Sir Terence Conran and his wife, Lady Vicki, will don their whites as guest chefs at Parabola, the restaurant at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, for two nights next month.

The design guru and restaurateur recently celebrated his 85th birthday, but has clearly lost none of his energy. The Design Museum was his baby at its original venue at Shad Thames, and he masterminded its transfer last year to the former Commonwealth Institute site with another multi-million-pound donation. He sold the bulk of his restaurants to D&D in 2007, but has built another restaurant empire since then.

The Conrans will have the run of the Parabola kitchens on Friday and Saturday February 3 and 4. The guest chef season kicks off on Monday January 30 with two nights from Shaun Hill, another veteran of the modern British restaurant scene of the 1980s, who now runs the esteemed Walnut Tree near Abergavenny.

The Paris Pop-Up travelling team of Harry Cummins and Laura Vidal, who have cooked around the world since leaving the original Frenchie in Paris four years ago, will cook for two nights from Wednesday February 1. Then Valentine Warner, the portrait-painter-turned-TV chef, will remain in place from February 6 to March 31.