Our heritage

Chris Corbin and Jeremy King first met whilst working at Langan’s Brasserie and Joe Allen’s respectively, both influential restaurants on the London scene in the late 1970s.

In 1981, they acquired Le Caprice which had originally opened in the 1940s. After a challenging beginning it became a great success.  The Ivy opened in 1990 and consistently topped the Zagat and Harden's Guides as most popular restaurant in London. 

The theme of restoring faded restaurants to their former glory continued with the purchase and renovation of J. Sheekey in 1998.  

In the same year, Caprice Holdings Limited was sold to Signature Restaurants; Corbin & King remained as non-executive Directors until 2002.

Corbin & King then acquired the site that became
The Wolseley, opening in November 2003.  It had long been an ambition to open an all-day brasserie/café in the European style, which The Wolseley has fulfilled magnificently, achieving the highest grossing turnover of any individual restaurant in the UK.

Rex Restaurant Associates was created to manage the future expansion of Corbin and King’s interests and to allow them to focus on new opportunities in London and abroad, including The Delaunay in London’s Aldwych, a new hotel in Mayfair (due to open in 2014), Brasserie Zédel in Sherwood Street (due to open Summer 2012) and Colbert in Sloane Square (due to open early Autumn 2012).