Sell-off spells end of Dôme

The Dôme restaurant name will cease to exist this week after the chain is sold to a number of individual buyers.

Owner Laurel Pub Company put 14 of its 18 French-style caf‚-bars on the market in June.

It is keeping four Dôme restaurants. Three are in London - in Long Acre, Charing Cross Road and Old Compton Street - and the other is in the Bluewater centre at Dartford, Kent. These will be renamed as Casa bars.

A Laurel spokeswoman said a mixture of pub and restaurant operators were buying the D"me properties for undisclosed sums.

She said they were sold because they were leasehold rather than freehold and "didn't fit" with the company's estate.

Laurel was created by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, now part of Deustche Bank, from its £1.65b purchase of Whitbread's pub estate in March.