Pip Lacey’s Hicce Hart gastropub and Little Pizza Hicce have shut down, following the closure late last year of her flagship restaurant Hicce in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross.

The pub in Islington and pizzeria in Wood Green were opened barely a year ago by the high-profile chef and her business partner, Gordy McIntyre. The ventures were spinoffs from Hicce, which came to an end after the landlord had activated a break clause on the lease. Pip said the latest closures were “not based on monetary reasons“.

Meanwhile, Marco Pierre White’s Leicester Square flagship Mr White’s has also been shuttered, as the hospitality industry faces multiple financial and staffing problems.

The final quarter of 2023 saw record levels of insolvency in the hospitality industry, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by accountancy firm Price Bailey. A total of 514 businesses went under, breaking the previous record of 481 in Q2 of the same year, with an average of 5.3 insolvencies a day throughout 2023 – 45% up on the previous year.

Matt Howard, Price Bailey’s head of insolvency and recovery, has warned that the insolvency rate is likely to rise further in the face of persistently high inflation and interest rates and reduced consumer spending.