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Giorgio Locatelli closes London restaurant
After 23 years of operating on Seymour Street in London’s West End, chef Giorgio Locatelli has been forced to close the Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli.
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“With a heavy heart, for reasons out of our control, we are now permanently closed. We will miss all of our clients, many who have become friends. But when one door closes, another opens, so please check our social media for updates on our new project,” a statement from Locatelli. “We wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2025 and thank you all for your custom over the last 23 years.”
Exactly what those “reasons” were has not been disclosed yet, though Locatelli is one of many big name chefs in the UK to have had to take the difficult decision to shut up shop, with Claude Bosi and Glynn Purnell also having to recently close restaurants of theirs.
After leaving Zafferano in Belgravia, where he earned a Michelin Star in 1999, Locatelli opened Locanda Locatelli, attached to The Churchill Hotel, with his wife, Plaxy, in 2002 – one year later he would win a star there too, and retain it for the following two decades.
A gas explosion at Locanda Locatelli in November 2014 forced the restaurant to shut for several months, with Locatelli telling the db the following year that the stress of the incident made his hair turn white overnight – the explosion also meant that he lost £2,000-worth of white truffles from Alba, delivered that morning.
Locatelli’s restaurant at The Palm in Dubai, Ronda Locatelli Dubai, closed in 2022. Mogano by Giorgio Locatelli in the Bahamas is still operating.
The chef, who is originally from northern Lombardy, also has a media career in both the UK, especially with the critically acclaimed Unpacked series, where he explores his home country with art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, and in Italy, where he is a judge on Masterchef Italia.
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