LONDON’S “best restaurant” has closed its doors a year on from celebrating serving up “low-key” Michelin-star food for a decade.
Shoreditch-based restaurant Lyle’s is closing its doors after 11 years, despite being a fixture on the World’s Best Restaurant List since its opening in 2014.
Pioneered by maverick chef James Lowe, the fiercely no-frills concept offered a set menu averaging around £50 – radically cheap in the world of fine dining.
Despite the pared-back approach, SquareMeal’s restaurant guide named it the best in the capital last year.
Even more impressively, it placed at number 33 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2021.
Heston Blumenthal-trained restaurateur James Lowe’s announcement that his Shoreditch-based restaurant will close on May 18 has sent shockwaves through the culinary world.
His partner, JKS Restaurant Group, will hold onto the site as they signed a twenty-year lease in the Tea building, and potentially will open another fine dining restaurant.
Legendary chef Lowe will part ways with the group to work on an “exciting upcoming solo project,” with more details to come soon.
Despite Lowe’s aversion to mainstream TV appearances, the restaurant was frequented by A-listers such as Jake Gyllenhaal.
In an extended farewell to its fans, the restaurant will serve up a carousel of its most popular dishes over the next few weeks before closure.
The no-frills eatery “reluctantly” received a Michelin star 18 months after opening in 2014.
Impressively, Lowe has no formal training, and this was reflected in his no-nonsense, more “affordable” approach to fine dining.
He told Squaremeal how his sous chef said he was the “most miserable chef to ever win a star.”
When the news came, rather than jumping up and down with glee, his response was “Oh, this is awful.”
People are going to expect Michelin dining and be like, “Where are the tablecloths?”
Nevertheless, consistently flooded throughout the decade for “singular” chefs’ culinary delights.
Although James insisted that there was “nothing vaguely rock and roll” about his “edible day dreams”, which shunned “wishy washy concepts”, after receiving the star, footfall increased 35%.
Of the closure, James said: “I couldn’t be prouder of everything that we’ve accomplished at Lyle’s over the last eleven years.
“I love what we’ve done, how we’ve grown, adapted and learned. I want to say an enormous thank you to all members of the team, past and present, It’s been a privilege to have worked with so many brilliant people.
“Lyle’s has also allowed me to work with some of the best fishermen, artisanal producers and farmers in the UK.
“To evolve our food alongside them has been a journey that’s kept me inspired year after year. I’m looking forward to what comes next.”
Lowe didn’t elaborate on the reasons for the closure, but comforted his legions of foodie fans, saying that a “personal, independent” project was in the works – and more details would be released soon.
This comes as a slew of other fancy kitchens are closing their doors, with Great British Menu Chef Scott Smith announcing his Michelin-listed restaurant, Fhior, is closing just yesterday.
Despite rising through the culinary ranks at lightning speed, he shunned TV work, preferring to focus on just serving up what the Times described as “restrained, elegant food in an airy, austere setting.”
After splitting with John Ogier, the partner he originally opened Lyle’s in 2021, he invited world-famous chefs such as Sota Atsumi from Maison Paris and Daniela Soto Innes of Cosme and Atla New York City to guest star at Lyle’s over the years.
Fascinatingly, the darling of the British food scene had little interest in food as a child and subsisted almost exclusively on bacon.
He told SquareMeal: “There was always the joke about how the kid who only ate bacon started cooking and opening a restaurant.”
After graduating from university, he secured a place on the British Airways pilot training scholarship scheme – but then 9/11 happened and the training was deferred a year.
Desperate for cash, he worked as a waiter in East London’s Wapping project.
This decision proved transformative, and he pivoted from the cockpit to the kitchen.
He said: “I was working front of house, but got on very well in the kitchen.
“Everyone was driven, passionate and a bit nuts, I learnt on the floor.”
After having one of the most “mind-blowing meals of (is) life” at Heston Blumenthal’s iconic “bonkers” restaurant, the Fat Duck, he secured a day’s work experience at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant.
At the end of his shift, he begged for a job, but the chef said they were fully staffed.
Stubbornly, he simply pitched up every day until they relented.
After a five-year stint at St John Bread and Wine, he achieved his dream of opening a restaurant by the age of 30.
Initially, his “back to basics” approach was labelled “boring” and made fun of as a pretentiously East London hipster.
Gradually, the food spoke for itself, and after the shock Michelin star, the maverick consciously made the spot as “anti-Michelin” as possible.
He blasted the music louder, cut the size of the menu and refused to pomp and fluster that usually accompany high-end dining.
Honouring the restaurant’s tenth anniversary last year, he told ResturantOnline: “The principle of the restaurant has remained – honesty, transparency, humility and built to last.
“The places that really inspired me were The Fat Duck, The River Cafe, but they are all around 30 years old now.
He hinted that Lyle’s might be in trouble confessing: “I had in my head that 10 years in things would be supersmooth, that we would have a strongly established culture and wouldn’t worry about day-to-day trade or getting people in, but that’s naive.
“Even saying that, I feel stupid – stuff keeps happening, the cost of living, changes to salaries, we are down in numbers every month on last year.
“Maybe I should have done that TV stuff that people said I should have done.
“I’ve always said, you’ll know the 4resturant’s in trouble if you ever see me on weekend TV.”
He never did succumb to the lure broadcast, sticking to his guns.
But sadly he the restaurant has become another casualty of the pressures on the hospitality industry.
RETAIL PAIN IN 2025
The British Retail Consortium has predicted that the Treasury’s hike to employer NICs will cost the retail sector £2.3billion.
Research by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that more than half of companies plan to raise prices by early April.
A survey of more than 4,800 firms found that 55% expect prices to increase in the next three months, up from 39% in a similar poll conducted in the latter half of 2024.
Three-quarters of companies cited the cost of employing people as their primary financial pressure.
The Centre for Retail Research (CRR) has also warned that around 17,350 retail sites are expected to shut down this year.
It comes on the back of a tough 2024 when 13,000 shops closed their doors for good, already a 28% increase on the previous year.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the CRR said: “The results for 2024 show that although the outcomes for store closures overall were not as poor as in either 2020 or 2022, they are still disconcerting, with worse set to come in 2025.”
Professor Bamfield has also warned of a bleak outlook for 2025, predicting that as many as 202,000 jobs could be lost in the sector.
“By increasing both the costs of running stores and the costs on each consumer’s household it is highly likely that we will see retail job losses eclipse the height of the pandemic in 2020.”