The Park: step inside Jeremy King's mid-century diner
One of several 2024 openings from restauranteur, Jeremy King, food critic Ben McCormack books in at The Park
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
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ben McCormack is a London-based restaurant journalist with over 25 years’ experience of writing. He has been the restaurant expert for Telegraph Luxury since 2013, for which he was shortlisted in the Restaurant Writer category at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards. He is a regular contributor to the Evening Standard, Food and Travel and Decanter. He lives in west London with his partner and lockdown cockapoo.
-
How Memphis developed from an informal gathering of restless creatives into one of design's most influential movementsEverything you want to know about Memphis Design, from its history to its leading figures to the pieces to know (and buy)
-
Aidia Studio's mesmerising forms blend biophilia and local craftMexican architecture practice Aidia Studio's co-founders, Rolando Rodríguez-Leal and Natalia Wrzask, bring together imaginative ways of building and biophilic references
-
Modern masters: the ultimate guide to Keith HaringKeith Haring's bold visual identity brought visibility to the marginalised
-
The most anticipated hotel openings of 2026From landmark restorations to remote retreats, these are the hotel debuts shaping the year ahead
-
The most stylish hotel debuts of 2025A Wallpaper* edit of this year’s defining hotel openings. Design-led stays to shape your next escape
-
Neo-Gothic grandeur and decadent martinis await at Hawksmoor St PancrasThe dining room at the St Pancras London hotel has proved to be a revolving door for big-name chefs; now, it's Hawksmoor’s time to shine
-
Form... and flavour? The best design-led restaurant debuts of 2025A Wallpaper* edit of the restaurant interiors that shaped how we ate, gathered and lingered this year
-
At last: a London hotel that’s great for groups and extended staysThe July London Victoria, a new aparthotel concept just steps away from one of the city's busiest rail stations, is perfect for weekends and long-term visits alike
-
French bistro restaurant Maset channels the ease of the Mediterranean in LondonThis Marylebone restaurant is shaped by the coastal flavours, materials and rhythms of southern France
-
Sir Devonshire Square is a new kind of hotel for the City of LondonA Dutch hospitality group makes its London debut with a design-forward hotel offering a lighter, more playful take on the City’s usual formality
-
This sculptural London seafood restaurant was shaped by ‘the emotions of the sea’In Hanover Square, Mazarine pairs a bold, pearlescent interior with modern coastal cuisine led by ‘bistronomy’ pioneer chef Thierry Laborde