Jeremy King Revitalizes a 200-Year-Old RestaurantCourtesy Simpson’s in the Strand
Above: Jeremy King worked with his longtime designer, Shayne Brady of Studio Shayne Brady, on the comprehensive yet subtle remodel.
There is perhaps no more quintessentially British restaurant than Simpson’s in the Strand, the 200-year-old institution that has hosted Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, and even Sherlock Holmes and Watson in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s mysteries. “There are very few grande dame restaurants left in the country,” says restaurateur Jeremy King. “Simpson’s, for a lot of people, was the great grande dame restaurant.”
Two centuries on, the place was showing its age, its interiors weathered and worn. But when it reopens this spring, Simpson’s, like certain human grandes dames, will show off a distinct glow-up. King has restored the restaurant to the atmosphere of its heyday, with hidden tweaks making it fit for 2026. Because, as we all know, the best work is the kind that goes unnoticed.
An archival photo of Simpson’s in the Strand. King first visited Simpson’s, founded in 1828, in the 1970s. He remembers it being “quite dark and with heavy paneling.”Courtesy Simpson’s in the Strand
King’s track record includes such London restaurants as the Wolseley, the Ivy, Le Caprice, and Arlington. He’s had his sights set on Simpson’s ever since he visited it in the 1970s, before he began his career in hospitality. Even then he wanted to own it; it was the restaurant’s closure during the pandemic that gave King his chance. In 2022 his offer was accepted, and last summer he finally got the keys. Along with designer Shayne Brady, King then began the renovation. It’s the biggest project he has ever tackled, spanning 21,500 square feet over five floors: two restaurants, two bars, and an event space. “We took it back to the carcass—but a carcass with good paneling and plasterwork,” he says.
Despite the major overhaul, King’s mission was to restore Simpson’s in a way that was almost imperceptible. “The idea is that people who knew the place will say, ‘Oh good, you haven’t changed anything,’ ” he says. “But my bank manager will attest to the fact that we certainly have changed a lot.”
Nearly everything is new, from the upholstery to the carpets to the furniture. The kitchen was once, temperature-wise, “the hottest kitchen in London,” but it has been completely redone, along with all back-of-house areas. Some spaces are more changed than others, but the main rooms—the -private Assembly Room, the ground-floor Grand Divan, and the prestige restaurant Romano’s—were renovated “within the same idiom” as their predecessors, as King puts it. “I always work with the building to celebrate the building,” he says. “Good design shouldn’t shout for attention but should withstand scrutiny.”
This story originally appeared in the April 2026 issue of Elle Decor. SUBSCRIBE
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