Londoner’s Diary
Founder of The Wolseley Jeremy King has become the latest restaurateur to pen a memoir, Without Reservations, in which he imparts wisdom on everything from bill-paying etiquette to Ozempic. “I believe that there is a price to pay for easy diet solutions,” he writes of the drug, pronouncing it “as frightening as with Thalidomide”, the pill prescribed to pregnant women for morning sickness in the 1950s and 60s which caused babies to be born with severe birth defects. He also compares it to a curious sounding drug he took in the 70s called Sylvasun, which was meant to prevent sunburn. “It had the opposite effect and led to terrible burning that I still bear the legacy of.”
King’s prediction is that the side effects of Ozempic will be so profound (atrophying muscles et cetera) that the drug will return to being “the province of those who need and benefit from it and not the vainglorious.” In the meantime, he has spotted many GLP-1’d customers make “desultory attempts to eat smaller plates”.
There was nothing desultory about King’s book launch, held in a half-finished dining room at Simpson’s in The Strand, the classic British restaurant he is set to reopen early next year. The opening has been delayed because King’s contractors recently went bust — hence the still-bare concrete floors and loose wires. Nevertheless, there was champagne and martinis, and everyone was given a copy of the book for free. Guests included King’s wife, Lauren Gurvich, and his actor son Jonah Hauer-King, as well as skateboarder Blondey McCoy. Richard E Grant had dashed back from Paris, where hours earlier he had walked the Miu Miu show wearing a straight face and a black leather apron.
Meanwhile, writer Yomi Adegoke was at Soho Mews House to toast Down Cemetery Road, an upcoming Apple TV+ series starring Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson. At the Ham Yard Hotel, Bridgerton star Charithra Chandran and film-maker Gala Gordon went to a special screening of Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, A House of Dynamite, which stars Idris Elba as the US president. Wouldn’t that be nice.
Harsh truths
There’s perhaps no one better to eulogise Londons’s 2000s nightlife scene than DJ Jodie Harsh, who started clubbing aged 15. At the launch of her memoir, You Had To Be There, she mourned how clubs are now “being turned into Pret a Mangers”. Last weekend G-A-Y in Soho served its final drink, while Corsica Studios will close early next year – but Harsh has a solution. “In Berlin, the government protects venues — you can’t shut a popular club down — and I think the government in this country should be doing that,” she told the Standard. Clubs like Berghain are classified as cultural institutions rather than entertainment venues, meaning they are protected from scheming developers. Night czar, take note! Guests at the very civilised launch, held at The Bindery in Farringdon, included screenwriter Russell T Davies and fellow DJ Princess Julia.
Meanwhile, model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Google’s Vanessa Kingori, Sabrina Elba and Lady Amelia Windsor were at a lunch hosted by Chelsea Hirschhorn, founder of babycare brand Frida, at The Magazine in Kensington Gardens. Hirschhorn has unveiled a bronze statue she commissioned of a postpartum mother, which will be on display at Frieze.
