Defiant: Jeremy King, sat here in Zedel, is refusing to back down under pressure
(Picture: Adrian Lourie)The restaurateur Jeremy King is known for a few things. The celebrity catnip restaurants — The Wolseley, The Delauney, Zédel, Colbert, and co— come first. His silk-tied, three-piece-suited 6’5 frame is second, a familiar sight to those who eat at his places. Third, his charm is agreed upon. Still, he is not all manners and double cuffs: there is a hard-eyed toughness that has seen him through four decades of restaurants. Jeremy King is concrete wrapped in cotton wool.
It is this durability that King, 67, is relying on now as his restaurant empire with Chris Corbin, Corbin & King, faces ruin. The group is presently in administration, forced there by majority stakeholder Minor hotels, a Thai-born group who operate more than 500 hotels globally. Minor stress “that it is business as usual at the restaurants”, with no risk of them closing, and none of the 745 staff at risk — but, King says, it is all a play for power and should Minor win, he will go. Corbin & King would be a name, but the men behind it would be gone. And so would their way of doing things.
