“I haven’t been wrestling crocodiles or anything,” grins Des Gunewardena, formerly one half of restaurant group D&D and one of the most recognisable men in British hospitality.
He gestures at his arm, which is firmly encased in a cast following what he calls a “minor operation”. But while his injury may not be reptile-related, he has certainly been wrestling crocodiles of the corporate world. In 2022 he left D&D after 18 years at the helm and over three decades at the group that charts its lineage all the way back to the Conran restaurant empire. Notable D&D London restaurants include Coq d’Argent, German Gymnasium, 14 Hills and Angler, which holds a Michelin star.
Over the course of two and a half hours, including a tour of his soon-to-open new restaurant and entertainment venue at Royal Exchange and a slap-up lunch at The Ned, Gunewardena opens up for the first time about his exit from D&D.
Was his decision to go?
“I had no option,” he says matter of factly. “There was a pretty fundamental difference of views between the guy who founded the business [him] and the financial stakeholders. The discussions about strategy had been going on for a while, it wasn’t an overnight decision.”
There was a pretty fundamental difference of views between the guy who founded the business [him] and the financial stakeholders
Throughout our conversation, which veers from the challenges facing the hospitality sector to his vision for his nascent restaurant empire, Gunewardena is affable and open – but when discussing his former company he treads carefully, partly, no doubt, owing to the NDA he will presumably have signed upon his exit.
“I’ve not really talked about it,” he continues. “But I had one vision for how to develop the company and the private equity investors [LDC, who exited D&D last year after a 10-year involvement] had a different vision. My strategy was to continue to practise the things that have been so successful since D&D was formed, and prior to that since Conran was formed. In the short term, you have to manage the business as well as you can. And in the long term you continue to stick to your vision: long term players, long term growth. That was my strategy. Theirs was more focused on the short term. [When I was at D&D] we had a history of actually never closing a restaurant. We were long term players.”
A dish at Des Gunewardena’s new Jang restaurant
After Gunewardena’s departure D&D shuttered four restaurants including Avenue and Radici in the capital. Gunewardena looks like he wants to say more but catches himself: “Anyway, I respect their decision. I hope they do well and it ends up in good hands. The acid test is how successful they’ve been.”
He says the falling out was never with David Loewi – the other “D” in D&D – and that he met up with his former partner “a few months ago”.
Gunewardena failed in an attempt to regain control of D&D after his exit: “We made a bid. The bid wasn’t accepted. That’s why I’m now exclusively focused on my own things.”
Will he ever try again?
“Look, who knows what happens in the future but the new business is absolutely my focus.”
•••
I met Gunewardena in the Royal Exchange, where the first restaurant in his new D3 Collective will open its doors next month. To access the restaurant, Gunewardena unzips a dust jacket that covers the staircase leading up to the mezzanine.
At the top is a building site filled with people sawing and drilling and hammering. Gunewardena gestures towards a newly installed kitchen in which chef Dana Choi (formerly of Jinjuu and Seol Bird) is training her team on the new dishes that will be served in Jang. In the other direction is what will soon be the entertainment space, Engel. “We were going to have a stage but I thought it would be more intimate to have the singers move through the crowd”.
As we walk he pauses to consider the shade of the carpets, then points to where a bank of lamps will be installed, clearly a man on top of the details.
When I came out of D&D, I invested in a payment processing business run by a 25-year-old Taiwanese whizzkid and an online celebrity TV channel
The Royal Exchange mezzanine is a strange space, consisting of 5,000sqft flanking the main hall on three sides. One side is dominated by huge faux-Tudor murals, usually hidden from view by the shops.
“You’re right, it’s very unusual,” he says when I suggest it’s an unorthodox place for a restaurant. “It’s on the first floor and you can’t really see it. But you have to remember we’re bang in the middle of the City. Okay, you have to go inside to discover it but we’re just by Bank tube station.”
Anyway, Gunewardena knows what he’s doing: he has history here, opening the fine dining restaurant Sauterelle – French for Grasshopper – in the space in 2015 (it closed in 2018 after its lease expired). “We operated it very successfully – it was always a profitable venue for us,” he says.
His vision for Jang/Engel is a 1920s Berlin vibe, with live performances in Engel and Japanese-Korean fusion food in Jang. He had originally planned for the restaurant to serve German cuisine, along the lines of D&D’s German Gymnasium, but says he realised high-end Korean food is underrepresented in London. “We’re bringing something a little bit exotic to the space,” he says. The Japanese element was added “because your average Tiffany and luxury watch shopper might not think Korean was luxury enough.”
The terrace outside Des Gunewardena’s new Engel concept at Royal Exchange
He says Jang will serve Korean staples such as kimchi and Korean fried chicken alongside Japanese dishes including sushi. Starters will come in around the £15 mark and mains at £20-25.
I ask if he’s shooting for a Michelin star but he says not: “If you get a Michelin star then great. Back in my D&D days we weren’t aiming for a Michelin star with Angler – it happened because it’s a really great fish restaurant. But the answer is no.”
It seems telling that Jang/Engel feel like they could be D&D restaurants, not only because they occupy a former D&D space but also in terms of the price point. Is Gunewardena sticking to what he knows?
“When I came out of D&D, of the first three investments I made, two weren’t restaurants. I invested in a payment processing business run by a 25-year-old Taiwanese whizzkid and I invested in an online celebrity TV channel. My third investment was in a restaurant but it was unlike anything D&D have ever been involved in: Rambutan, the Sri Lankan restaurant in Borough Market.
In 12 months I’ll have gone from zero to 250 staff. I’ve got my hands full, there is momentum. I’m enjoying myself more running this than I was running D&D.
“If we’re talking about my own restaurant projects, there are three, two of which have been announced – Jang/Engel and a 10,000sqft project in Canary Wharf – and one is yet to be announced. I wasn’t thinking in terms of upscale or downscale or casual. I wanted to build interesting restaurants, based on my experience. Now I’m not running a big business, I have more time to spend creating restaurants that explore different concepts.
“Jang isn’t necessarily a restaurant you would expect from me because it’s Asian whereas D&D was known for British and French food in glamorous dining rooms.”
•••
After the tour we make the short stroll to The Ned for lunch. When we arrive there’s a mix-up with the tables and we end up in the middle of the food hall instead of tucked away in a quiet corner.
“Are you going to pull a ‘Don’t you know who I am?’,” I ask.
“They know exactly who I am,” he replies. And sure enough The Ned’s food and beverage director soon appears and ushers us to a vast banquette squirrelled away at the back of the restaurant.
It must have been hard, I suggest, leaving D&D after so long at the helm, like he’s left a little piece of his heart behind? “Yeah, of course, it’s still there,” he says. “You can’t get away from the fact that I was involved in building these restaurants. Every single one, I was there, first with Terence Conran and then with David.
“[Leaving was] a major, major decision. But I’m building a very nice little business. In 12 months I’ll have gone from zero to 250 staff. I’ve got my hands full, there is momentum. I’m enjoying myself more running this than I was running D&D. There’s a lot of routine involved when you have 2,000 staff, and there’s a lot of routine involved in running the company. It’s not that it wasn’t fun but I’ve got a new lease of life. I’m doing something new and that’s energising. It’s very short, sharp and unbureaucratic.”
A hotdog on the terrace outside Des Gunewardena’s new Engel concept at Royal Exchange
Even a man with a lifetime’s experience in hospitality must have had some reservations about starting again, of taking the fight to his former company with a competing venture?
“The only thing I had when I started the new business was my contacts,” he smiles. So who is backing his extremely expensive-looking new venture? “I’m not working with one private equity house or one financial backer. And I’m not working with one person either, as was the case with Terrence Conran and myself and then David and myself. I have two different investors, both high net worth individuals. I’m trying to build a modern business that reflects how business is done now. Most businesses that have been around for 20 or 30 years are actually evolutions of management structures.”
He laughs mischievously as he describes setting up his new company.
“I build an office in my kitchen until my wife kicked me out because I was cramping her style. I set up my own bank accounts and my own companies. I have zero head office costs at the moment because I’m not paying myself. Obviously we will build a modest head office as we grow because it makes sense to have something centralised. I’m gonna try to keep things very, very tight, try not to have too many layers of management, keep the decision making as close as possible to the restaurants.”
How big are his plans? How many restaurants does he see himself owning in five years? Could his empire end up surpassing that of D&D?
I’ve just come back from Mumbai and places like that are still in the early stages of a big growth in the middle classes. The sheer numbers in India represent a big opportunity for restaurateurs.
“I’m only thinking 12 months ahead,” he says. “I will continue to look at the UK, but I’m very interested in the US and India. London is very established and very successful, a big city and with big opportunities. I’ve just come back from Mumbai and places like that are still in the early stages of a big growth in the middle classes. The sheer numbers in India represent a big opportunity for restaurateurs. I’m looking at a project, working with a local, well established restaurant company over there, about the idea of opening something in Mumbai next year. And if that works that may be a platform to do more in Asia…”
•••
The election race was hotting up as we met – I wonder if he’s drawn to either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer but he declines to comment. In that case, what would he do were he in charge?
“I would have a more liberal regime, one that’s based on the economic needs of the country,” he says. This would involve making it easier to hire staff from abroad and bringing back duty free shopping. “I would not sacrifice the economy for [political] promises.”
He is, however, upbeat on the overall health of the hospitality sector. He downplays the lingering effects of Covid, saying that, while overall footfall into the City is down, average spends are up. “Mondays are not as busy as they were. Fridays are certainly not as busy as they were. Tuesdays and Thursdays have just about recovered. But what we found was that the people who came back to the office weren’t doing it just to sit at their desks – they were coming in to meet each other and to meet their clients.
“The city is also becoming more of a destination for the people who are not office workers. If you open a restaurant that appeals to the leisure crowd as opposed to corporates, you can be as busy on a Saturday night as you are on a Thursday night.”
On 4 July – election night! – Gunewardena will host the Jang/Engles opening party, ushering in a new chapter in his storied career. You can sense the hunger in his belly as he speaks about building up his D3 Collective and it would be a brave man who bet against him. Does it never feel like hard work?
“I could have retired, played a bit more tennis, skied a bit more. But I’ve got the bug. I enjoy creating restaurants. It’s not a hardship for me. I’ll stop doing it when I stop enjoying it.”