Joy and Graham Applebee are among the longest-serving traders at Borough Market, London, having founded their fresh fish stall in December 1999, before expanding into a restaurant seven years later. Their son Jack, who took over as CEO in 2015, along with his two brothers, is marking Applebee’s 25th anniversary by reopening after a redesign of the space and a menu revamp.
Wallpaper* dines at Applebee’s
The mood: seafood and eat it
Jack tasked interiors studio A-nrd, which most recently designed Santiago Lastra’s Fonda, with reflecting the journey of the restaurant’s produce from sea to plate. Seafood is whisked off a fresh fish counter before being licked by the flames of a bespoke live-fire grill – built by British Metal Craft in nearby Bermondsey – while counter seating surrounding an open kitchen provides guests with a bird’s-eye view of their meal being cooked. Come in fine weather and a refreshed alfresco area might almost make you think you’re in Brixham, not Borough.
‘At 25 years old, Applebee’s is one of the oldest restaurants in Borough Market, so we wanted the interior to feel transportive and immersive, in the sense that it feels truly part of the fabric of the market,’ say Alessio Nardi and Lukas Persakovas, co-founders of A-nrd. ‘We incorporated design details from the market façade into the oak trim around the base of the open counter that overlooks the live-fire grill and, of course, [this] being a seafood restaurant, it was only right to showcase the catch of the day.’
The food: sustainably sourced catch of the day
Executive chef Frankie van Loo was, until recently, head chef at Jason Atherton’s Michelin-starred City Social. Applebee’s will find him in a more informal mood, though no less thoughtful, with weekly changing menus of sustainable British seafood dictated by the seasons and whatever is landed each morning by the dayboats from Devon and Cornwall. Star billing goes to Dover sole, dry-aged in the restaurant’s Himalayan pink salt chamber to ensure the perfect crispy skin when it hits the grill, paired with brown shrimp and lemon butter. Side orders of coastal greens, from sea-vegetable foraging specialists in Cornwall, are just as carefully sourced.
Applebee’s is located at 5 Stoney St, London SE1 9AA, United Kingdom; applebeesfish.com
-
Tobi Masa lands at The Chancery RosewoodChef Masa Takayama’s debut London restaurant transforms modernist geometry into a space of ritual calm and culinary purity
-
Bionic Labs builds precision next-level Apple accessories from aluminium and stainless steelFrom stands, chargers and keyboard trays to a set of accessories for the Vision Pro, Parisian design studio Bionic Labs offers only the best for your Apple gear
-
Yuko Mohri’s living installations play on Marcel Duchamp’s surrealismThe artist’s seven new works on show at Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca explore the real and imaginary connections that run through society
-
Tobi Masa lands at The Chancery Rosewood
Chef Masa Takayama’s debut London restaurant transforms modernist geometry into a space of ritual calm and culinary purity
-
London’s smash burger obsession goes haute with Supernova MayfairNew York designer Sarita Posada taps into 1970s nostalgia and cinematic restraint for the group’s third outpost in the British capital
-
Peek inside Uchronia’s celadon green suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde ParkThe Paris-based studio teamed up with Pantone to transform a suite at the storied hotel into an aquatic dreamscape. Here’s how to check in
-
The Chancery Rosewood: A new chapter for London’s modernist iconAfter years behind closed doors, London’s most anticipated hotel opening finally arrives, proving that some things are worth waiting for
-
The Hart Marylebone marks the next chapter in London’s design-led pubsThe trio behind The Pelican and The Hero turn to Marylebone, fusing Victoriana, intimacy and culinary honesty in their most ambitious project yet
-
This 100-year-old private members’ club in London feels young at heartThe Sloane Club unveils a stylish new rebrand and redesign courtesy of Russell Sage Studio
-
The ancient and the erotic inspire Sessions Art Club’s Frieze London 2025 pop-up‘I think food should hum beneath the skin, like a good painting,’ founder Jonny Gent tells Wallpaper* on the opening of his temporary restaurant-cum-art-installation
-
Somerset restaurant Osip sets the table for a different kind of art showChef Merlin Labron-Johnson’s Michelin-starred restaurant hosts an artist-in-residence exhibition exploring form, materiality and the poetics of place
