Fenix, London W1: Big, bright, brash, dumbed down, shameless and open to all' restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Fenix is a new Greek restaurant on Piccadilly in Mayfair and fits a maximalist pattern of modern openings. The interior is sumptuously ornate and Athenian-influenced, creating a transition from busy traffic into an Aegean-inspired haven. The restaurant is run by the Permanently Unique group, the same brothers who opened Tattu, a chain of flamboyant Chinese restaurants. Tattu features multiple themed dining rooms, neon walkways, mock bridges, koi ponds, tapestries, smoke-billowing cocktails, a giant cherry blossom tree, cauldron-like bars, and incense at reception. Despite skepticism that such style would not work in London, Fenix opened in Manchester in 2023 and brings a more serene version of the same approach.

"Fenix, a new Greek restaurant on Piccadilly in Mayfair, is very much part of what I'm calling the maximalist group of modern openings. See also Lilibet's and Simpson's-in-the-Strand. Financial downturn? Never heard of her. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. While restaurateurs are all over the media turning out their empty pockets and pleading poverty, this new offshoot of a Manchester institution casually throws down another Sims-style pleasure palace."

"The photographs of the sumptuously ornate, Athenian-influenced interior can't be real, surely? Well, it turns out they are. As you leave six lanes of moving traffic behind you and enter Fenix, eureka! You're suddenly in a cross between an Aegean god's haven and the White Company's bedding department. Why am I surprised? After all, the place is run by the people who opened Tattu, the six-strong chain of equally flamboyant Chinese restaurants owned by brothers Adam and Drew Jones of the Permanently Unique group."

"Tattu, which has sites in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Dubai, boasts multiple differently themed dining rooms, neon walkways, mock bridges, koi carp ponds, tableau tapestries, cocktails that billow smoke, a giant cherry blossom tree, bars that resemble burning cauldrons and incense pumped into reception. Tattu makes Gordon Ramsay's Lucky Cat feel like Scandinavian simplicity. Fancy and very rich': Fenix's moussaka with Cretan graviera cheese In a world of earnest, single-sheet menus and Who Gives A Crap? loo paper hospitality, Permanently Unique says: Hold my coat! That's all well and good in Manchester, people sniffed about Tattu, but it'll never work in London."

"But people were wrong, and now the Jones boys have taken Fenix, which opened in Manchester in 2023, south, too. That said, Fenix is 1,000% more serene than Tattu. It's in"

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