Zest, the in-house restaurant at JW3 is set to make history by becoming the first kosher establishment in the UK to offer customers the option of a meat or a milk meal on the same premises.

The popular restaurant in the Jewish cultural centre in North-West London has been working on plans to open a meaty kitchen for months.

Joshua Owens-Baigler, Zest restaurant manager, is expected to open the meat kitchen to the public for the first time on Sunday.

The restaurant now has two separate kitchens which have been designed to avoid any cross-contamination, and there are also two separate areas for customers to dine in.

Mr Owens-Baigler said: “After a careful consultation with the Sephardi Beth Din, and with the full support of the Sephardi Kashrut Authority we are changing our restaurant to be meaty while simultaneously keeping our café milky.”

The dining areas have undergone a minor facelift to facilitate this change, he said.

“Most of the change is ‘soft’ as we didn’t want to significantly alter our architecturally acclaimed building.”

The changes include repurposing some of the store rooms and kitchens to provide for a separate milky kitchen for the café. A SKA shomer will be on duty at all times.

A new meaty pot wash area has been created, and the milk and meat areas are to be separated by locked doors.

Mr Owens-Baigler added: “The corridor between them is cut, so chefs cannot walk between the two.”

The restaurant now has its own set of meaty cutlery and crockery, which have a different design from the milky set used by the café.

Mr Owens-Baigler explained: “We’re using the old colourful plates in the café with new copper coloured cutlery, and we’ve bought new pale coloured plates and new cutlery for the main restaurant so there can be no mix-ups.”