Jeremy Lee Joins Quo Vadis

IF you had to pick a favourite foodie chef of the last twenty years, then Jeremy Lee would likely be on many a list and the news that he is finally decamping from Butler's Wharf and D&D – what used to be the Conran group’s Blueprint – to head to Soho seems as overdue as it is welcome and potentially exciting.

Quo Vadis, apart from being a movie, is a restaurant in Soho which has latterly been a bit more true to its name – where are you going? This was where Marco Pierre White commissioned some spot paintings of how to paint after a tiff with Damien Hirst. First opened in 1926 as a club, the building happens to be where Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital – you know, communism and all that.

Sam and Eddie Hart have been surfing the Soho zeitgeist more notably with their tapas bar round the corner the impossible-to-get-in Barrafina and Fino (off Charlotte Street) while Quo’s reputation has tended to plod weighed down by its sense of history. This may be about to change in January with the arrival of the much underrated and flamboyant Jeremy Lee who has been the mastermind at originally Sir Terence Conran’s Blueprint Cafe. He estarted there sixteen years ago and has been a consistent champion of fresh, inspired, daily cooking. Some people have said it is not as good as the view of Tower of London, but that is churlish. We bet he will be a great fit in Soho.

There is a video here of him here cooking up plaice with butter and Manzinalla, “I think we’ll serve this just as it is...”

He will be taking over from mid January. Book early.