deep chicken flavour (“the taste of a scraped-out chicken pan”), the crispy skin and the obvious quality of the meat. It turns out the Landes chickens are raised on a diet of cream and maize. Adding to the pleasures on this plate were the intense miniature mushrooms run through with the roast chicken juices. She wasn’t sure that the langoustine wholly belonged and thought a chicken terrine would have been a better fit.
Another course to appear unbidden but welcomed was a generous plate of cheese, a three-year-old Comté and a four-year-old Gouda.
Only I succumbed to the pudding menu and picked the creamed rice pudding, caramelised oat milk, cherries and cherry ripple ice cream. My companion declared it the prettiest rice pudding she’d ever seen. The mixture of creamy rice with earthy cherries and almond brittle was very good indeed.
Coffee at Cornus comes with petit fours so my companion was not hard done by and I was quite prepared to continue eating too. This was another chance for the restaurant’s talented pastry chef to show off her skills and we enjoyed fig and creme fraiche macaroons, chocolate and pistachio amaretti and hazelnut and clotted cream fudge. The fudge was a revelation, tasting like salted praline with the consistency of fudge – I’m not sure why this isn’t a “thing”.
Dining at Cornus may be pricy but it includes lots of welcome extras and the food is very good indeed. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals at Cornus and could easily see the amount of care that has gone into the creation of this special menu. Plus it’s staffed by a highly professional, welcoming team who are clearly rightly proud of their new opening.
Cornus Restaurant
27c Eccleston Place,
Belgravia,
London SW1W 9NF
Other new openings on our radar this month
The Punchbowl: Reopening at the end of August is the newly refurbished Mayfair pub that was once famously owned by Guy Ritchie and Madonna. The Punchbowl, now in the Butcombe Brewing co. stable, will offer a menu of oysters, Sunday roasts and very superior pub grub. Watch out for London Unattached’s review – coming soon.
Marceline: Canary Wharf’s emergence as a foodie destination continues with the opening of a stylish floating brasserie in Wood Wharf. The aim at Marceline is to mix up the charm of authentic Parisian brasseries with a touch of New York. Heading up the kitchen is Robert Aikens (La Gavrouche and Pastis) with highlights including Skate Kiev, Escargots de Bourgogne, Steak frites and Ravioli du Dauphine.
Find out more on the Marceline Website
Looking for more recent restaurant openings? Check out our Restaurant of the Month features for the Best New London Restaurants in 2024
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