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This Is What Happened in the London Restaurant World Last Week

The Ivy Asia produced a racist promo video, the Ledbury will reopen, and the Wolseley’s landlord is asking for £1 million in unpaid corona-time rent. All the news in brief

Staff set tables in preparation for the lunchtime crowd at T
The Ledbury will rise from the ashes
Photo by Adrian Brown/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Almost halfway through August 2021 and the London restaurant (re)opening wheel continues to turn.

Here’s everything you need to know about what happened the week commencing 9 August 2021.


  • Last weekend, Caprice Holdings’s Ivy Asia Chelsea restaurant published then deleted a racist promotional video. Soon followed an “apology for offence caused” after multiple observers highlighted the video’s use of racist caricatures and reductive stereotyping. And yet, some were left wondering whether it was really that surprising that a brand which relies on those same stereotypes would use such material to promote its restaurant.

  • Another week, another high-profile restaurant opening to add to the list of “coming attractions.” This week, pioneering Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes, was revealed to be the latest in a string of exciting partners for restaurant-group-in-a-hurry MJMK, for a project that will come to central London in the early part of 2022.
  • The same restaurant group confirmed that it would also back chef John Chantarasak, who with partner Desiree, in the launch of a permanent space for the restaurant pop-up Anglo Thai, also in 2022.

  • In a shocking turn 12 months after having announced it could not see a pathway to reopening, Eater understands that The Ledbury — chef Brett Graham’s seminal two-Michelin-starred Notting Hill restaurant — will reopen. It is understood that a team is in place to relaunch the restaurant in a more informal style at the same location later this year.


  • Back to surprises: In a stunning revelation from one of London’s most famous restaurant institutions, Corbin and King’s chief executive Jeremy King this week detailed attempts by its landlord to pursue eviction through the courts after the owners had failed to meet rent arrears of almost £1 million — a total accumulated during the months of closure through successive coronavirus lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.


Until next week, eat well and stay safe.

Story

199 Tooley Street, , England SE1 2JX 020 7183 2117 Visit Website

London

, , England Visit Website

The Ledbury

127 Ledbury Road, , England W11 2AQ 020 7792 9090 Visit Website

Leather Lane

Leather Lane, , England EC1N 7TJ

Balady

39-41 Leather Lane, , England EC1N 7UY 020 8458 2064 Visit Website

Pizza Express

399 Barking Road, , England E6 2JT

Gunpowder

11 White's Row, , England E1 7NF 020 7426 0542 Visit Website

Temple

10 Granville Terrace, , England EX23 8JZ 01288 354739 Visit Website