Toast the City: Galvin La Chapelle brothers on Michelin success and 20 years in business
In a new series celebrating the people and places nominated for our Toast the City awards, Adam Bloodworth visits Galvin La Chapelle, a Michelin starred restaurant in a Victorian chapel in the Square Mile
Half of all restaurants that open in London close within two years. It’s a bleak truth, and yet the upside is that the places that manage to stay open are typically incredibly good.
Chris and Jeff Galvin are two of those men who have managed to keep their doors open. While their business has shrunk over the past 20 years from 15 restaurants to three, the ones they have left are truly special. Sitting down with them – with a combined kitchen experience of 80 years – the stories begin to flow. “I don’t know how many recessions – is it six or seven now?” laughs Jeff. “We’ve been around the block, Adam,” says Chris.
It’s hard to argue with that. In the early noughties the Galvins became the first British brothers to earn separate Michelin stars at different restaurants, Jeff at L’Escargot and Chris at Orrery. Opening their first London restaurant together, Galvin Bistrot de Luxe, in 2005, gained the brothers another star, as did their 28th floor Park Lane restaurant Galvin at Windows, though both have now closed. Galvin La Chapelle, which occupies a high-ceilinged Victorian gym in the Square Mile, has retained its star since 2011.
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But their straightforward, ingredient-led cooking was never about industry acclaim. “We geared ourselves up not to get a Michelin star, but to give what we thought [was right] for customers in terms of flexibility,” says Jeff. “A guest can come and have a main course and a delicious glass of wine and be gone within an hour, or there is a seven course tasting menu if they want to stay for hours.”
Whatever type of experience they come for, they’re united by brand loyalty. “Twenty years ago when we opened Bistro Deluxe, we found that when people loved a dish it was nearly impossible to take the damn thing off,” says Chris. “We’d get hate mail when we took dishes off!”
To celebrate twenty years, Chris and Jeff have unveiled a menu featuring dishes – including their apple tarte tatin and crab lasagne – which have been on the menu since the beginning, available for £55 in Galvin La Chapelle throughout the spring and summer.
Chris and Jeff are also reuniting with a handful of former Galvin chefs for a gala evening for which 20 years’ worth of chefs will reunite to create one epic meal. The brothers acknowledge that getting this many chefs together is hard work, with chefs flying in from as far away as Canada for the event. But it’s testament to their loyalty to the brothers that they’re showing up. Will it be fun to have everyone back together? “If you’re still talking,” jokes Chris. “It’s not always amicable.”
Such knees-ups aren’t the reality of cheffing today though. The cost of living crisis has made restaurateurs’ work infinitely harder: “The changes in the City freak me out a little bit, how quickly it’s changing,” says Chris. “You’re as good as your last meal, you’ve got to constantly evolve, listen to customers, reflect on what you got right and, especially, what you got wrong – that’s really critical. And stay ahead of the game, never settle.”
While once the brothers knew everyone working in kitchens in London – “Once upon a time, there were so few restaurants, I knew the names of the whole brigade, their inside leg measurement,” says Chris – now a new restaurant opens every other day, driving constant innovation and fresh thinking. But it’s never been easy. “Even in 1986, the lifespan of a restaurant was three years. One year up, one year plateaus and then you’re not in favour anymore.” Funnily enough, lifelong clients working in the City who dine at Galvin La Chapelle share their woes with the brothers too. “I was at La Chapelle last Thursday with the boss of a computer company. I asked how business is and he said ‘We’ve got our plans for this week but that might go in the bin tomorrow once a new thing comes.'”
City AM is celebrating the best London restaurants this September, including Galvin La Chapelle, with the Toast The City Awards
Where do they go to get their ideas? Social media is “brilliant” for inspiration, which is different from when they were younger when “nobody would give you a recipe,” says Chris. “It was so secretive but now it’s brilliant – everybody shares. They’re not going to be cooking that in a few months. They’re going to be moving on and it’s a form of flattery if it’s copied.”
Amid the change, Galvin La Chapelle – a stand-out Square Mile building that quite literally feels like a chapel – is a resilient cornerstone of the Square Mile. It’s the sort of place that feels as if it can stop time briefly when you go in for a meal. Half a million was spent on a post-pandemic refurbishment to lighten the furnishings and make the place feel ever so slightly more casual, but it still retains its aura of a destination restaurant, the type of place that totally consumes you for a few hours. “We don’t have a ‘no phones’ policy but rarely do people use phones in the restaurant,” says Chris. “They engage with their friends, which is special.”
“I think Galvin La Chapelle is a bit of an oasis,” he says. “The city is moving so fast, all of us are under massive pressure, but it’s such a beautiful historic building. When you walk from the crazy streets of Bishopsgate into the serenity of La Chapelle, it’s comforting.”
Read more about the Toast The City Awards and nominate your favourite Square Mile venues on the website