Not long ago, Jeremy King received a letter. The writer wanted to tell him about his experience at The Wolseley, the Piccadilly grand café run by King and his business partner, Chris Corbin, that had become a byword for polished, buzzy all-day dining. “I steeled myself,” King says, “because your immediate assumption is, here comes a complaint.” They were really well looked after, the writer continued; the food was great, and they had a wonderful time. But he wanted to talk about what happened after they left. While they were waiting for their coats in the lobby, his companion spotted some cakes in the salon off to the side and went to investigate. Her eye had been drawn to a marzipan-clad Battenberg, one of her favourites and a rare old-school sight in a contemporary restaurant. On her return she said she wished she’d known it was an option, because she would have ordered it. The writer assured her they could have it next time and, armed with their coats, they went outside, where the doorman got them a cab. As the door was closing, however, a staff member rushed after them and handed them a Wolseley box, saying simply, “Why wait?” When they opened it, they found two pieces of Battenberg cake inside.
Many restaurants’ first impulse would be to charge the ‘errant’ staff member with giving away company property without permission; for King, however, it was an exemplary instance of his maxim, honed over four decades in the restaurant business, that ‘generosity is central to hospitality’. If Corbin & King’s restaurants became stars — and from Le Caprice to J. Sheekey, and The Ivy to The Wolseley, theirs is a dazzling constellation — it was due to the relaxed kind of glamour they embodied rather than any Michelin- chasing
