Here today, gone tomorrow

Restaurant openings are enjoyable. We stuff ourselves with free tidbits, meet old friends and catch up with the latest news.

Closures are different: sad affairs, with tears and mournful expressions all round. The closure of London's legendary Le Gavroche was one of those occasions. The odd thing is that it didn't fail commercially.

Michel Roux Jr was quite explicit that the restaurant was still fully booked week after week when he decided to close it in January 2024. Roux had run Le Gavroche since 1991, and the relentless pressure of maintaining a two-Michelin-starred restaurant had eventually become exhausting. He wanted more time for his family and other businesses.

There was also a convenient moment to draw the curtain. The restaurant's lease was due to expire in January 2024. Roux had discussed renewing it with the landlord, but ultimately decided that the expiry provided a natural opportunity to stop rather than commit himself to another long period.

The economics of fine dining had also become considerably tougher. Energy, food, wages, business rates and other operating costs had risen sharply. Roux said Le Gavroche could absorb some increases because its clientele was relatively insensitive to price, but running even a 68-seat Mayfair restaurant was becoming increasingly difficult.

The pandemic had nearly broken the business, and the experience evidently changed Roux's attitude towards its future. He did not want to sell. There had been offers to buy both the restaurant and its name, but Roux said selling Le Gavroche would have been like “selling my right arm”. He preferred to close it rather than see the family name continue without him.

Thus, Le Gavroche died not from failure, but from exhaustion.