April 23, 2026
By the time you sit down at Brasserie Angelica, our all-day European brasserie at street level on Newman Street, a great deal of quiet work has already been done.
The culinary decisions were made hours before you arrived. Long before the room fills with the particular hum of a Fitzrovia day, Executive Chef Christian Turner and his brigade have already been feeding the wood-fire grill to temperature, tasting the cep cream sauce, arranging the sandwich trolley that will leisurely make its circuit of the room as you enjoy your lunch.
The chef behind the kitchen: Christian Turner
Turner came to Brasserie Angelica from a lengthy career with the Wolseley Hospitality Group — most recently as head chef at The Delaunay — and brings with him a style shaped equally by his Australian background and a deep respect for European brasserie tradition. His approach is precise without being showy: classic techniques, quality ingredients, a menu designed for repeat visits rather than singular occasions.
This experience surfaces in the details. The chicken pie draws on the sour-cream pastry popularised by culinary figure Maggie Beer — a richness that feels comforting rather than indulgent. His signature dish, the hake tail, takes the opposite approach: kept deliberately simple, served with brown butter and capers, because — as Turner himself has put it — “the quality of the fish speaks for itself.”
“For me, it’s about clarity and generosity on the plate, letting great ingredients speak for themselves while ensuring every dish feels considered, comforting, and quietly memorable. We keep things simple: cook with intent, respect the produce, and create food people genuinely want to return for.
Fitzrovia’s balance of energy and neighbourhood feel really shaped Brasserie Angelica, it still feels like a place that belongs to the people who live and work here, and we wanted to be part of that rhythm. Ultimately, it’s about creating somewhere guests return to without thinking twice – whether it’s a midweek dinner or a long lunch, because they feel looked after across the whole experience. The dishes I’m most proud of are often the most understated – simple on the surface, but quietly layered, where nothing shouts and everything just works as it should.”
– Christian Turner, Executive Chef
Live fire, Nordic touches, seasonal ingredients: the menu
The grill is Turner’s engine room, sitting at the heart of a menu built around live-fire cooking and the freshest seasonal ingredients. King prawns arrive with herb garlic butter; a rare breed pork chop with parsnip purée, heritage carrots, and verjus; chicken paillard with a soft herb salad. For sharing, Angelica’s mixed grill — lamb chop and kidney, thick cut bacon, Falu sausage and stuffed tomatoes — or a double tranche of halibut with hasselback potatoes, winter greens, and grain mustard sauce.
Turner’s cooking philosophy is rooted in a Nordic sensibility, favouring restraint rather than elaborate flourish. It’s evident in starters of gravlax with pickled cucumber salad, and a Swedish West Coast Salad with prawn, mussel, crab and mushroom. Mains lean into the comfort of a roast chicken, mushroom and tarragon pie with cep sauce, a confit duck leg with haricot beans and parsley salad, or a Västerbotten cheese tart with smoked onion purée and fine beans.
His sourcing runs through UK producers and London suppliers: the ingredients arrive with provenance, and Turner’s kitchen treats them accordingly.
Desserts carry the same logic: crème caramel with toasted brioche, lemon and blueberry custard tart, and, for those who want a lighter close, a cardamom bun or canelé from the sweet bites selection. The Manjari chocolate pudding has already attracted a following, its molten centre and rum and banana ice cream a reminder that comfort and finesse are not mutually exclusive.
What ties it together is a philosophy that Fitzrovia’s own dining culture understands well. This neighbourhood has always enjoyed substance over spectacle: the writers who gathered in the Fitzroy Tavern were there because the company and the drink were good. Brasserie Angelica fits right in.
The lunch hour: when the sandwich trolley arrives
At midday, something shifts. A sandwich trolley begins its circuit of the dining room, a piece of theatre that is somehow also entirely practical. An idea with deep Northern European roots, the smørrebrød spirit translated into a Fitzrovian lunchtime, it has become one of the most distinctive features of the restaurant. Giles Coren, writing in The Times, was sufficiently taken with it to single it out: “Best of all? A sandwich trolley! A bespoke bloody wooden sandwich trolley, with a marble deck over an ice drawer and a glass top.” He declares the restaurant “A triumph!”.
If you’re stepping out between meetings, or you’re a neighbourhood regular who knows to time your arrival accordingly, you’ll find something rare in central London: a quick, considered lunch with a side of good humour.
The room itself: Lind + Almond’s design language
The setting that Turner’s food calls home matters. London-based studio Lind + Almond, responsible for the interiors across The Newman, have created a dining room that draws on Fitzrovia’s Victorian and Art Deco architectural layers while reading as entirely contemporary. Warm materials, well placed lighting, and a 24-seat terrace for outdoor dining across the seasons.
The result feels half London, half Stockholm — a quality the food actively reinforces. It is also, simply, a very good room to be in: the kind of place where you’ll feel as at home with a book and a glass of Assyrtiko white as you would at a table of eight celebrating something.
Where the neighbourhood comes to eat: our table
Brasserie Angelica has been part of The Newman since February 2026. In the months since, it has gathered the kind of reception that comes from a kitchen with a clear point of view: noted by Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveller, and The Times, and warmly reviewed by the neighbourhood’s own diners too.
But the most telling measure is simpler than any endorsement. The regulars are already back. Meeting over breakfast, tucking into lunch, stretching out dinner with apéritifs and nightcaps downstairs at Gambit Bar — where Turner’s flatbreads, oysters, and rullepølse are served alongside cocktails and London beers on tap, plus a soundtrack of live music, DJ sets, and the kind of bohemian spirit and creative conversation that Fitzrovia has always done well.
