Incipio Group will open Juno, a 265-cover Italian restaurant it is billing as the UK’s largest, at London’s Olympia estate on 16 October 2026. The venue occupies part of the Grade II-listed National Hall and is one of four Incipio Group restaurants forming the group’s food and drink offer at the redeveloped site.
Juno will seat 265 covers with room for up to 500 guests including standing space, across an 11,500 sq ft unit within Incipio Group’s wider 39,000 sq ft food and drink allocation at Olympia. The restaurant includes a dedicated 10-seat Pizza Napoletana counter served by three pizza chefs and one of only two ovens of its size in the UK, an electric Zanolli AVGSTO capable of producing up to 300 pizzas an hour. Ed Devenport, chief executive of Incipio Group, said Juno is “a significant opening for Incipio Group and one that we have approached with real ambition.”
A flagship opening inside Olympia’s redevelopment
Juno joins Wolves of Tokyo, Lillies and Arbour as the four Incipio Group restaurants opening within Olympia’s wider redevelopment, a west London scheme reported to represent around £1.3 billion of investment across the site. The National Hall, a Grade II-listed exhibition space, has been converted to house part of the venue’s food and drink offer alongside new event space. Incipio Group has not disclosed how much it is investing in Juno itself, or in the other three restaurants opening alongside it, figures that franchised operators can benchmark against published guidance on what it costs to open a franchise in the UK.
The claim behind the headline
The description of Juno as the UK’s largest Italian restaurant is Incipio Group’s own characterisation, based on its 500-guest capacity; no independent count of comparable Italian restaurants nationally has been published. The venue is set to trade daily from midday to 11pm, with a team of around 50 staff once it reaches full capacity. Electric ovens capable of the temperatures needed for Neapolitan-style pizza, such as the Zanolli model installed at Juno, remain uncommon among UK operators, most of whom still rely on wood or gas-fired designs. Equipment specification at this scale is one of the larger fixed costs in opening a restaurant in the UK, whether independently or under a brand agreement.
Good to know
A “cover” is UK hospitality shorthand for one seated diner at a table, distinct from a venue’s total capacity, which can include standing and event space. Juno’s 265 covers sit inside a wider 500-guest capacity.
Part of a wider expansion for Incipio Group
Incipio Group operates its restaurants as a company-owned portfolio rather than as a franchise network, a distinction set out in our guide to how franchising works in the UK, and the Olympia opening adds four sites to that estate within a single development. It illustrates a pattern increasingly visible across UK hospitality, in which multi-site groups cluster several brands inside one large-scale regeneration scheme rather than opening standalone units street by street. Devenport’s description of Juno as approached “with real ambition” points to the venue being positioned as the group’s most prominent launch of the year.
What comes next
Juno is scheduled to open on 16 October 2026, alongside the continuing rollout of Olympia’s wider redevelopment, which is expected to bring further restaurants, hotel space and event venues online in stages. How the venue trades once it beds in, and whether Incipio Group later discloses turnover or investment figures specific to Juno, will shape how closely rivals in London’s competitive Italian dining market watch the opening. Operators looking at the sector from the other side can compare restaurant franchises recruiting in the UK.
Dining and Cooking