Luca founders launch hospitality group Smith & Willis

The team behind the Michelin-starred Luca in London’s Clerkenwell have launched their own hospitality group, Smith & Willis.

Lifelong friends and business partners Johnny Smith and Daniel Willis, who also co-founded the Clove Club in Shoreditch with Isaac McHale, are planning to launch a new London restaurant as part of the group.

Smith & Willis will include Luca as well as Osip in Bruton, Somerset as a partner restaurant.

The duo will also launch the Loft in Clerkenwell in collaboration with design brand Vitra under Smith & Willis. The mixed-use space and head office will host supper clubs and curated events, as well as being available for private hire.

Smith & Willis will focus on creating owner-managed and partnership brands and offer a leadership programme to help with industry career development.

Willis, who is managing director, said: “I’m so excited to begin this new chapter with Johnny and our team. Creating a new hospitality group in which Osip is a partner fills me with immense pride and I can’t wait to create more places people love.” 

Creative director Smith added: “The Loft is our home and will become a fundamental part of how we develop new ideas and create community but it’s also a unique space in terms of its hospitality potential. It was designed with good times in mind.”

Smith and Willis moved from Manchester to London in 2008 to take up respective jobs at Great Queen St and St John Bread and Wine.

In 2013, they opened the Clove Club in Shoreditch with McHale, which was based on the supper clubs they had held in their Dalston apartment. It won its first Michelin star in 2014, which was followed by a second in 2022. And in 2016, the trio launched Italian restaurant Luca, which received its first Michelin star in 2023.  

Last November, Smith and Willis parted ways with McHale, who now retains sole ownership of the two-Michelin-starred Clove Club.

In recent years, the pair have also delivered Outcrop, a pop-up restaurant, bar and arts space in 180 The Strand with AngloThai, and partnered with Merlin Labron-Johnson for his second iteration of Osip in Bruton, Somerset, which will open new overnight bedrooms this June.

Image: Jason Lowe