What makes a restaurant buzz? At Le Caprice, which is about to be relaunched by Jeremy King, the man who propelled it to prominence in the Eighties, it is the bar. More specifically, it is the long mirror behind the bar. “The essence of Caprice was that bar,” King, 69, says. “If the bar was not full, not only did the restaurant not sing, it didn’t make money. And if you were sitting at the bar and had your back to the room the mirrors were essential, because if the Princess of Wales walked in, you could watch her going through the restaurant to her table. You could see what was going on, feel connected.”
The mirror behind the bar is just one of the features that King will be reinstating for the restaurant’s relaunch in January. It will be a loving recreation of the original — the first restaurant King opened with his business partner at the time, Chris Corbin — and the first in this new phase of King’s professional life. In fact, there will be three new restaurants: Arlington, on the site of the old Caprice (the name has been the possession of Richard Caring since 2005); the Park, a “21st-century grand café” in Kensington; and a reboot of Simpson’s in the Strand, “London’s last grande-dame restaurant”.
“I did not want to lose the Wolseley and those restaurants. I never wanted to walk away from the staff without even the opportunity to say goodbye,” King says. “Not being able to say goodbye felt likea bereavement in many ways.” But, he adds, we are here to talk about beginnings, not endings.
The Times. To read the full interview click here
