“Most interesting cultural things emanate from restaurants,” says restaurateur Jeremy King. And he should know: painter Lucian Freud dined almost nightly at one of his establishments while, at another, Elizabeth Taylor once took a seat vacated by Laurence Olivier.

After opening their first venue, Le Caprice, in 1981, King and his business partner Chris Corbin created exquisitely designed, surprisingly affordable and often star-studded restaurants across London. Then, in 2022, the duo were unceremoniously ousted from their company by a shareholder, Thai hotel group Minor International.

Now, King is rebuilding. Monocle joins him at the site of his newest project – the revitalisation of the beloved Simpson’s in the Strand. King, who stands out in a blue Timothy Everest suit and yellow polka-dot tie, apologises for not being able to offer us coffee as we stand among plastic-wrapped pillars, wooden planks and walls marked with paint samples. So how does the man with 50 years’ experience and 15 openings design the perfect restaurant?

“I’m normally driven by the building itself,” he says. “There’s a plethora of restaurants with poured concrete floors, open ceilings and white painted walls with some art hastily put on them.” But step into one of King’s creations and there’s little chance of mistaking it for another. “The beauty of restaurants is that there’s nothing formulaic,” he says. At The Park, one of two new spots that he opened in 2024, warm wooden interiors nod to 1960s New York. At Arlington in Mayfair, diners sit surrounded by monochrome fittings and portraits by David Bailey. Opened on the site of the original Le Caprice, the restaurant retains the spirit of that earlier institution.

Meanwhile at Simpson’s, the restaurants and bars are being returned to their former glory, with polished wood panelling and ornate cornicing. Years ago, in Paris, King stood outside Montparnasse brasserie La Coupole, analysing why it looked so good. “It had seven different typefaces outside,” he says. “The neon, the painting on the window, the signage. That’s where you get a sense of age. Too much these days is one-dimensional.”

King still feels that he is learning all the time. “Anybody who says that they don’t regret things or feels that they’re at the top of the game is making a mistake,” he says. “I have learnt from the ones who cheated me, embezzled from me and humiliated me,” he adds – but he refuses to dwell on losing the company that made his name. “Years ago, when I was bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have a mentor to look up to, somebody said to me, ‘Stop looking up and start looking down. There are people who are looking up to you.’ That stayed with me.”
simpsonsinthestrand.co.uk

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