Michelin-starred chef 'shuts down restaurant' in 'the finest dining room in London' after just six months
Victor Garvey at the Midland Grand, based out of the St Pancras London hotel near the famous train station of the same name, only opened in February.
But it now appears to have served its last diners, after stopping taking bookings and staff telling The Caterer it closed its doors on July 15.
The eponymous American chef had only just replaced Irish cook Patrick Powell's The Midland Grand Dining Room in the five-star hotel's 65-seater dining room.
It came after he won his Michelin star, the highest culinary gong, in 2021, for his Californian restaurant SOLA in the capital's Soho area, which opened in 2019.
It is as yet unclear why the restaurant appears to have closed without warning, with the website down and guests unable to make bookings.
Mr Garvey, working out of what is widely considered one of London's most opulent dining spaces, charged an eye-watering £139 for a seven-course tasting menu.
There was also an even more lavish 14-course tasting experience, alongside the normal a la carte menu, The Standard reports.
Dishes included red tuna, with white peach, roasted leek and a green almond sorbet - as well as a lobster served out of its shell with its own roe, along with spiced carrot.
The two businesses that have most recently occupied the restaurant space were called after the building's original name - The Midland Grand Hotel.
The Grade I-listed Gothic revival building in central London is one of the most iconic sights in the capital - with a restaurant space equally as impressive.
Upon taking over the historic dining room earlier this year, Mr Garvey said: 'A dining room of this stature deserves a menu that matches its grandeur.'
Calling the space 'one of the best dining rooms in the world', he described the menu as 'honouring the foundations of classical French cuisine while embracing modernity'.
When the restaurant launched, he told The Caterer: 'A chef only gets an opportunity like this, where they are offered a big dining room, once or twice in their life.
'It happened to Joël Robuchon, to Alain Ducasse, all the big guys, and I'm very excited.'
He had explained the menu as a reinvention of traditional French dishes: 'We're making it sexier, we're making it lighter.'
Mr Garvey described being approached by St Pancras London hotelier Harry Handlesman to take over the space.
'He wanted to have a Michelin star here and for it to be one of the best restaurants in the world and one of the best dining rooms in the world', he explained.
'I thought - I'm pretty sure I can do that.'
The restaurant's adjoining Gothic Bar currently remains open.
The apparent closure of Victor Garvey at the Midland Grand will be a shock to food lovers across the capital, after it received glowing reviews from the country's top critics.
Giles Coren said: 'Victor is doing fancy French now, and quite brilliantly, of course.'
The chef's predecessor Mr Powell was behind the room's relaunch in April 2023 but he left just over a year later, in July 2024.
He said at the time: 'The time has come for me to move on and I am hugely excited for the future and my next chapter.'
Mr Powell also left his restaurant Allegra, in London's Stratford area, at the same time, which he also worked on with St Pancras London hotelier Harry Handlesman.
The Irish chef is currently working as culinary director at French and New York-inspired restaurant One Club Row in the capital's Shoreditch area.
The building is more than 150 years old, with several hotels having been run out of it over the years.
The Midland Grand Hotel was designed by English architect Sir Gilbert Scott - also behind the Albert Memorial in London's Kensington area - and built in 1873.
But it shut down in 1935 and was nearly demolished in the sixties - before it was reopened as The Renaissance in 2011, after being used as railway offices.
The restaurant was relaunched as The Gilbert Scott and run by British celebrity chef and MasterChef: The Professionals judge Marcus Wareing until the pandemic.
The building is now known as the St Pancras London Autograph Collection hotel and managed by Marriott International.
But the name change came only last month, when Marriott transferred the hotel from its Renaissance brand to its Autograph Collection.
The dining space appears to have closed only just over a month after this rebrand.
Renaissance hotels aim to give guests 'curious, unique and local experiences', according to the brand's website - while Autograph ones offer a distinctive interior.
As part of the rebrand, the hotel's 254 rooms and suites have been undergoing extensive renovation since January.
Marriott boss Sandra Schulze-Potgieter explained at the time: 'St Pancras London is exactly the kind of property Autograph Collection was created to celebrate - rich in character, rooted in place, and full of story.
'This new chapter brings that story to life in a way that feels both intentional and unforgettable.'
Mr Garvey was born in New York to an American father and French-Spanish mother, moving to Barcelona aged six.
He has worked in restaurants across Spain and in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tokyo and Copenhagen before arriving in London.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘They're rowdy. They're vibing. I rip my shirt off': the exploding career of Hanumankind, India's hottest rapper
Two weeks ago, halfway through his first ever UK show, Hanumankind instructed the crowd to mimic him by hopping to the right then to the left, back and forth, in unison. But the rapper from India slipped and fell, limping to the end of the gig in evident pain, kept upright by his DJ and inspired by the audience's singalong familiarity with his catalogue. 'We were ready to have a good time,' he sheepishly grins from an armchair at his record label's offices three days later. It turns out he has torn a ligament. 'It was a battle of internal turmoil. The show was like a fifth of what it was meant to be, but I gave it my all. London has a beautiful energy which gave me strength.' Even without the leg injury, the 32-year-old star, who was born Sooraj Cherukat, has reached a testing threshold in his short, explosive career. His tracks Big Dawgs and Run It Up, helped by action-movie music videos, have made him one of the most talked-about MCs in the world. A$AP Rocky and Fred Again are among his recent collaborators. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi even invited Cherukat to perform at an event in New York last September. But as a rare south Asian face in globally popular rap, he feels a certain responsibility. 'The past year has been hard,' he says. 'I'm trying to navigate through it.' What's more, although he expresses a deep pride about life in India, 'a lot of things are off. There is a mob mentality. There's a lot of divisiveness because of religion, background, caste. It doesn't sit well with me. I'm in a unique space to change the way people can think within my country.' Born in Malappuram, Kerala, which he remembers as a 'green, beautiful environment', Cherukat spent his childhood following his father's work abroad, from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia to Britain. 'We'd traverse different countries and I'd sing songs in whatever language I was picking up,' he says. 'Wherever I went, I had to get involved and be ready to leave. I learned to connect with people. That's why the power of the word is so important to me.' At the age of 10, he landed in Houston, Texas, and found a rare stability. It was the early 2000s and the city was an engine room for rap innovation. Cherukat's set his accent to a southern drawl. Already a fan of heavy metal – which makes sense given his grungy, rockstar leanings today – he became hooked on the local chopped-and-screwed subgenre pioneered by DJ Screw, Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat. In his teens he was 'burning CDs full of beats, riding around smoking blunts and hitting hard freestyles'. He returned to south India just before hitting 20. 'The only place I had roots,' he says. He completed a university degree in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, before working a corporate job in the tech hub of Bengaluru. Seeing rap as 'a party thing, a way to de-stress and stay connected to the art form', he performed at open-mic nights, softening his US accent and perfecting his stage show for an Indian audience. 'Friends would come to watch and be like, 'Dude, you're not bad. You should lock in.'' So he did. At the end of 2019, Cherukat played his first festival: NH7 Weekender in Pune, Maharashtra. The crowd went wild, quickly morphing from a small handful into a packed moshpit. 'They're rowdy and they're fucking vibing,' he says. 'I rip my shirt off. I'm like, 'OK, I can do this!'' He quit his job and began plotting his next move, filling notebooks with lyrics throughout the pandemic. These are a blend of cheek and grit delivered with a flow that keeps respawning at different speeds and scales. Soon, Cherukat was signed by Def Jam India. Part of a movement to reject the remnants of British colonialism in favour of local expression, the proud, rebellious patchwork of Indian hip-hop encompasses the vast country's 'hundreds of languages, each as deeply rooted as the next', Cherukat explains. 'Someone who speaks Hindi or another regional language will give you a vast amount of depth and detail in what they're doing.' His decision to rap mostly in English therefore came with risks of being perceived as inauthentic at home, but it has certainly helped his global crossover. Besides, he has found other ways to communicate a homegrown aesthetic. Run It Up marches to the beat of Keralan chenda drums, while its video features martial artists from disparate corners of India. Cherukat performed it with a band of drummers at Coachella festival, his debut US gig. 'Most people don't know what is going on in my country,' he says. 'Maybe I can open up some doors, open up some eyes, break out of these bubbles and stereotypes.' Although not religious, Cherukat has a divine figure woven into his performing name. Over recent years, Hanuman, the simian-headed Hindu god of strength and devotion, has been employed everywhere from the car stickers of hypermasculine Indian nationalism to the bloody, satirical critique of Dev Patel's 2024 thriller, Monkey Man. Where does Hanumankind fit into this: traditionalist or progressive? 'I need to make music for myself first,' he says simply. 'But when you have a platform, you can bring about change through your words and actions.' Some fans were disappointed that he accepted the New York invitation from Modi – whose Hindu nationalist government has been accused of democratic backsliding and Islamophobia. Cherukat has defended his appearance, describing it as 'nothing political … We were called to represent the nation and we did that.' But today he claims his 'political ideology is pretty clear' to anyone who has been following his career. In one of his earliest singles, 2020's Catharsis, he rails against systemic corruption, police brutality and armed suppression of protest. 'I'm not just trying to speak to people who already agree with me,' he says. 'I'm trying to give people who are otherwise not going to be listening a chance to be like, 'OK, there is some logic to what he's saying.'' Monsoon Season, his new mixtape, is just out. It features the mellow likes of Holiday – performed on the massively popular YouTube series Colors – as well as raucous collaborations with US rap luminaries Denzel Curry and Maxo Kream. It is less a narrative album, more a compilation, with songs gathered over the years before the spotlight shone on him. 'I have a lot of memories of coming into Kerala during the monsoon,' says Cherukat of the project's name. 'You can have days where things are absolutely reckless, flooded, out of control. There can be days where you get introspective and think about life. There are days where you love the rain: it feels good, there's that smell in the air when it hits the mud, the soil, the flowers. Your senses are heightened. You can fall in love with that. Or it can ruin all your plans and you hate it.' Cherukat's knee will take some time to recover before he embarks on a North American tour later this year. It's clear he needs a break: not just to heal, but to continue processing fame, adapt to its changes and return to the studio. 'I'm still adjusting,' he says. 'The attention, the conversation, the responsibility, the lifestyle, all this shit. Things have been a little haywire. So I just want to go back to the source – and make music.' Monsoon Season is out now on Capitol Records/Def Jam India
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Kate Nash showcases her sleazy side: best podcasts of the week
Dig out the American Apparel dress, liquid eyeliner and Wayfarer sunglasses – the late 00s' indie sleaze movement is being celebrated for all its messy glory. Kate Nash – an OG sleazer – hosts this nostalgic new series about the scene, speaking to the likes of the Cribs' Ryan and Gary Jarman, Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos and Razorlight's Johnny Borrell. It's enough to make you want to cut in a badly judged chunky fringe again. Hollie Richardson BBC Sounds, available from Monday 28 July This honest, conversational podcast breaks down taboos by talking to people about the loved ones they've lost. Host Jason Davidson is a social worker and in the latest episode Michael Palin (pictured right) talks to him about trying to come to terms with his wife's death – and why he feels it almost impossible to say 'I' instead of 'we'. It's a thoughtful look at his grief. Alexi Duggins Widely available, episodes weekly This enjoyably chatty look at the everyday products we take for granted combines history with product design. It opens with a look at the 'fabulous innovation' of the tin opener, running from how it wasn't created until 100 years after food tins were invented to its potential future: a luxury item, like 'the craft beer' of can-opening. AD Widely available, episodes weekly Keir Starmer may be in power now (and enjoying varying levels of success, depending on your views), but what of the Labour leaders of old? Izzy Conn of the University of London digs deep into the red team in this comprehensive pod, which begins after the second world war with Clement Attlee and the beginnings of the welfare state. Hannah J Davies Widely available, episodes weekly Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Widely available, episodes weekly This new podcast from Tortoise Investigates is about mothers who – like Australia's Kathleen Folbigg, whose case sets off this series – have been accused of murdering their children, and whether the experts are always right. The content is highly charged, but the questions it poses around the use of statistics in a court of law feel vital. HJD Widely available, episodes weekly
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Sacha Baron Cohen, 53, admits to using Ozempic to help him achieve his revenge body for new Marvel role
Sacha Baron Cohen claimed he used Ozempic to help him achieve his ripped physique. The actor, 53, who is starring as Marvel's newest supervillain Mephisto, underwent an incredible body transformation for his role, which he revealed this week. As he showed off his chiselled abs in the new issue of Men's Fitness UK, Sacha, who split with Isla Fisher in 2023, after more than two decades together, re-shared the photoshoot to his Instagram Story and got candid about how he achieved his results. He wrote: 'Some celebs use Ozempic, some use private chefs, some use personal trainers. I did all three.' Sacha's representatives later insisted to MailOnline that the Borat star was 'only joking' and his new buff physique 'all down to hard work'. In a second post, Sacha added: 'This is not AI. I really am egotistical enough to do this. Debuting my new character. Middle aged man who replaced beer with protein shakes.' Sacha then thanked his personal trainer, writing: 'Thanks @theangrytrainer for doing the unthinkable - putting up with me for 25 minutes a day.' He revealed he had just three weeks to get into superhero shape, putting in the 'hard work' ready to portray Mephisto, a devil-like figure who makes Faustian bargains. Speaking to Men's Fitness UK, the actor revealed he turned to Matthew McConaughey to get the phone number of celebrity trainer Alfonso Moretti, who has well-established reputation for transforming physiques on impossible deadlines. Sacha went on to have a FaceTime meeting with Alfonso, who got him to strip down to his underwear during their first chat. Due to the short time frame and Alfonso workout methods, Sacha was tasked with being 'consistent' by doing '100 push ups a day'. Sacha's incredible transformation was far from marathon workouts and extreme dieting, as they concentrated on short workouts and a diet high in fibre and protein as well as low in sugar. He said: '25-minute workouts that were sustainable. Even while filming, the workouts happened. In the past, I would've thought you needed hour-long sessions'. He admitted at the beginning of the regime he 'had the core strength of an arthritic jellyfish... but the short sessions made it so much easier to stay consistent - even with the demands of being on set.' By the two-week mark, Sacha's wardrobe team had to spend $5,000 (£3,600) altering costumes because his body had changed so significantly. He was leaner, stronger, and fitter than ever before. His trainer also shared the magazine's photos to Instagram and wrote that he 'could not be more proud' of Sacha after working out with him. In a recent press conference, Marvel chief Kevin Feige confirmed that Sacha will be portraying MCU character. Sacha first rose to fame in the 1990s with his Ali G character, the infamous spoof wannabe gangster who became a comedy star. He also starred as Borat, a journalist from Kazakhstan, and played the role of flamboyant Austrian fashionista Bruno. The actor made his Mephisto debut in the finale of miniseries Ironheart earlier this month, marking the first appearance of the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after years of speculation. One of Marvel's key villains, Mephisto is a demonic entity who acquires souls by making pacts with mortals and has battled the likes of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.
