Chef Rowley Leigh sells Le Café Anglais

Chef Rowley Leigh has sold Le Café Anglais in London's Bayswater.

It is believed that the restaurant has been sold to the owners of Whiteley's, the department store in which Café Anglais is located, as they plan to redevelop the site.

Leigh, the former head chef of Kensington Place, opened Café Anglais, inspired by the Parisian restaurant of the same name, in 2008. The art deco-influenced, 175-seat dining room is situated on the second floor of Whiteley's shopping centre.

Last year, Whiteley's was taken over by an unnamed Brunei family, alongside Dutch property fund Meyer Bergman, with plans for a £1b programme to redevelop Bayswater's Queensway into a "Covent Garden of the West" by 2020.

As part of the plans, the owners of Whiteley's are thought to have offered to buy back the restaurant space from Leigh.

The restaurant is currently trading as normal and it is not known at this stage whether the new owners will continue to operate the business in the long term, or close it in order to make way for something else as part of the area's redevelopment.

A spokesman for the restaurant confirmed that it has been sold, but Leigh and representatives of Whiteley's owners were not available for comment.

Earlier this month, Leigh was named as chef-consultant of the Continental restaurant in Hong Kong. The Continental at Pacific Place, which opens next month, is the flagship standalone restaurant owned and managed by the newly-established restaurant division of Swire Hotels with a menu drawing inspiration from the grand cafes of Europe.