Peyton scraps Osteria d'Isola concept

Restaurateur Oliver Peyton has scrapped the separate fine-dining restaurant, Osteria d'Isola, above his Restaurant Isola in London's Knightsbridge. Instead of the two restaurants one on top of the other, Peyton has now merged Osteria d'Isola with Restaurant Isola and put a "Manhattan-style" bar in its place. The new bar will be called Iso-Bar. Peyton admitted the reality of having two restaurants in Knightsbridge with a bar downstairs had not been a "great long-term concept". He said: "The problem before was that a lot of our customers expected to have a drink, go to dinner and then go back to the bar and they could not do that." Merging the two restaurants had meant losing between five to 10 seats, but staff numbers had increased from 48 to 60, mostly to service the bar. The two styles of cooking in the restaurant had also been merged to give a more unified contemporary Italian feel, Peyton said. The Iso-Bar, which opens tonight, will offer 64 different wines by the glass and a 350-strong wine list as well as wide range of cocktails. There is also a long bar, DJ booth and "Italian-style" antipasti bar. by Nic Paton