London rioters target Michelin-star restaurant
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Rioters stormed Decanter's Restaurant of the Year as violence spread across London on Monday night.
During an evening which saw the ‘worst violence in living memory’, according to senior police officers, two Michelin-starred restaurant The Ledbury, Notting Hill was attacked by ‘around 15-20 people’ at approximately 10.30pm.
The attackers smashed the front door and glassware, threatened diners and staff, and stole personal items. One diner, Louise Yang, described the experience on her blog Naked Sushi.
‘The looters were yelling at us to get down and throwing stuff all over the place. I got down and started taking off my wedding and engagement ring to hide somewhere, but unfortunately wasn’t fast enough. One looter came up and demanded my phone.’
‘The kitchen staff at the Ledbury went beyond their call of duty by rushing up from the kitchen with rolling pins, fry baskets, and other dangerous kitchen tools and scared off the looters,’ she added.
This morning, Jason Walker, assistant restaurant manager told Decanter.com, ‘It all happened very quickly and there was no harm to any of the customers. The kitchen staff came out and got quite vocal. Those burly kitchen boys did us a lot of favours.’
The restaurant will open for lunch but is still deciding if it will run a dinner service this evening, with further rioting a possibility.
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The Ledbury declined to comment on the cost of the damage.
Written by Rebecca Gibb
Rebecca Gibb MW is a wine journalist and editor who has also founded Bamboozled games, ‘the world’s first wine and spirit puzzle makers’. Having spent six years living in New Zealand, she has recently returned to her native north-east England. While in New Zealand, she became a Master of Wine, graduating top of her class and winning the Madame Bollinger medal for excellence in tasting. A former winner of both the UK’s young wine writer of the year and the Louis Roederer Emerging Wine Writer, her first book The Wines of New Zealand was published in 2018. She also runs wine events and has her own consultancy business The Drinks Project. She was a judge at the 2019 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).