Florence Knight’s Lunette will open in London later this month offering a ‘chef-led’ menu

It began with a water glass. Long before Lunette’s first menu was written, chef Florence Knight had chosen the cutlery, obsessed over the weight and size of the glasses (she went with creations by Danish designer Alexander Kirkeby) and imagined how curtains might catch the afternoon light. To Knight, these are crucial decisions. They are shaped by the same principles that shape her cooking – restraint, texture, seasonality and softness.

Opening later this month, Lunette is Knight’s first solo venture. Over a decade ago, she rose to prominence as head chef at Polpetto, a refined offshoot of the late, great London restaurateur Russell Norman’s Polpo. She reset the standard again after becoming Sessions Arts Club’s first head chef in 2021. When entrepreneur Mark Wadhwa offered her the chance to open something of her own on the 11th floor of Soho House founder Nick Jones' first post-Soho hotel, St. Clement, she fell in love with the space and light of its Thameside setting. ‘Even as a building site, I could visualise myself and my food here immediately,’ she says. ‘It felt very intuitive.’

Knight has spent the past two years bringing Lunette to life. She describes the process as an onion skin: ‘I wanted it to feel like I was creating layers and textures.’ The original building is brutalist, so it was key that softness, natural movement and ‘human touch’ were added. The voile curtains in the floor-to-ceiling windows are fine enough to show off the views of the snaking Thames and Houses of Parliament beyond. They let enough light in to bounce off the steel tabletops and the wall-hung metallic vintage Jean Prouvé panels sourced – like many things in the space – by Eagle and Hodges.

The statement bar is made of steel, as is the kitchen, which guests will be able to see as they arrive up the stairs. ‘Everything seems to mirror everything else,’ says Knight. ‘It’s not overdecorated or overwhelming. There’s real clarity.’ Flowers are another way Knight has brought colour and movement into the space. ‘They’re alive, much like food.’ Elsewhere, mismatched coasters have been made by hand, using Alex Eagle’s fabric remnants. ‘These things feel playful to me, and they take away from everything feeling sterile.’

Lunette will serve a changing four-course menu at lunch and eight courses in the evenings. Knight describes the style of cooking as ‘a more distilled version of everything I’ve done before’ and the menu itself as ‘carte blanche – not quite omakase, but the idea is that it’s chef-led’. This could mean a tomato tatin, made with tomatoes and brown sugar on buttery puff pastry, served with tomato water. Or milk custard with Cévennes onion sauce, baked onion petals and caviar. ‘The custard dish is something that will run through as a bit of a narrative in what we do,’ she explains. ‘It’s a very soft, milky, rich custard with a lovely foam that dissolves in the mouth.’

Naturally, the dish will evolve with the seasons. Lunette’s name also references the rhythms of the seasons. ‘All this glass reflecting the light, the view at night when you can see the moon from the restaurant, and the idea of the moon having phases felt very fitting,’ she says. ‘And then there’s the architecture – there are lunette windows everywhere outside.’ Knight now has a full team, and is preparing for launch. Just as in a moon cycle, Lunette’s circle is about to be completed.