Mind the gap and exit the District line at the Bayswater stop. Jaywalk across the Queensway and glide through the leaded glass doors of the Park restaurant.
Michelle Chillingworth, the deputy of restaurateur Jeremy King, knows her regulars by face and name. She squirrels away the umbrellas and leads the way down the curvaceous timber staircase. Slip into the Manhattan Room, the restaurant’s private dining room, and there they are. The New Yorkers.
London is lousy with American expats. And like homing pigeons returning to ancestral lands, they flock to the Park, King’s all-day brasserie on the ground floor of the nifty new apartment building on the northern border of Kensington Gardens.
The name is not as obvious as it sounds. “[The location] feels very American,” says King, speaking from the south coast of England, where he is putting the finishing touches to his memoir. “It’s [metaphorically] off Central Park more than anything else.”
King is quintessentially English—some might even say Shakespearean—but he understands New York like a local. And New Yorkers understand Jeremy King.
The Park’s menu is a crowd-pleasing mix of American classics and Italian dishes as they were interpreted by West Coast chefs such as Alice Waters, Jonathan Waxman, and Michael McCarty in the 1980s. The River Cafe’s Ruthie Rogers (born in upstate New York) gets the schnitzel. Fashion executive Alison Loehnis (born in New York City) orders the shrimp cocktail and Cobb salad. (And a margarita on the weekend.) Director Steven Soderbergh (born in Atlanta) never resists the cheesecake.
Like all the most desirable restaurants, there’s an element of private club, and while the Manhattan Room is technically open to the public, it’s easier to reserve with a 212, 917, 646, or 310 area code. It’s the kind of elegant, clubby dining room—only 12 seats, upholstered in burnt-orange leather—found in Fifth Avenue’s finer apartments. A bird’s-eye view of Central Park by artist Michael May covers the coffered ceiling. Custom vitrines were built into the African limba-wood paneling to complement Horst P. Horst’s photographs of Truman Capote and his swans.
While King selected the artwork, the interiors were designed by Shayne Brady of Studio Shayne Brady. “I don’t like our restaurants to look like they’ve been done by a decorator,” says Brady, who has worked with King for the past 15 years. His starting point for the Park was the Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan, but with way better lighting. “We want people to feel like the best versions of themselves,” he explains. (Where can we order those alabaster sconces?)
Still, even here, Americans struggle to separate work from pleasure. At breakfast, contracts are signed and boards are dissolved. In the evenings, birthdays are celebrated, strategic alliances are solidified, and the occasional love affair is ignited. All this, and they even serve hot dogs!
The wine list, designed by beverage director Sean Kelly, is very tempting and skews Californian. But for the Park’s American regulars, it’s one of the few places in town where they can order a “No-Groni” without being branded as a recovering alcoholic. Refreshing.
As the Park celebrates its first anniversary, it has already cemented itself in the firmament of West London. “I love places to have a sense of belonging and history, even if it’s a comparatively short one,” says King. But, boy. A year can feel like a very long time when you’re 3,500 miles away from home.
Ashley Baker is a Deputy Editor at Air Mail and a Co-Host of the Morning Meeting podcast
