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London's first £10m restaurant
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Affairs Editor02.11.07
It opened only four years ago but has already sealed a reputation as one of London's finest restaurant.
Now it can be revealed that the Wolseley is proving as big a hit with its shareholders as with regulars who include Kate Moss, Hugh Grant and Sir Elton John.
New financial figures seen by the Evening Standard show the Piccadilly restaurant has joined the ranks of a tiny global elite of dining rooms with takings of more than £10 million a year.
The Wolseley's European brasserie formula, combined with the stardust applied by the founders, former Ivy proprietors Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, means that it is almost always full. It is open 18 hours a day, from 7am to 1am, seven days a week and is staffed 24 hours a day.
As well as being a staple of the A-listers, the venue is also popular with Mayfair's hedge fund community who meet there for power breakfasts.
Tourists love it for afternoon tea and cakes, while the post-theatre brigade can take advantage of its policy of taking orders up to midnight.
The accounts for parent company Rex Restaurant Associates show that the Wolseley's turnover rose by eight per cent in the year to the end of March to £10.28 million, producing a profit of £689,727.
The company's figures do not include takings from the latest addition to the King and Corbin stable, St Alban. The business partners would not comment but are said by friends to have found the success of the Wolseley the most gratifying achievement of their careers.
The former car showroom is probably the West End's highest grossing restaurant. By contrast, Quaglino's, another of central London's busiest large dining rooms, has annual revenues of around £5 million.
Gordon Ramsay's empire takes about £ 30 million a year but that is spread across eight London and two American restaurants.
Caprice Holdings, which owns The Ivy, J Sheekey and Scott's, had revenues of £22.5 million from its stable of eight restaurants last year.
Richard Harden, co-founder of the Harden's Restaurant Guide, said: "The Wolseley has established an unrivalled position as the grand café of the nation.
"The food is not the primary attraction - we rate it only a three - but it fulfils the function of a grand Parisien-style brasserie that is remarkably under-supplied in London.
"It is highly visible, it is in a fantastic location and it has what few places in London have - an impression of lofty space."
The world's biggest-selling restaurant, Tao in Las Vegas, had a turnover last year of $55.2million (£26.5 million).
WOLSELEY BY NUMBERS
* 160 - number of covers
* £38 - average spend for dinner
* 10th November, 2003 - the first night
* 1,000 - daily number of customers
* £20 - takings per minute
* £43 - bottle of house champagne
