Michelin-Starred Restaurant at Historic Mayfair Hotel Will Close

Michelin-starred restaurant Fera, inside Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair, will close at the end of this year.

Today (18 December,) a spokesperson for the Maybourne Hotel group, which owns Claridge’s, confirmed “that Fera will be closing, its last service will be dinner on Monday December 31st 2018.”

Asked whether there was any truth in the rumours, reported by Hot Dinners in October, that the team behind New York’s Eleven Madison Park would be taking over the restaurant, the spokesperson did not deny, but said: “We will announce future plans for the space later in the New Year.”

The restaurant space in one of London’s oldest, most famous, luxury hotels has a rich history. Most notably, perhaps, it was perhaps celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay’s most well-known restaurant, with the exception of his eponymous Chelsea flagship. But more recently, it was the first London home of two-Michelin-starred L’Enclume in the Lake District, Simon Rogan. It was also the site of Rene Redzepi’s Noma’s first pop-up outside Denmark.

That rumoured Eleven Madison Park (EMP) team consists of Daniel Humm and Will Guidara, who together preside over the three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan. Humm recently announced that current EMP chef de cuisine Dimitri Magi would be heading up “a new project of ours”; Humm and Guidara incorporated a London-based restaurant company, Everything In Its Right Place Ltd, on 4 July this year. While Humm and Guidara are confirmed to be opening an iteration of hotel and restaurant Nomad in the capital, a separate company — Let It Loose Ltd — looks to have that slot spoken for.

In January last year Rogan told Eater that he ended his contract with the hotel earlier than planned, and although he “sort of enjoyed” his time there, ultimately it wasn’t for him, especially after the ownership changed. Each saw different directions for the future.

“I enjoyed it while I was there. Well, sort of. It was great to be there, great to be asked. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t really me. And, it was a mutual thing to end early,” he said.

“I always thanked them for the opportunity. It put us on the world stage. I got a lot of exposure worldwide. Which was invaluable, so I would never diss them or diss the actual period; although it wasn’t really us, it was a stepping stone for doing what we’re doing now and hopefully this will be bigger and better than what I’ve done in London before. It’s just a learning curve: you go through these to get to where you want to go.”

Rogan, who ran Fera for over three years, said at the start of this year that the same sous chef was in place when he left. “I believe they’ve still got the same sous chef in charge, still the same menu,” he said. “Sort of the same sort of food that we were serving.”

Stay tuned in the new year for confirmation of the next incumbent of the Claridge’s restaurant.