PYRO is the name of a new Greek restaurant that’s about to open in Borough Market.
And when people talk about this story, they’re inevitably going to focus on the fact that the last Greek place to open in Borough Market won a Bib Gourmand, and the one before that won a Michelin Star, and they were both run by the same guy, David Carter, and that he essentially owns the monopoly on the Greek-restaurants-in-Borough-Market-hegemony. See? We’re doing it right now.
But the fact is that this place looks like it’s got a lot of promise, and deserves to be talked about in its own right, and not in the shadow of some other culinary colossus.
So here goes: PYRO is the work of Yiannis Mexis, a Greek native whose CV glitters like a damn constellation. He’s moved from Elystan Street (one Michelin Star), to The Ledbury (three Michelin Stars), to Petrus (one Michelin Star), and finally HIDE (one Michelin Star) where he was head chef. And, we’re taking a wild, stab-in-the-dark guess here, but it looks like he’s the kind of chef who probably aspires to win Michelin Stars.
If you want to see for yourself if he’s got the chops for it, he’s running a preview of PYRO at Carousel in early March, with flame-kissed dishes like ‘asparagus, smoked eel & avgolemono’; ‘charred octopus, spiced red wine & yellow split pea’, and ’embered souvlaki with prunes, radicchio & sour apple’ on the menu. Sounds hot.
Oh, and the name? It means ‘fire’ in Greek. Just as a side note, it was originally called PYRO, but by weird cosmic coincidence another live-fire Greek restaurant with the exact same, ALL-CAPS-and-everything name decided to open in Queen’s Park.
Either way, the city’s going to get itself a case of PYRO-mania.
NOTE: PYRO is set to open in spring/summer. We’ll be back then with the full scoop. In the meantime, you can check out Yiannis Mexis’ residency at Carousel, which is running from 4th – 15th March. Get tickets here.
PYRO | Somewhere in Borough Market
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