It speaks volumes that the kitchen takes up virtually a 3rd of the restaurant. There are, remarkably, solely 35 seats out there right here. Twenty-eight are unfold throughout eight tables on the bottom flooring and completely out there to order by way of cellphone, whereas upstairs, on the chef’s counter, seven have been put aside for walk-ins. Naturally, no expense has been spared in terms of the décor; even the lighting has been rigorously put in in order to not solid shadows on tables, whereas the serving station has been carved in Italy from a 1,800kg piece of Devon stone, and a hand-painted mosaic impressed by the works of Guido Mocafico adorns the ground upstairs. Jayasekara and Jefferies’s joint masterpiece, nonetheless, would possibly nicely be the 14-seat personal eating room, full with gold latticework and a Saracen hearth.

As for The Cocochine’s menu: it will likely be ingredient-led and served à la carte, with a single service every for lunch and dinner. Tellingly, Jayasekara toured greater than 25 nations to arrange his community of suppliers: suppose reindeer and cloudberries from Norway; single-origin chocolate by way of a Suffolk specialist; tuna and mirin from Tokyo; and coconut cream from—the place else?—Sri Lanka. “Each dish might be a signature dish,” Jayasekara tells me after I ask if there’s any merchandise on the menu that he’s notably enthusiastic about, though he admits to a sure fondness for a dessert juxtaposing caviar and chocolate, which he considers a revelatory pairing. “A profitable restaurant is at all times a query of concord – by way of components, by way of companions, by way of suppliers,” he muses. “Again of home and entrance of home. When all of these come collectively, you’ve gotten a improbable marriage. In any other case, it’s a divorce each evening.”