Also read | Step inside Malaika Arora’s new restaurant in Mumbai’s Khar: Beautiful tropical sanctuary with a 140-year-old mango tree Celebrity restaurants are a dime a dozen. Theo James’ Lupa is not one of them. Tucked away on a quiet corner in north London, the Roman-inspired restaurant — built with co-founder and restaurateur Ed Templeton — feels deliberately unhurried, grounded, and allergic to hollow glamour. No velvet curtains. No photo wall. Just good design.
In a 2025 British GQ interview, The White Lotus actor opened up about how he had ‘always wanted to get into the restaurant industry’.
“We wanted to just do a local spot that was delicious, but also had a decent vibe,” he told the magazine.
From the outside, Lupa announces itself quietly. The corner restaurant is wrapped in a sublime, muted-yellow wooden facade, framing a simple glass door that feels more like a house than a celebrity restaurant . Also read | Inside Shilpa Shetty’s restaurant Inka: How expensive is a vegetarian meal here? The bar doubles down on that residential, home-kitchen nostalgia. Open wooden shelving runs across cream walls, lined with Italian staples — Campari, Cocchi, natural wines — plus simple glassware. A single milky-white globe pendant glows softly over the wooden counter. Add in beige abstract art and leafy potted plants, and you get texture without clutter. That’s the trick. Where most celebrity-backed spots chase trends, Lupa chases feeling. Warm wood, nostalgic lighting, tactile simplicity.
But before the food even lands, it’s the space that does the talking.
