Together with his former business partner Chris Corbin, the duo have run some of the most successful London restaurants of the latter half of the last century. Their formula for pairing 1980s opulence with affordability and quality appealed to the A-List and restaurant critics alike, although part of King’s success has been bringing fine dining to the masses. “If a restaurant becomes really expensive, it often becomes very boring,” he says.

“A lot of the most interesting people are the less affluent.” Simpson’s in the Strand: The Ivy restaurateur returns The Ivy and Simpson’s in the Strand restaurateur Jeremy King is photographed at his new restaurant on the Strand All of this is to say that the reopening of Simpson’s – which closed in 2020 after more than a hundred years of trading – is serious news. The dining room, which he describes as “effectively Edwardian”, retains its original oak panelling, triple-height ceilings and tableside carvery experience.The fact it feels as if nothing has changed in a century is testament to the sensitive redesign, which is so convincing that it’s giving King grief.

“One guy pointed at these booths and said that between 1995 and 2020, he sat there at least twice a week,” he laughs. “I didn’t want to embarrass him, but the booth didn’t exist during that period.”How does King explain all this emotion? “People want to belong,” he says profoundly.

“And my job is to make people feel that they do.”Where does the man often dubbed the UK’s greatest restaurateur feel like he belongs? “I’ve never felt that I’ve belonged,” he says. “One might say it’s imposter syndrome, but it’s not so much.

It’s more just not knowing.”This feels like some confession from the man who enticed A-List royalty including Princess Diana, Laurence Olivier, Lauren Bacall and Lucien Freud to become regulars to The Ivy and Le Caprice. Jeremy King’s restaurant secret: hold your nerve What’s his secret, then, given half of restaurants opening in the capital close within two years? “People don’t hold their nerve,” he says of his competitors.Another essential element – perhaps surprisingly – is affordability.

There are three courses for £25 at Romano’s, the other restaurant within Simpson’s in the Strand. Investors were angry during the opening phase of Brasserie Zedel, his French restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, when he put a bowl of soup on the menu for £2.25, but low prices led to the restaurant gaining cult status. “The whole board ambushed me and said when are you going to realise this is never going to work?

When are you going to realise your vanity project is potentially going to destroy the company? I had control so they couldn’t make me stop. We held our nerve, and it worked.”He “bucks against” data from his marketing teams, preferring to follow his instincts.

“Everything nowadays seems to need proof of concept and I lament the fact that we’re not allowed to use our instinct or intuition… I get presented with all sorts of marketing and return on investment advice and often it’s wrong.”The proof is in the pudding, at least in food terms: he gives the impression that part’s a doddle. “People think what’s required is fussy food. Out comes this plate which is all finely chopped, dots around, drizzles, the one thing that’s missing is actually the piece of chicken is not very good.” What people actually want, he says, is ”very good quality ingredients, simply cooked.

The discerning person wants a really good piece of fish with an excellent hollandaise and veg. We’ve started to learn that it’s fun to go out for dinner. It needn’t be fussy.

For a long time the British lost that understanding.” The Ivy London: rolling out the brand wasn’t in my capability Simpson’s also seems in tune with our modern desire to escape our screens. It offers the opportunity to ‘buy’ cash to tip the meat carver, which feels deliciously analogue. There are suited servers and portraits of Victorian noblemen and women.

He says of his longtime design collaborator Shane Brady, with whom he worked on Simpson’s: “We have this innate understanding that design should never shout for attention but should withstand scrutiny and I think it’s the same for food. Great food doesn’t have to be embellished.” Despite his self belief, he doesn’t have a distinguishable ego, although he relishes telling s