Novelli has doubts over selling restaurants

Chef-proprietor Jean-Christophe Novelli has put his three London restaurants on the market with a price tag of more than £2.5m, but claims that he no longer really wants to sell.

The three businesses are Maison Novelli in Clerkenwell, which Novelli opened in July 1996, Notting Hill restaurant W8, acquired last February, and Novelli EC1, opened in October.

Novelli said he had decided before Christmas that the best way for him to expand was to sell his existing restaurants and reinvest the money in new ventures. He preferred the idea of selling to borrowing money or taking on a partner or investor.

The new restaurants would be run by his current co-directors, while Novelli concentrated on his cooking at London restaurant Les Saveurs, where he has taken on a 10-year lease.

"My idea was to buy some more premises and expand and invest in the people who have been with me during our success," he said.

Novelli stressed that he was not being forced to sell the restaurants. They were all trading profitably, he said, although he declined to discuss financial details.

Although the group is now on the market, Novelli claimed he had since changed his mind about selling.

But he understood he was tied in to a contract with his property agent which required him to sell if a high enough offer was made, or face a heavy penalty. "Deep in my heart, I don't want to sell," he said. "What I have got now is too unique."