London Museum x Green & Fortune: Four New Smithfield Restaurants and Bars Opening November 2026

MeMo has been appointed to lead PR and influencer communications for a landmark London launch. Green & Fortune and London Museum have announced four new food and drink venues opening at the museum’s new Smithfield home on 28th November 2026, one of the most anticipated cultural openings in the capital and a decade in the making.

The four concepts are Clerks House at London Museum, a 140-cover all-day dining room; Bartholomew’s, a bar with a London-inspired drinks programme created with Mr Lyan Studio; the Temperance Cocoa Rooms, a café open daily with round-the-clock hours from Thursday to Sunday; and The Roost, a rotating residency space for the city’s emerging food talent. Chef Robin Gill joins as Food Curator, overseeing the culinary direction across all four alongside Green & Fortune Chef Director Dan Rampat.

The 10-year contract, won through a competitive tender, also makes Green & Fortune the exclusive catering partner for the museum’s commercial venue hire. London Museum expects more than two million visitors a year at Smithfield, and food and drink is built into the visit rather than bolted onto it.

“The ambition of London Museum will be matched by a hospitality offering and programme unseen in London. The Green & Fortune team, together with our collaborators, Robin Gill and Mr Lyan Studio will collectively create authentic London food and drink experiences for both museum visitors and Londoners alike. Making food and drink, not just part of the experience, but a reason to visit. We are a proud, deep rooted London business and are embracing the opportunity to develop a selection of new and refreshingly different locations in the museum, that will shift the dial in what galleries and museums offer.”

– John Nugent, Chief Executive, Green & Fortune

Clerks House at London Museum

Clerks House is Smithfield’s new all-day dining room and bistro, rooted in London’s culinary history. Located in the heart of Our Time on the General Market ground floor, the 140-cover restaurant celebrates seasonal produce, craft and skill alongside the cultural influences that define London’s food scene. It serves breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, plus weekend brunch and Sunday roasts.

Menus feature beef and lamb from Green & Fortune’s own farm and pies curated by Robin Gill. Expect dishes such as mutton stew with barley, root vegetables and fresh herbs, and a take on the traditional Billingsgate sandwich with hand-dived scallop, crispy smoked bacon and scallop roe butter. There are seasonal plant-based dishes, smaller portions of mains for younger visitors, and a weekly changing wine list mixing old world, new world and skin-contact wines from small growers. Clerks House will host a monthly ticketed dinner club alongside one-off events, and is available for private hire.

Bartholomew’s

Bartholomew’s is a contemporary London bar named after Bartholomew Fair, the city’s original summer festival, held in Smithfield for over seven centuries. Mr Lyan Studio curates an evolving cocktail menu that riffs on London Museum’s seasonal events and displays, working alongside Green & Fortune Head of Beverage Joe Boxall. The first seasonal menu takes its cue from London Tastes, the museum’s inaugural programme. A permanent London Made list draws on the grit and glitter of the city’s story, with a signature seasonal shandy serve and a draught London Museum lager.

Sat in a prominent position on Farringdon Road on the perimeter of the museum, Bartholomew’s is built to work as a street-side destination for after-work drinks as well as a museum pit-stop. Food focuses on elevated pub classics and snacks. The interior, which captures the changing colours of the day, blurs the boundary between inside and out and reads as a contemporary take on the classic London hostelry.

Temperance Cocoa Rooms

A rare historic survival rediscovered during the museum’s renovation, the former Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms returns to its temperance roots as a sober socialising space for the city. The menu adds a modern twist to the original: customisable hot chocolates, a bespoke recipe ginger beer, coffee mocktails and a late-night float menu. Food runs to pastries, hot carved breakfast and lunch sandwiches, toasties and soups, with a signature tamarind and date spiced Chelsea bun nodding to the history of London’s spice trade. Coffee comes from Peckham’s Old Spike.

Open daily, it runs round-the-clock hours from Thursday to Sunday to echo the 24-hour rhythm of the city, so early risers, night owls and post-service crowds all converge in the same room. It is a tee-total meet-up space with room for community clubs, intimate events and talks. Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms emerged in the 1870s as part of the temperance movement, offering an alcohol-free alternative to public houses for working men, and served Smithfield market workers for 40 years. Architectural features have been retained, including the Edwardian Art Nouveau ceramic tiles with yellow buttercup designs uncovered during the renovation.

The Roost

The Roost is the creative hub, where some of the city’s best street-food concepts pop up for periods of up to six months. It is built to nurture emerging talent with a platform to bring their ideas, menus and stories to Londoners. Details of the first residency will be released in the coming months. After that, residents will be chosen through a competitive process with a judging panel featuring Robin Gill and Dan Rampat alongside guest judges.

Each resident gets The Roost as a test kitchen: a take-away format by day, transforming into an intimate evening offering for up to 14 diners. While in residence, the chef is mentored by John Nugent and Robin Gill on running and developing the business, covering menu development, marketing, operations and finance. The space is designed to adapt to whoever is in it, so each resident can add their own identity.

The people behind it

Robin Gill made his mark in London through restaurants like The Dairy and Darby’s, where he set a benchmark for meticulously crafted seasonal food with a deep respect for producers. Irish-born and London-made, his work extends to television, cookbooks and events, including Bloodshot Supper Club, his late-night feast for chefs. He joins Green & Fortune as Food Curator, handpicking the best food and drink London has to offer.

Mr Lyan Studio is a strategic consultancy for drinks and hospitality, founded in 2015 by Ryan Chetiyawardana. Described by the Evening Standard as someone who has “done more to change the landscape of London than most MPs”, Ryan brings creativity, sustainability and a sense of fun to his projects. His original bar, White Lyan, was the first in the world to use no perishables, no fruit and not even ice. His current London venues include Seed Library and the award-winning Lyaness at Sea Containers London.

Interiors across the four spaces are designed by Russell Sage Studio in partnership with Green & Fortune, blending restored original features with contemporary design.

“At London Museum, the food alone will be a reason to visit. Working with Green & Fortune we want to curate an experience that reflects the vibrancy of London and tell London’s story through food. We’ll be partnering with the best London producers and nurturing up-and-coming talent in the capital which is an exciting proposition. Bring on 28th November!”

– Robin Gill, Food Curator

A decade in the making

The opening completes a decade-long restoration of the Victorian General Market, returning the disused historic building to public use for the first time in over three decades. Spanning 150,000 square feet, it is part of a £437m project delivered through a partnership between the City of London Corporation and the Mayor of London, and one of the most ambitious cultural redevelopments of the coming decade. Many of the venues have street entrances as well as access through the museum, and together they celebrate London’s food culture past and present, from pie shops and oyster bars to late-night cafés, bakery counters and modern street food.

“Food is how London meets. Over a table to share plates and opinions, a coffee to catch up with friends, or a drink before the music starts. In the museum, we will offer four distinct experiences that give people both a place and a reason to come together. Working with Green & Fortune, alongside Robin Gill and Mr Lyan Studio, it will be part of how we tell London’s story, drawing on Smithfield’s legacy as a place that has fed and entertained Londoners for close to a thousand years.”

– Nathan Lamb, Director of Experience and Enterprise, London Museum

MeMo’s role

MeMo leads PR and influencer communications for Green & Fortune at London Museum, from the announcement through the full build-up to opening across all four venues. Four launches inside one building, on one date, is a genuinely unusual brief: each concept needs its own identity and its own audience, while the whole thing has to read as one story about London Museum. Press, creators and social pull in the same direction on this one, which is the only way an opening of this scale lands.

More detail on each venue will follow over the coming months. For press enquiries, please contact greenandfortune@wearememo.com