Café high society: why Jeremy King and Chris Corbin always get it right

When Jeremy King and Chris Corbin opened The Wolseley in 2003, they introduced a new ready reckoner for celebrity value: did you get a table in the horseshoe, the inner circle of red leather banquettes where Kate Moss, Lucian Freud and Robert Downey Jr got fast-tracked on arrival? If not, you were freezing out in ‘Siberia’, the chilly circumferential seats.

For 33 years, these unlikely, intellectual gentlemen restaurateurs have presided over the London dining scene as alchemists of haute celebrity hangouts, to which the gifted and glamorous (and the aspirational) swarm. Their establishments have served as clubs for the transatlantic glitterati: Le Caprice in the 1980s, where Princess Diana came to gossip at her favourite table (number nine), and Joan Collins met Gianni Versace; J Sheekey and The Ivy in the 1990s where, behind the mullioned windows, Madonna ate sticky toffee pudding flanked by Harold Pinter and Tom Cruise; The Wolseley in the 2000s, and latterly The Delaunay, where the Beckhams dine en famille..

Such is the slavish loyalty of their habitués that Corbin and King opened their latest venture, Fischer’s in Marylebone, under the radar three weeks ago (they never do opening parties unless it’s for the staff). Since then, the likes of Nigella Lawson, Salman Rushdie and Nigel Slater have eaten from its Viennese-themed menu, presided over by the gentle presence of Jeremy King — who towers over everything like a soigné public school-bred quarterback — and the bespectacled, bookwormish Chris Corbin.

But there is a new pretender in town who threatens to topple their stable monopoly. André Balazs, the pre-eminent hotelier of US celebrity purlieus Chateau Marmont in Hollywood and The Mercer in New York City, has opened his first London venture, Chiltern Firehouse, down the road on Chiltern Street, aceing his British debut with the acquisition of Robert Pearsall’s gothic fire station and a Michelin-starred chef. Walking there from Fischer’s chocolate-box Austrian exterior is like going from turn-of-the-century Vienna to 1990s-era Met bar: Cara Delevingne, Lindsay Lohan and the Camerons have all recently dined on its roast Lebanese cucumber with seaweed fregola. It’s showy, faddy, naughty. They love it.

So is it gloves off on Marylebone High Street? Not at all. It’s just not the way Corbin and King roll. ‘I love Chiltern Firehouse. It’s got a bravado we've never seen before in London,’ King told me recently at Fischer’s. ‘I don’t see it as a competitor. Fischer’s is a neighbourhood restaurant. There’s room for us all in Marylebone.’

This sporting attitude is typical of the famously discreet old-school restaurateurs who politely shun publicity. Both cringe at the idea of any showiness, still uncomfortable with their default celebrity status. They eschew all splash or gimmicks. Next to Balazs’ modishness at Firehouse, and Richard Caring’s LVMH-style acquisitions (he co-owns Balthazar, The Delaunay’s Covent Garden rival, as well as the pair’s former restaurants Le Caprice, J Sheekey and The Ivy), Corbin and King are more vintage Chanel. It’s no accident that they’ve named their restaurants after classic cars: Wolseley Motors; the Delaunay-Belleville; and the Zédel (for Piccadilly’s Brasserie Zédel, which opened in 2012). These are all run like well-oiled machines. It’s apposite that the duo are widely regarded as the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of the London restaurant scene.

For Corbin and King are less modern-day brand than the masterminds of bespoke projects. Theirs is a guiding philosophy of nostalgia and old-school service. Nothing overshadows their patrons; they (not the design nor the menu) are the progenitors of the locales’ fizz. Corbin and King are masters of conjuring ambience; they create theatrical stages on which gilded customers can perform. They do this through evoking past eras with a cultural frisson. At Fischer’s, it’s the cafés of Vienna circa 1913 inhabited by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Leon Trotsky, Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser; at Colbert on Sloane Street and Zédel, it’s 1920s Paris. This is a subliminal form of flattery, which plays to the inherent narcissism of their clientele. After all, are Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst not the Schieles of our day?

The Beaumont, the double act’s debut hotel in Mayfair, is due to open this autumn and bears all the hallmarks of a classic Corbin and King project. In contrast to the contemporary design-led international brands — the Shangri-La at the Shard and the upcoming Mondrian on the South Bank, designed by Tom Dixon — The Beaumont recalls the grand hotels of Prohibition-era New York, the Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria, with its porte-cochere and revolving doors. Its American-style bar and its restaurant, The Colony, are inspired by the New York restaurant of the same name, which opened in 1923 and was beloved of the Vanderbilts and Orson Welles — making it the perfect hangout for wannabe Dietrichs and Sinatras.

The backdrop to all this theatre is a Grade II-listed former garage built in 1926 by Grosvenor Estate architects Wimperis, Simpson & Guthrie. The hotel has been rebuilt with part of a £21m injection from Graphite Capital, which also owns the Groucho Club, with pre-eminent hotel architects Reardon Smith at the helm. It might all be in danger of pastiche if it weren’t for the injection of a little contemporary art. This has been a vital ingredient in the Corbin and King mix, learned during Corbin’s days as manager of 1970s celebrity haunt Langan’s, co-owned by Michael Caine, where David Hockney donated art and designed the menus. (At The Ivy they commissioned works by Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield and Bridget Riley.) Last week, Antony Gormley’s two-storey inhabitable sculpture ROOM, a stainless-steel ‘brutalist buddha’ built into the The Beaumont’s façade, was unveiled. (A few eyebrows have been raised: is this an attempt to steal some limelight from the competition?) ‘They have always understood art as an integral part of the way an environment makes you feel,’ argues Gormley, a friend and stalwart client. ‘Their restaurants have never been just about food but the curating of an experience.’

There will be no Chiltern-inspired octopus legs or barley risotto at The Colony when it opens: a classic grill room is planned, without a big name in the kitchen. Corbin and King don’t do celebrity chefs. Few would be challenged by their nostalgia-fuelled all-day-eating menus — choucroute à l’Alsacienne at The Wolseley; Wiener schnitzel at Fischer’s — although the likes of Mark Hix have come from their stable. ‘The philosophy under Chris and Jeremy was always to give the customer what they want to eat, not what the chef thinks they want,’ Hix tells me. ‘Dishes like salmon fishcakes at Le Caprice could be eaten with just a fork, while you were conversing. What was important was the social experience, the atmosphere, with a high standard of service. It raised the bar for London restaurants.’ The Ivy was voted Londoners’ Favourite Restaurant by Harden’s nine years running. The Delaunay won Tatler’s Best Restaurant in 2012, Colbert in 2013. Only once have the pair faltered, with St Alban on Lower Regent Street, which opened in 2006 and closed three years later: ‘Its smart Mediterranean menu... simply never found a place in the affections of the city,’ wrote food critic Jay Rayner.