It is Christmas Day, the one just past, and Brutto restaurateur Russell Norman is not with his family. Instead, he is leaning against the Wolseley making a call, while inside Pierre Koffmann, the three Michelin-starred titan who trained Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay, sits in a gold paper hat with the last of the lunch’s wine. “I’m standing around the corner, and become vaguely aware of this beautiful vintage car pulling to the curb. From that emerges a beautifully attired, 6ft 5in giant of a gentleman. And from the corner of my eye I watch him walk to me,” recalls Norman. “He sees I’m on the phone, gently kneels down in his Savile Row suit and silently ties my undone shoelace. Then he stands with a wry smile and twinkling eyes, and heads into the restaurant. And that one act — that one amazing, selfless, hospitable act — sums up Jeremy King entirely. It sums up Corbin & King entirely, too.”
Norman is just one of a sea of fans that Jeremy King and business partner Chris Corbin have collected over a career spanning more than four decades, with a portfolio of celebrated London restaurants that includes the Wolseley, the Delaunay, Colbert and Brasserie Zedel. Through the years, their openings have been magnets for A-listers — Kate Moss, the Beckhams, Liz Hurley, Jake Gyllenhaal — as much as discerning chefs.
