(Supplied)It’s a mid-week evening in Mayfair, outside one of London’s hottest new restaurant openings. And much of it is finding its way into the dining rooms of Mayfair, Soho and Covent Garden. Indeed, after a tough five years — the pandemic era of lockdowns, followed by the cost-of-living crisis — there are tentative signs that something of a fine dining restaurant opening boom may even be under way. According to Peter Harden, co-founder and editor of Harden’s London Restaurants guide, “gloomsterism” has been overdone this year. You have only to glance at the line-up of recent or planned openings over autumn and winter to appreciate just how vibrant the London restaurant scene remains, despite everything.