The second of Jeremy King’s trio of new London restaurants – Arlington launched in March 2024; Simpsons in the Strand will follow in early 2025 – The Park is a departure for the veteran restaurateur who made Le Caprice, The Ivy and The Wolseley the seminal restaurants of the 1980s, 1990s and noughties. Not only is The Park King’s first contemporary restaurant in a new building, but it is also his first focused on American cuisine and his first in west London, opposite the northern entrance to Kensington Gardens by Queensway Tube.
The Mood: Mid-century Midtown
The American equivalent of a Wolseley-style, Mitteleuropean grand café is… the diner? But while King has taken the classic diner tropes of wood-panelling and orange booths, he has filtered them through a mid-century, Midtown sensibility. King has said his inspiration was The Four Seasons Restaurant in Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, which opened in 1959, and architecture is a motif throughout, with walls hung with illustrations by Le Corbusier and photos by Ti Foster, son of Sir Norman. It’s dog-friendly in the daytime, if you’ve been for a walk in the park.
The Food: Stateside breakfasts and Cal-Ital suppers
King has got all the diner details right at breakfast and brunch: mugs on the tables for refillable filter coffee, stacks of fluffy pancakes drenched in maple syrup. Lunch and dinner, meanwhile, reflect the Californian-Italian cuisine pioneered by chefs such as Alice Waters. Mains like zucchini and ricotta rollatini are billed as entrees, salads are very much a thing, and because it wouldn’t be a Jeremy King restaurant without some sort of schnitzel, here there’s a chicken Milanese. An exclusively Italian-American wine list includes bottles from Oregon and Washington State as well as Californian big-hitters.
The Park is located at 2 Queensway, London
-
London Design Festival 2025: live updates from the Wallpaper* teamFrom 11-21 September, London is celebrating design in all its forms. Here's the latest news, launches and other goings-on from London Design Festival 2025, as seen by Wallpaper* editors
-
Inside Ardbeg House, the whimsical Islay hotel from the Scotch distillery‘Luxury with a laugh’ is how Russell Sage describes his designs for the new hotel, where each room draws on island and whisky lore
-
Luxury cruise line Explora Journeys will set sail in Asia for the first time28 voyages across Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore will mark the luxury travel brand’s debut in the region
-
Carmela’s joins London’s pizza renaissanceA Little Italy-inspired pizzeria lands in Islington with 13-inch pies, pepperoni heat and big flavour energy
-
Has the ice cream parlour come of age?A global wave of architecture studios is treating the scoop as spectacle, turning parlours into immersive social spaces
-
Legado brings a bold Spanish legacy to ShoreditchMichelin-starred chef Nieves Barragán Mohacho’s second venture marries design-led interiors with regional Spanish flavours rarely found in London
-
The Macbeth, an icon of indie sleaze, goes from grotty to gastroAn East End legend meets Portuguese small plates in Jamie Allan’s ambitious revival of a beloved Hackney watering hole
-
A complete collection of Phaidon’s ‘Contemporary Artists Series’ is on display in LondonA 30-year project reaching 100 volumes is being celebrated with an exhibition at the 45 Park Lane hotel, including limited-edition works by Kaws and Dana Schutz
-
London’s best pizza restaurant gets a new home in MayfairSecure a slice of New York-style pizza in central London as Crisp Pizza teams up with the Devonshire pub to set up shop in the relaunched The Marlborough
-
At this east London listening bar, mezcal-fuelled cocktails hit as hard as the basslinesIn Bethnal Green, Little Fires pairs vinyl grooves with mezcal margaritas and Oaxacan sharing plates
-
Harry Nuriev’s Noisy Oyster London bistro isn’t quite finished – and that’s the pointA futuristic, work-in-progress aesthetic forms a striking backdrop for a new, sustainably focused seafood bistro in Shoreditch
