New live-fire restaurant Kāio has opened at The Whiteley in Bayswater, bringing Mediterranean and Levantine-influenced cooking to Queensway. Head Chef Sachin Mistry runs the kitchen around a tabun clay oven and a charcoal grill, alongside a circular bar and a terrace. The restaurant's soft opening runs to 1 August, ahead of its grand opening on 5 August 2026.
The opening has already drawn coverage from Restaurant Online, reporting on Kāio's arrival at The Whiteley this summer.
What kind of restaurant is Kāio?
Kāio cooks Mediterranean and Levantine-influenced food entirely over live fire. There's no gas range hiding behind the pass — a tabun clay oven and a charcoal grill sit at the centre of the kitchen, and most of what reaches the table has passed over one or the other. The menu moves across raw and cured starters, flame-grilled seafood, slow-glazed meats and seasonal vegetables, built around the idea that fire changes food in ways a conventional oven can't replicate.
Head Chef Sachin Mistry leads the kitchen. His background runs through the Dorchester Grill, BiBi, The Cross at Kenilworth and Akoko before Kāio — a run of kitchens built on precision as much as flame, which shows in how restrained the plating is here. Nothing on the pass is dressed up to compensate for the cooking method; the method is the point.
Where exactly is Kāio, and how do you get there?
Kāio sits inside The Whiteley, the redeveloped landmark building at 163 Queensway, Bayswater, London W2 4BD. Queensway and Bayswater stations are both a short walk away, and Kensington Gardens is close enough for a walk before or after dinner. Dinner service runs Tuesday to Saturday, 6:00pm to 11:30pm.
What does the soft opening actually mean for guests?
A soft opening is a calibration period, not a trial run — the kitchen, the floor and the bar are all operating at full service, just with a slightly longer runway to settle before the room is at full capacity every night. Kāio's soft opening runs from 21 July to 1 August 2026, and tables are open to book now. The grand opening on 5 August marks the point where Kāio is running exactly as it's meant to, every night, for everyone.
What's inside — the room, the bar and the terrace?
The dining room wraps around the open kitchen, so the tabun and the grill are visible from most seats rather than tucked away. A circular bar anchors the centre of the space, and a terrace opens off the main room for guests who want to eat outside while the weather holds. Between the main dining room, the bar and the terrace, there's enough range in the space to suit a quiet two-person dinner or a larger group booking without either feeling like an afterthought.
The Whiteley's other tenants — The Park, Rudy's Pizza, Whiteley's Kitchen at Six Senses and M&S — are opening across roughly the same run of months, which makes this stretch of Queensway one of the more concentrated openings Bayswater has seen in a while. Kāio is the live-fire anchor of that corner: not a pop-up, not a preview, but the kitchen as it's meant to run for years ahead.