Last month, Corbin & King restaurants launched brand new grand café, Bellanger, in the heart of Islington. The 195-cover restaurant features a relaxed, all-day brasserie menu with classic Alsatian overtones, featuring typical dishes such as a range of tartes flambées, choucroute, baeckoff, coq au riesling and a number of sharing dishes.
Following in the footsteps of Corbin & King’s immensely successful The Wolseley café, the restaurant’s interiors offer a contemporary twist on rich, old-fashioned European elegance.
Shayne Brady of Brady Williams, conceptualised a restaurant space that had three architecturally resolved rooms, all in a light, handsome, Belle Époque style. The Front Room features large, fold-back windows that look out onto Islington Green. Warm, glossy wood panelling lines the walls, whilst opulent detailing such as bevelled mirrors, antique wall lamps and chandeliers, and ornate plasterwork with customised motif and beading is scattered throughout.
Subtle woven blue banquettes and traditional rush-backed seating offer plush levity to the dark wood furnishings. A long bar, with high bar stool seating and standing room leads to the intimate, carpeted Upper Room.
Bellanger’s wine list is principally French-based, with a focus on the wines of North Eastern France and the border region with Germany, and a notable selection of wines by the glass. The bar also offers a range of traditional dark and blonde Alsace-Lorraine beers on tap, including a range of monastic beers.
Bellanger will open for weekday breakfast from spring 2016.
