February 13, 2026 |
Sitting at the junction between Soho’s Newman Street and Goodge Street, nestled neatly in between stylish restaurants and contemporary art galleries, is The Newman. It’s freshly opened, warmly welcoming the public from February 1 to be exact, and brought to us by Kinsfolk & Co – a team that boasts experience managing some of London’s most beloved boutique hotels like the Beaumont. Describing itself as “your new old friend”, The Newman fits in perfectly with its Fitzrovia surroundings – modern, but informed by a rich heritage.
You get a similar feeling when drinking and dining at the hotel’s new bar and restaurant. The sexy, game night-inspired Gambit Bar, settled in the basement at the tail of a winding, cocoa-coloured staircase – and the light and spacious Brasserie Angelica, which sits above it – are newcomers to the scene. And yet, they feel like they should’ve been there for years. Each has a distinct interior, but they’re linked through the Art Deco influences that appear across both. With these influences repurposed by London-based design studio Lind + Almond, the space feels like the kind of place where Mad Men’s Don Draper would have enjoyed an icy Old Fashioned, without feeling at all dated.
We started our night at Gambit Bar, as most would. The drinks menu, crafted under the direction of head of food and drink Eder Neto, whose CV boasts beverage director at The Standard and group beverage director at Nammos Group, which oversees luxury hospitality spots in Mykonos, Dubai, Cannes and more, offers a healthy number of choices.
The cocktails stick largely to the playbook theme. There’s Kings and Queens, which tops a Bulleit Rye Whiskey with olive and sweet vermouth. Or for something fruitier, you can opt for It’s Your Game, which pairs Ketel One Vodka with a fruit bowl of lychee, raspberry, blood orange and lemon. If cocktails aren’t your bag, there’s a vast wine list too that seems to touch all corners of the grapey globe. Reds, whites, rosé and orange wine from Portugal, France, Greece, Argentina, California and more are spread across two pages of a leather-bound drinks menu; enough to make a conscious choice, limited enough to be manageable for the everyday punter. And if alcohol isn’t to your taste at all, the entire cocktail list has zero-proof alternatives, a feature which further shapes Gambit Bar’s impression as a spot for the modern Londoner, who might not be as keen on a drink as the generations before them.
Despite its infancy, the bar was buzzy, but not overcrowded – the perfect conditions for an evening drink with a date or a mate. The space is stylish, bronze and oak in its palette, building its 60-cover capacity through low-level armchair seating, metal-legged bar stools in a muted green leather and curving booths that sit across from the bar, finished with sage velvet. An attentive waitress asks what we would like, to which we respond the non-alcoholic True Gift (blood orange and almond, lime and soda) and the alcoholic Kings and Queens. Both come quickly and are delicious. We sip slowly, leaning into the suave tone of the place, listening to Ashanti and Mary J. Blige being spun on vinyl by a head-bobbing DJ at the end of the row of booths. When finished, we get escorted upstairs to start our meal. You can tell The Newman is created by people who really care about hospitality.
The tone upstairs is much brighter, but by no means less slick. Brasserie Angelica feels like the angel to Gambit Bar’s devil. The seating is beige, as are some of the finishes, whilst the walls and tables are predominantly crisp white. There are a lot of glasses around, the chic kind with the wafer-thin rim. They’re perched on the tables, behind the bar, hanging upside down, off to the side of the dining space, and light pings off their spotless bodies, first chucked out by a bulbous light that is the main ceiling feature. Another friendly-faced staff member leads us to our table, snug in the corner, with a frontal view of the subtle design features like the hanging lamps with half-moon shades or a coffee bar with oblong indentations carved out of its base, that once again call upon its trusty Art Deco codes.
The food is delicious but not pretentious, courtesy of executive chef Christian Turner. We start with the Josper grilled heritage carrots, referring to a specific Spanish charcoal oven that gives the veg a light but smoky taste, and the mushroom dumplings, which are served atop braised pearl barley and drizzled with chive oil. The portions were perfect – proper, adult-sized plates, but not enough to stuff you before your main. And thank goodness, because the mains were damn good too. I opted for the 280g ribeye (I’m a firm believer that at a fancy restaurant, treating yourself to a steak is simply self-care) with a side of fries, whilst my guest got in touch with their British roots and ordered the roast chicken, mushroom and tarragon pie, which arrived in a shallow moat of cep sauce. Both were cooked to perfection. The pie’s pastry was flaky and light, its filling moist and moreish, while the steak was tender and the fries golden yellow with just the right amount of crunch. Too stuffed to take on a whole dessert each, we finished off our evening of decadence by splitting the sweet and creamy lemon and blueberry tart.
We left wholly satisfied. Bellies full of a lip-smacking feast, our last interaction – a pleasant chit-chat with the maître d’ that traversed where we were heading back to and the funky print inside my guest’s coat – felt like an apt finish to our evening. Down-to-earth, friendly but stylish and attentive to the Londoner who walked through its doors, an evening at The Newman and its sleek subsidiaries is one to pencil into your diary.
Photography courtesy of Gambit Bar and Brasserie Angelica.
