Wanted: the restaurant’s job advert
(Picture: Bacchanalia)A lavish new restaurant opening in Mayfair is looking for “London’s first grape feeder”â and applicants must have “gorgeous hands”.
Wryly said to be named after the festival of “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll”, Bacchanalia is set to open later this year as the latest project from billionaire restaurant tycoon Richard Caring.
Rarely known for being understated, Caring is looking to hire a grape feeder with “gorgeous hands” and a “basic grasp of Greek and Latin”, in line with his new restaurant’s extravagant aesthetic.
According to the advert, shared in a tweet from CODE Hospitality, perks for the successful applicant include “regular manicures” and “the finest food and wine”.
Caring’s new Greek-Italian offering is expected to be as characteristically louche as his other high profile openings, which include Sexy Fish, The Ivy Asia and the new Scott’s in Richmond.
The new opening will see a former Porsche showroom occupying a corner site on the edge of Berkeley Square completely transformed. It is expected to feature statues inspired by Ancient Greece, alongside Sistine Chapel-style frescoes, along with 2,000 year-old antiques.
Artist Damien Hirst, a friend of Caring’s who worked with him on Sexy Fish and The Brasserie of Light, is making a quartet of giant artworks for the restaurant, including one of “winged lovers embracing on a unicorn”.
Martin Brudnizki, who also worked on many other Caprice Holdings restaurants, is in charge of design.
It is thought the restaurant will feature a members-only section, in addition to a private dining room, and “the Midas Bar” made entirely from rock crystal.
The menu has been put together by culinary consultant Athinagoras Kostakos, previously chef patron at Meraki in Fitzrovia. He is being joined by Enis Spacho and Theo Zarikakis as executive chefs who’ve variously been at Meraki, Mazi and Temper.
According to the Standard’s Alexandra Jones, Bacchanalia is ushering in “the era of the £300 lunch”.
Fresh from speculation about a potential acquisition of Corbin and King’s portfolio of restaurants earlier this year, the hospitality kingpin was back in the limelight last month following the latest episode of a five-year-long planning row with his neighbours over three “incongruous and dominant” windows in his £40m South Kensington house.
