Newcastle’s autumn openings: live fire on a rooftop, sushi with picanha, curry-leaf cod

The fall-apart beef rib on NIPO’s Quayside menu comes with mash made from mandioca, the cassava root Brazil cooks with, and it is the dish of Newcastle’s opening season. Since the start of September a rooftop live-fire kitchen, a Japanese-Brazilian dining room, an Indian café-bar and a brewery’s first pub have opened or are about to. Here is the status of each, and what to order.

How we chose: every restaurant, bar or café that opened in central Newcastle between 1 September and 7 October 2026 or has a confirmed October date, from local and trade press.

WYLD at Freight Island

On the top floor of Freight Island, the 60,000 sq ft food hall that took over the old Debenhams in Eldon Square in June, Nick Grieves and Lawrence Norman have cooked everything over fire since Friday 25 September. Grieves founded The Patricia and Ophelia, both listed by Michelin and both since closed; Norman co-founded Soku and cooked at Hjem. The pair got the room after Pine’s planned PYR was dropped by mutual agreement, and Pine’s sommelier Vanessa Stoltz is consulting on the wine. Preview dishes included a grilled lamb belly skewer, Cornish cuttlefish and red prawn. Go on a Sunday for the sharing roasts, and walk to the back windows for the view over the city.

Freight Island, Eldon Square · open since 25 September · book

NIPO

Open since Wednesday 23 September in the former Tomahawk Steakhouse at 95 Quayside, NIPO comes from Rodrigo Grassi Duarte and Howard Eggleston, who run the Rio Brazilian Steakhouses. They named it after São Paulo’s Japanese-Brazilian community, and head chef Connor Marley runs a sushi counter beside a robata grill and flame-cooked picanha. Share the Costela NIPO, slow-cooked beef rib with mandioca mash and gravy, and start with the fillet tataki in ponzu. At the bar, order the yuzu and ginger martini.

95 Quayside · open since 23 September · book

Jungli

The team behind Chakh Dhoom in Jesmond opened Jungli on Thursday 3 September in the old Castro’s bar between Hood Street and High Friar Lane, and built it as a day-to-night café-bar with chef’s tables facing the open kitchen and a shop selling clothes, art and books. Their take on fish and chips is beer-battered cod spiced with curry leaf, with “woo woo” chips and cumin peas. Children get a two-course Little Jungli menu for £10.

Hood Street, city centre · kids’ menu £10 · book or walk-in

Full Circle Brew Co at Fenwick

Full Circle has brewed at Hoults Yard in Byker for seven years, and this month, on a date not yet announced, its first pub opens in the first-floor space in Fenwick where the Golden Flake Tavern, Greggs’ 2025 pop-up pub, stood. Expect 12 taps and two cask lines, with guest beers from other independents, and fried chicken and smash burgers from the Newcastle street-food crew Peckin’ Order.

Fenwick, Northumberland Street · opening October · walk-in

Cheat Daze

Waffle balls arrived under an arch on Forth Street, behind Central Station, on Friday 2 October. Cheat Daze, a dessert chain with 14 stores across the UK, does them in flavours such as Biscoff and mallow mountain, alongside cheesecakes, kunafa and dirty sodas. Come for the sugar, not the cooking.

Forth Street, by Central Station · open since 2 October · walk-in

Checked October 2026.