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Brothers beat the crunch with £2m City restaurant
Jonathan Prynn20 May 2009
Two of London's leading restaurateurs are defying the recession with a £2 million haute cuisine City dining room.
Chris and Jeff Galvin plan to open their as-yet unnamed restaurant in October in the 119-year-old St Botolph's Hall, Spitalfields. It will be the third restaurant in London for the
Brentwood-born Michelin-starred brothers, following Galvin Bistrot de Luxe in Baker Street and Galvin at Windows in the Park Lane Hilton.
The listed former church hall — which has not been used for more than 30 years since it fell into disrepair — will host a 120-seat main dining room as well as a café serving breakfast and a pewter bar removed from the nearby Great Eastern Hotel.
Chris, former executive chef at the Wolseley, said: “We always felt this building was so unique that it would work. People do sometimes give us a look and say what are you doing?', but they don't realise how long these things take to plan. In two to three years hopefully we'll be on our way to a boom.”
The venture is the latest in a surprising mini-boom of high-profile restaurant openings. Masterchef presenter John Torode, of Smiths of Smithfield, is due to open his café bar The Luxe — also in Spitalfields — in July, while Bjorn van der Horst's Eastside Inn opens in Smithfield next week.
Canary Wharf sees a branch of Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italian and Japanese restaurant Roka launch in the autumn.
Reader views (3)
Hi, just to let you know that the 119 year old St. Botolphs Hall was actually our main school hall - we were Central Foundation Girls Grammar School. The school was originally a Ward School set up with the help of the Worshipful Company of Fanmakers, who had their livery hall at the rear of St. Botolph's without Bishopsgate. The school offered a wonderful education to local girls giving plenty of opportunity for "slum" kids of the 1st half of the 20th Century to escape from poverty with a decent education. Not something that the current system can do! The building was closed down following the merger of CFS with another local school to form the modern Central Foundation Comprehensive School. I wish the restaurant great success and look forward to being able to visit our School Hall once again - Pat Butt
- Pat Butt, Lymington, UK, 09/09/2009 17:05
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Looking at the height of that ceiling, I wouldnt like to go there in winter....unless it was buy one and get one free. Anyway I wish them luck. That area of Londinium has been there for a thousand years and anybody who wants to keep it alive deserves success.
- Bondy, london, 20/05/2009 14:19
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That should please the MPs who like to dine at posh restaurants at the taxpayers expense. No Mc Donalds for them, no sir.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK, 20/05/2009 13:13
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