The approach to Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant in London’s Covent Garden has some magic about it, not least because it’s next to the theatre where Disney’s Frozen is running. Beside Theatre Royal’s columned entrance and underneath a shining backlit poster of Queen Elsa letting it go, the restaurant, Jamie Oliver Catherine St, welcomes guests with a Christmas tree, twinkly lights and a menu promising “elevated British classics”.
Like Disney and Christmas itself, Oliver is a feel-good proposition: lovable and familiar. This is his first UK restaurant opening since the collapse of his empire of 22 Jamie’s Italian outlets in 2019, and it feels like no accident that it has opened just as the festive season begins, when spirits are at their highest.
