Quaglino's
| Quaglino's | |
|---|---|
| Restaurant information | |
| Established | 1929 |
| Current owner(s) | D&D London |
| Street address | 16 Bury Street |
| City | London |
| Country | England |
| Website | quaglinos-restaurant |
Quaglino's is a restaurant at 16 Bury Street, St James's, London, founded by Giovanni Quaglino in 1929. The restaurant achieved huge popularity with the British establishment in the 1930s through to the 1950s after which it entered a period of relative decline, being purchased by the Conran Group in 1993 and relaunched by D&D London in the 2010s.
Giovanni "John" Quaglino was a waiter who was maître d'hôtel at the Martinez Hotel in Cannes and who subsequently worked at The Savoy in London with John Sovrani. Sovrani left The Savoy to start Sovrani's Restaurant in Jermyn Street in 1927, taking Quaglino with him, however, according to rumour, Sovrani took too much interest in Quaglino's wife, causing him to resign as head waiter in 1929 and start Quaglino's in nearby Bury Street. Sovrani's lost a lot of business to Quaglino's and closed in 1931. A version of the rumours was repeated in the Tatler on 6 January 1932 in which a restaurant owner was quoted as saying "my boss, he pinch my brother's wife, so now I pinch his business", causing Sovrani to sue the publishers and printers of Tatler for libel. The defence argued that the words could not apply to Sovrani as his restaurant had already closed by the time they appeared and Quaglino's only brother was not married. The jury, however, found in favour of the Sovrani and awarded him £2500 damages with costs.
Quaglino's became highly fashionable in the 1930s. It was patronised by the Mountbattens and Evelyn Waugh dined there. As Prince of Wales, King Edward VIII was also a customer.
Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson, one of the first popular black entertainers in Britain, became a regular performer at Quaglino's in the 1930s and 40s. According to The Mirror, his affair with Lady Edwina Mountbatten caused her husband Lord Mountbatten to complain to the band leader at Quaglino's that "Hutch has a p***** like a tree-trunk, and he's f****** my wife right now."
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