William SITWELL
As Le Caprice shuts its St James’s doors, William Sitwell examines how the wider scene is faring
The man who once oversaw the kitchens of Le Caprice was slicing fish in his new food truck when he heard news of its apparent closure. Mark Hix was once chef director of that restaurant and its sister businesses; iconic institutions such as The Ivy and J Sheekey. “It was a shock,” he says. “But I’ve had sadder news myself.”
Indeed Hix’s restaurants were an early casualty of lockdown. Against his wishes his business partners pulled the rug from beneath him. The group – which included the vast Tramshed in London’s Shoreditch and Hix Oyster and Fish House in Lyme Regis – went into administration.
So, having lost all his staff and all his own wages, he bought a food truck on ebay. He now sells wet fish in various locations across Dorset.
“We’re going to see some big names dragged down,” he warned.
The full story is that Le Caprice, for 38 years the most fashionable bolt hole in St James’s, London – presided over by that most admired and slickest of maître d’s, Jesus Adorno – will re-emerge in a different location as its lease is up. But it is symbolic of the devastation that the UK’S restaurant industry today faces. Richard Caring, the boss of the Caprice Holdings Group, has been withering in his assessment of the Government’s attitude towards his industry. The indecision, he argues, is “killing the country… there’s a volcano that is going to bubble over. The pain and suffering it is going to cause is horrific.”
The buzz is that July 4 is the magic day; the day establishments across the country can reopen. Some booking lines have opened, restaurant critics’ pens are at the ready… But the prospects seem decidedly mixed.
And it rather depends on what sort of business you had before lockdown. As the restaurateur Jason Atherton – whose global empire spans Dubai, Shanghai, the Philippines and London – puts it: “My fine dining restaurant on Pollen Street [has] very different [needs] to the Benugo around the corner.
“The Government’s lack of understanding of our industry is unbelievable.”
Much is dependent on the twometre rule being relaxed. According to restaurateur Charlie Gilkes, whose Inception Group runs a colourful selection of establishments across London: “Two metres is completely unviable. But at 1.5 metres we could just about operate at 60-70 per cent capacity.”
Like so many in his industry he is “desperate for clarity”. Yet the theatrical nature of his venues offers him reasons to be bullish.
“It’s important that while we keep customers safe, they do not have to endure a miserable experience in a Perspex prison,” he says. And so at his Mr Fogg’s House of Botanicals, staff won’t just be wearing masks they’ll don whole beekeeper outfits.
At Mr Fogg’s Gin Parlour in Covent Garden Victorian-dressed mannequins will be “attractions, not detractions”. At Italian-inspired night spot Bunga Bunga staff will perform an engaging new sanitiser dance.
“When the music comes on,” Gilkes explains, “the whole room will hand sanitise at the same time”.
Meanwhile as space is at a premium in London, provincial restaurateurs are thanking their lucky stars they opened in small towns.
Mike Robinson, chef and owner of The Woodsman in Stratford upon Avon, has spent much of lockdown analysing his restaurant with a tape measure.
Because of the quaint design of a medieval building, Robinson has effectively six dining areas and a garden.
“I can do 80 covers without making the place feel like you’re eating in a war zone,” he says.
He has also separated staff into two team bubbles who will work two days on and two days off. And his telephone-only reservations system will bring joy to technical luddites.
Similarly, Sam Harrison’s Sam’s Riverside in Hammersmith has a spacious interior and large garden. But the secret of his positive prospects rest with his regulars.
“We have a great local following,” he says. “Without them we wouldn’t have a business and without us they wouldn’t have a restaurant.”
He has even persuaded his famous customers to participate in a fundraising event.
Last night the likes of TV presenters Ant and Dec, theatre director Trevor Nunn and actor David Tennant joined over a hundred regulars for a Zoom quiz night.
But across town in Marylebone, chef Ravinder Bhogal is struggling with the idea of reopening Jikoni. Its mantra is “cosy”.
“The idea of getting out a tape measure is a non-starter,” she says. But survival for her comes in the shape of Comfort and Joy by Jikoni, a delivery business she had planned before lockdown.
And space is a problem: how about letting more diners eat at tables on the pavements?
Landlords Soho Estates are campaigning to pedestrianise a large swathe of that part of London. “If we can’t dine on the street we risk losing the culture that makes Soho so special,” says managing director John James.
Richard Gladwin of Sussex restaurant on Frith Street says that “spilling out on to the streets will give us a real lifeline to survive”.
“Our whole industry is on a knife-edge,” says Atherton. “But having spent 34 years, working 18-hour days, six days a week to get to where I am today, I can’t wait to get back to work.”