Chef Adam Liston's Honcho dream is over

Adam Liston's hotly anticipated Korean-Japanese-Chinese restaurant, Honcho, is no more after he decided to part ways with his business partners, and owners of the site lease, the Halim Group (of the Windsor Hotel) after a series of planning delays.

The 60-seat restaurant, which was expected to open this month, has been built offsite and is ready to be assembled on the scrap of land between Rosa's Kitchen and Longrain in Punch Lane but residential objections have pushed the approval process back until at least January.

"It's definitely still going to be something," says Adi Halim of the Halim Group, "but without Adam it won't be the Honcho concept."

Halim says they've got a few other partnerships in mind and they're "confident" they can open a new concept in the space in the new year.

And Liston? "As the Honcho concept was really a leap from what we were doing at Northern Lights it'll be on that path, in terms of the food … but exactly what I'm going to be doing I don't really know yet."

While he says he's disappointed that project won't be going ahead, he'll use the next few months to reassess before deciding on his next move. "It's just an unfortunate part of being in the restaurant industry."