Mezzo will be Conran's forte

by Angela Jameson

PLANS for the next stage in the development of the growing Conran restaurant empire emerged this week.

Mezzo is expected to open this September with former Quaglino's senior sous chef John Torode as head chef.

The lower restaurant, with 350 seats, will include a rôtisserie and serve a menu similar to that at Quaglino's at an average spend per head of £35.

The upper restaurant will serve "food that is fast" to up to 300 people from a more flexible menu with Asian and Far Eastern influences. Average spend in this restaurant is likely to be £10-£18 a head.

Conran Restaurants has also agreed a lease, subject to planning application, on another London site on the King's Road. The Bluebird, so-called because it was once the garage where Sir Malcolm Campbell built the first Bluebird car, will be a restaurant and shopping complex.

There will be a 250-seat restaurant and two cafés, as well as a 5,000sq ft food store, a flower shop, a kitchen shop, an outside market and function rooms. The Bluebird is expected to open sometime in 1997.

Elsewhere is his burgeoning restaurant empire, Sir Terence Conran has lost the talents of Simon Hopkinson as head chef of Bibendum, on London's Fulham Road.

Mr Hopkinson said he had left in order to seek a "change of direction", though he remains a director of the establishment where he famously failed to earn a Michelin star, despite the undoubted quality of his cooking.

He will, for the moment, concentrate on writing, continuing his columns for the Independent newspaper and Sainsbury's magazine. He is planning a second book, and a TV project is under discussion.

Asked if he intended to return to cooking in the future, he told Caterer that if in years to come, he was missing "the hot, sweaty kitchen" then he might do so.

Mr Hopkinson has been replaced by his sous chef Matthew Harris, who has been at Bibendum since its opening in 1987.