London steakhouse chain Black & Blue opened its fifth restaurant this month, in Borough Market, and has plans to open a sixth branch in Chiswick next year.
The new 140-seat restaurant in Rochester Walk includes a 50-seat bar on the ground floor and a Champagne bar upstairs.
Black & Blue is the brainchild of Nick Hill and Alan Bacon, who built up the Tootsies burger bar business before selling to Andrew Bonnell in 1999. They opened their first Black & Blue in 2000 in Kensington Church Street and have since added branches in Gloucester Road, Hampstead and Wigmore Street.
Bacon said that work would start on a 90-seat restaurant in Chiswick in January, ready for an opening at the end of next summer. He is also looking at sites in Canary Wharf and Spitalfields.
Bacon added that he did not want to expand beyond London. However, in the longer term, the business might be sold and had been designed to be rolled out nationally.