Hot on the heels of restaurateur supreme Jeremy King announcing his comeback venture The Park – a modern take on the European grand café tradition launching next April opposite the entrance to Kensington Gardens – comes news that he is in “advanced talks” over two sites in the West End: one of them directly opposite his former flagship The Wolseley!
Opening there would be a true ‘tanks on the lawn’ moment in the drama of London hospitality, given the acrimony that surrounded his ousting last year from his Corbin & King group, when majority investor Minor International of Thailand took full control – and rebranded the company as The Wolseley Hospitality Group.
Jeremy has neither confirmed nor denied his interest in the Grade II listed former bank building in Piccadilly across the road from The Wolseley –although he insisted to the FT that “I’ve moved on … There’s no room for recrimination or any of those things in life.”
He described his comeback, at the age of 69, as “like a rebirth. I think it was [French author] André Gide who said every man should have three careers . . . I actually feel like I’m having three careers within hospitality, and I’m a different person now.”
This time around, he is looking to finance his business through as many as 20 different investors, to avoid having a “dominant partner“. For The Park, he aims to raise almost £7million, mostly through an Enterprise Investment Scheme, which offers tax relief to UK investors and limits individual shareholdings to no more than 30%.
In an email to customers last week, Jeremy declared: “Oh how I have missed you. It has been a long time but hopefully you will experience the benefits of my enforced sojourn and what I have learnt in my time away. I am determined to be a better restaurateur, employer and friend — and I look forward to seeing you.”
In his FT interview, he expressed his faith in hospitality’s long-term future in ringing terms: “Restaurants are so important in the culture: there is no literary, artistic, revolutionary movement that has not started in a restaurant or grand café. I think the industry will always resist whatever attacks are made on it.”
