The death has been announced of the restaurateur and art dealer Andrew Edmunds, best known for a famously intimate restaurant in Soho that bears his name.
Edmunds, who was 79 this month, founded his eponymous restaurant in 1985 in an 18th-century townhouse in Lexington Street.
His death was confirmed in a notice on the restaurant’s website on Monday, which said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Andrew Edmunds. The restaurant will be closed until Tuesday 20 September.”
The restaurant had been closed on Sunday “due to unforeseen circumstances” that were not explained at the time.
His family said his death was unexpected and came after a seemingly trivial illness.
Edmunds’s restaurant appears frequently in lists of the UK’s best places for romantic dinning. It is also regarded as one of the last hangouts of bohemian “old Soho” and is a favourite haunt of journalists and establishment figures, who were among the first to pay tribute to him.
Robert Chote, the economist and former head of the Office of Budget Responsibility, was among those passing on condolences to Edmunds’s friends and family, on the restaurant’s Facebook page.
Alexandra Shulman, the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue, tweeted: “On an already sad day just learnt about the death of Andrew Edmunds. His restaurant was one of my treasured spots for so long.”
The Observer’s restaurant critic Jay Rayner tweeted: “So sorry to hear that the art dealer and restaurateur Andrew Edmunds has died. A true pillar of Soho. I’ve been recommending the lovely restaurant that carries his name to people for years.”
Edmunds’s restaurant was known for high quality, but simple, seasonal cooking. Its cramped tables were in high demand for those seeking a romantic date. Harper’s Bazaar said the restaurant had played a “supporting role … in so many London love affairs”.
A Guardian review in 2015 said: “It has a well-deserved reputation for romance, possibly because you’re basically sitting on top of each other.”
Those on nervous first dates at the restaurant often found themselves rubbing shoulders with Soho’s literary establishment, who frequent the Academy Club upstairs.
Edmunds was also a successful art dealer specialising in English and French print drawings, and cartoons of the 18th and 19th century. His art dealership, which he founded in 1974, has an extensive stock including works by the 18thcentury satirists James Gillray and William Hogarth. Edmunds lent a number of works to museums including exhibitions at Tate Britain, the Sir John Soane’s museum in London and Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam museum.
Edmunds acquired two buildings in Soho next to the restaurant in the 1980s, when the area was rundown and property prices were cheap. He set up a print shop on one side.
He also allowed the late writer Auberon Waugh to recreate his Academy Club on an upper floor, above the restaurant.
The 2015 Guardian review, by Marina O’Loughlin, said: “The restaurant itself grew out of Edmunds’ antique prints business, and the whole thing makes you feel as if you’re starring in a novel by Keith Waterhouse or hanging out with George Melly. I walked past the other day and on a little blackboard was chalked ‘Grouse for lunch’. Even though I was en route to a perfectly lovely restaurant around the corner, I realised I wanted to be going to Andrew Edmunds instead.”
On Monday, O’Loughlin tweeted: “So sorry to hear about Andrew Edmunds: the best kind of restaurateur, in it for the love of it. May his restaurant live on in his memory, unchanged and one-off.”
Tim Lord, the chair of the Soho Society, said: “He was a discreet but enormously intelligent and thoughtful man who loved Soho and understood its history and heritage better than most. He will be terribly missed.”
Edmunds is survived by his wife, Bryony, three children and three grandchildren.
