In the nearly five years since it opened in the West Village, the Spotted Pig has lost none of its allure. Should they ever have thought otherwise, New Yorkers now know British pub food is about far more than egg and chips and meat pasties. In its no-booking policy and elevation of humble cuts, such as pork belly, pig’s ears or crispy sweetbreads, the Pig, as everyone knows it, is like a transatlantic Anchor & Hope, with the same laid-back, casual vibe. Except I have never seen the likes of Bono, Beyoncé or Bill Gates nursing a pint as they wait for a table in the South London gastropub.

In the great tradition of restaurateurs, co-owner Ken Friedman, the former manager of the Smiths and UB40, was inspired not by a desire to revolutionise the New York eating scene but to provide somewhere he and his mates could hang out. “There are lots of great, great bars in New York, but I don’t know who made the rule that they all had to have really bad food,” he says. “And for the most part, restaurants have lousy bars, somewhere just to wait for your table. They’re not for people to do what I like to do, which is sit at the bar, eat at the bar, stay at the bar. I guess the idea of a bar, pub, tavern, whatever you want to call it, that also serves great food was a real novelty here.”

But clearly he is growing up, because he and his business partner, head chef April Bloomfield, this week launch a new place, the John Dory, in the Meatpacking District, and it’s an altogether more formal outfit with linen tablecloths, reservation books and everything. “We could have done six more Spotted Pigs,” Friedman says, “but for me it’s much more fun to do something new. It’s not about making lots of money – if I wanted that, then I would have stayed in the music business.”

As the name suggests, the John Dory will be a British-inspired seafood restaurant, with lobster bisque, crab salad with fennel, roasted mullet with squash, and the eponymous John Dory roast on the bone with salsa verde. “I love J Sheekey, Scott’s, Sweetings, which Fergus Henderson took me to…. And my first stop in London is always for seafood at the Cow in Westbourne Grove. The Dory will be a kind of Victorian pub meets tiled fishmonger, the sort of place you can hose down at the end of the night.”

It will also give 34-year-old Bloomfield, who left London five years ago, a chance to flex her culinary muscles. (She got the Pig job when Friedman, through his friend and coinvestor Fatboy Slim, tried to hire Jamie Oliver. “He told me I wouldn’t be able to afford him, but recommended April, who had arrived at the River Café a week after he left.”) “The nice thing about fish is you don’t have to mess around with it too much,” says Bloomfield. “If you do it right, you can let the fish speak for itself.”

And hopefully, speak to The New York Times. Friedman is mildly obsessed with getting a good review from Frank Bruni, the paper’s feared critic, who has “damned” the Pig with only one star. “And we’ve got that many Michelin stars,” says Friedman, aggrievedly. “Friends tell me food critics take seafood very seriously, so April will be taken seriously as a restaurant chef if she can nail this seafood thing.”

She shouldn’t worry on that score. When Vanity Fair asked Bruni where he’d go for a late lunch on a cool autumn day, he replied: “The Spotted Pig because it has the kind of comforting food that whispers that winter is around the corner.”

They’ll be hoping to hear similar of the John Dory soon.

The John Dory, 85 Tenth Avenue, New York (00 1 212 929 4948; www.thejohndory.com)

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