Mirabelle (London restaurant)

Mirabelle
The exterior of Mirabelle in 2014
Restaurant information
Chef	Marco Pierre White (1998-2007)
Food type	European/French
Rating	(2000-08)
Street address	56 Curzon Street
City	London
Postal/ZIP Code	W1
Country	United Kingdom

Mirabelle was a restaurant in the Mayfair area of London. It opened in 1936, and became popular during the 1950s and 1960s, with some celebrities being regulars. Chef Marco Pierre White bought it and owned it from 1998 to 2007, when there wetter again reports of celebrities dining at the restaurant. It was sold in 2007. It earned a Michelin star in 2008 under head chef Charlie Rushton, and the star was kept until its closure for refurbishment later in 2008. It remained closed until the site was demolished in 2016/17. [1]

The restaurant was first opened in 1936. The interior has a single main dining room, and two private dining rooms entitled the Pine Room and the Chinese Room. The restaurant is in the basement. Guests enter at street level and go downstairs. The restaurant became popular following the Second World War, and in the 1950s and 1960s it was seen as the place to be. Regulars of the restaurant included Orson Welles and Winston Churchill. The restaurant was also used to entertain foreign guests of the British Government, such as in February 1962 when Lord Privy Seal Edward Heath dined with the Assistant Foreign Secretary of Yugoslavia.

In 1957, the chef and staff of Mirabelle relocated to Paris for a week to promote English food in the French capital. This also involved the temporary overturning of a ban on the importation of English oysters so that a thousand of them from Colchester could be sent for the Mirabelle staff to use there. Other dishes served in Paris included devilled kidneys and silverside of beef served with dumplings.

In 1988, the Brent Walker leisure group attempted to buy the restaurant for £3 million in order to convert it partially into a casino. The purchase was made, but the owner of the group George Alfred Walker could not get a casino licence for the premises after his criminal history was publicly revealed. In 1990, the restaurant was purchased by a Japanese billionaire, who renovated it. Mirabelle reopened with a main dining room serving a French Menu and Japanese menu in two tepanyaki room, with an impressive wine list of the best French wines designed by Steven Spurrier. The restaurant never became popular despite the hire of London's best PR agency.