90-Year-Old Restaurant Boulestin Has Been Bought Out of Administration

Boulestin, the 90-year-old French restaurant in St. James’s, which entered administration in early February, has been purchased. The administrators — Griffins Insolvency Practitioners — announced that the central London restaurant has been sold with “the happy result that all of the staff will retain their jobs.”

In a statement, Griffins wrote:

Boulestin Ltd, the owner of the classic French restaurant, was placed into administration on 8 February 2018 with Kevin Goldfarb and Stephen Hunt of Griffins appointed as joint administrators. After a brief but very busy marketing exercise the administrators completed the sale to Boulestin St James Ltd yesterday securing not only the future of the restaurant but also continued employment for its entire staff.

The new owner, Boulestin St James Ltd, is a company newly founded by restaurateur Ken Anderson who, Griffins says “already has significant restaurant interests in central London.” It has not been declared what those restaurant interests are; it is known that Anderson was behind the west London Italian restaurant group L’Altro in the 1990s.

Although all staff have been retained by the new owners, former director Joel Kissin told Eater that he will not continue at the restaurant in any capacity. “I’m completely out,” he said.