Football ace Sol threatens restaurateur with the boot
ANO- NONSENSE defender during his illustrious playing career, Sol Campbell takes no prisoners off the pitch, either.
I hear the former England captain, who owns an enviable property portfolio, tried to evict one of London’s most fashionable restaurateurs from a building he owns on the King’s Road, Chelsea.
It was Eight Over Eight, Will Ricker’s pan-Asian eaterie, where regular diners include Pippa Middleton and Formula One heiress Tamara Ecclestone.
A notice has been pinned to the window, explaining that the bailiffs had been called in.
‘It’s very sad it came to this, but they had been at odds for some time,’ a local resident tells me.
Ricker, who also owns E&O in Notting Hill, is understood to have fallen foul of Campbell when he decided to carry out major refurbishment works to the property before turning it into the Chelsea branch of E&O.
After what the restaurateur described as ‘considerable renovation’, the new restaurant would ‘benefit from a total uplift’, featuring a ‘chic, emerald horseshoe bar, palms and sumptuous bathrooms’.
It was due to re- open next month, with a ‘ re-formulated panAsian menu’.
However, yesterday the building looked abandoned, with materials scattered on the floor and no sign of any workmen.
The notice pinned on the window by the bailiffs read: ‘We, as authorised agents for the landlord, have this day re-entered the demised premises in the name that you have breached the lease.
‘Any attempt by any person whatsoever to henceforth enter these premises without the landlord’s express consent will render themselves liable to civil and/ or criminal proceedings.’
Sol — whose wife, Fiona, is the granddaughter of Barratt Homes founder Sir Lawrie ‘Brickie’ Barratt — declines to discuss the dispute, telling me: ‘It’s all been dealt with by my lawyers.’
A spokesman for Ricker tells me: ‘ The landlord thought we were making structural changes to the building when, in fact, we were just doing just a refurbishment.
‘It’s all been resolved now.’