Jeremy King: The Restaurateur Behind The Ivy, Le Caprice and The Wolseley
3/20/20261 hr 3 min
From Le Caprice and The Ivy to The Wolseley and Brasserie Zédel, Jeremy King has helped define the way London eats, drinks and sees itself. His restaurants became institutions, attracting everyone from Princess Diana and Lucian Freud to generations of actors, artists, politicians and power players.
In this episode of Full Disclosure, James O’Brien sits down with the legendary restaurateur to trace an extraordinary life behind some of the capital’s most iconic dining rooms. Jeremy reflects on a childhood shaped by shyness, social awkwardness and a lasting sense of being an outsider, before explaining how an early fascination with risk led him to make major life decisions according to the throw of a dice, including the choice that pulled him away from Cambridge University and into hospitality.
They discuss his first jobs in the restaurant world, the formative partnership with Chris Corbin, and the instincts that helped create some of London’s most celebrated establishments. Jeremy reveals why great restaurants are about far more than food, how atmosphere and service can transform a room, and why making people feel they belong matters just as much as what is on the plate.
From celebrity diners and royal visits to business setbacks, reinvention and the long-awaited reopening of Simpson’s, the conversation moves through the highs, the risks and the resilience behind a singular career. Warm, candid and full of hard won insight, this is a conversation about ambition, instinct and the subtle art of creating places people never forget.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJames O'Brien· Host0:00
[upbeat music] This is a Global Player original podcast. [upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Full Disclosure, a podcast project conceived entirely to let me spend more time with interesting people than I would ever get on the radio show. Um, uh, Jeremy King, uh, uh, restaurateur extraordinaire. I won't do any more French in the course of this interview. I just need to get something out of the way early, which is, had I been any good at all as both a gossip columnist and a Fleet Street show business editor, [laughs] then I would know you extremely well already because of the, the status, um, that your restaurants have enjoyed over the years. But I don't. So, um, you might be a brilliant restaurateur, but I was clearly an absolutely rubbish gossip columnist and a showbiz journalist. Welcome.
Jeremy King· Guest0:53
Well, thank you very much.
James O'Brien· Host0:54
Um, for people who don't know who you are, there, there, there is barely a restaurant that has enjoyed a, a, a sparkling reputation in the last 30 or 40 years that, that, that you were not involved in. Um, before you set up your own business, you were a, a stalwart of some of the greatest, uh, names in, in the business. But I wanna begin at the very beginning, 'cause there were no indications in your early life of where you might end up, I don't think.
Jeremy King· Guest1:21
No, I, I... In the way that so many people fall into hospitality.
James O'Brien· Host1:28
Uh.
Jeremy King· Guest1:28
And