Glory days: after closing owing to the lockdowns, Richoux is being reborn as an all-day brasserie
(Picture: Steven Joyce)For anyone looking, opposite the Burlington Arcade there used to be a place with gold letters bearing the old-fashioned legend “Tearoom” above its windows on one side, and “Restaurant” on the other. This was the Piccadilly branch of Richoux, the chain of cafe-restaurants founded more than a century ago that still occasionally drew the likes of Sir Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift. But lockdowns put all 15 sites out of business this time last year — making it one of an estimated 6,000 restaurants, cafes and bars claimed by the pandemic across the country. Except that it’s now among a handful that find themselves back from the dead — and for whom the pandemic wasn’t a curse, but a chance to start over.
“It feels… daunting,” says Jamie Butler, one of the two chefs tasked with reviving the restaurant’s once-great fortunes. “We’re deep in it. Richoux meant a lot to a lot of people.”
