Kiln's head chef is opening two restaurants at once

Photo: Cody Bamford

Karla Knowles, head chef at Kiln for seven and a half years, opens her first restaurant on 3 November at 61 Charterhouse Street in Farringdon, with a soft launch running from 22 October.

PAM seats 45. A second restaurant, Aree, follows in Notting Hill in early 2027, taking the site e&o left on Blenheim Crescent, and both are owned jointly with the hospitality group Maisons Vivantes.

Karla Knowles spent seven and a half years at Kiln. Her first restaurant opens on 3 November, her second follows in early 2027, and a group owns both.

Maisons Vivantes was founded by Romain Bourrillon, who opened Cocotte in Notting Hill in 2016 and now runs five of them alongside Jusu Brothers and Casa Felicia, according to the trade title Restaurant. Knowles's partners are Romain and his brother Edouard.

That is the opposite of the route most East and Southeast Asian cooking has taken into London this year, which has run through hotel incubator kitchens, landlord-funded residencies and, in one case, a Kickstarter. Knowles ran a supper club series in the Charterhouse Street room through July and August, then opened with a group behind her.

The menu is Thai cooking built on British produce: miang kham, betel leaf wraps filled with seasonal vegetables; her version of khao soi noi, a Shan rice-flour pancake she came across in Mae Sai, in northern Thailand; and roast duck with frites and curry sauce. The restaurant will also run quarterly art exhibitions and events with chefs, winemakers and DJs, The Caterer reported.

Kiln, on Brewer Street in Soho, has become the most imitated Thai restaurant in Britain, and its kitchen is now exporting chefs rather than just techniques. Knowles cooked at Tramshed and Petersham Nurseries before it.

Backing removes the problem that has closed independents across London this year, and introduces a different one. A 45-cover room opens into a Farringdon that is still partly a building site: the opening coincides with the London Museum's redevelopment at Smithfield, as The Caterer noted, and the footfall that move is meant to bring has not arrived.

The two restaurants are also being positioned against each other rather than as a pair. Knowles told Broadsheet she wants Aree to be "a little bit more traditional" than PAM, with more of a neighbourhood feel.

PAM is at 61 Charterhouse Street, EC1M 6HA, three minutes from Farringdon. The soft launch runs from 22 to 31 October before the official opening on 3 November. No booking site and no prices have been published; the restaurant has been releasing details through its Instagram account.

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