Arthur’s Market has opened on the King’s Road, and instead of attempting to be everything at once, it does something rare – it joins the dots. What looks, at first glance, like a luxury deli quickly reveals itself as a closed loop of supply and appetite, where buying and eating are part of the same habit.
The shelves come first. An overflowing pantry of ultra-luxury goods; fruit, vegetables, vinegars, preserves and rare Japanese ingredients – everything you’d need to attempt one of the more complex TikTok-inspired recipes you’ve decided, optimistically, to put effort into. Items you’d never see in any other shop make this the first stop on any weekend food excursion.
A fishmonger anchors one side of the room with serious-looking fish, handled expertly and clearly set up to feed the Izakaya it sits alongside. ASA Izakaya, by day, serves hand rolls of such high quality that you briefly forget where you are. By night, it becomes a sit-down dining experience built around good sake and combinations of obscure seafood and pantry ingredients pulled directly from the shelves.
Across the market space, the butcher works with aged meat that looks as though it has been given time and attention. This concession feeds the deli – properly good sandwiches, bright salads and slow-roasted coffee with a welcome edge of bitterness. The meat also makes its way into the second restaurant at Arthur’s, Salvador. A wood-fired grill bistro that highlights this produce from breakfast through to dinner, with Sunday roasts completing the picture.
Alongside sits a high-end wine bar, calibrated to work just as comfortably with ASA’s seafood as it does with Salvador’s meat.
The supply chain at Arthur’s Market is self-sufficient. Nothing is decorative. Everything is in use – for sale, on the menu, or being prepared in front of you. It takes the logic of a farmers’ market and applies it indoors, refining it into a luxury dining experience that feels considered rather than contrived.
