D&D London sees strong rise in turnover and profit

Restaurant group D&D London has revealed strong financial results for 2013/14, with turnover and profits both up by 18%.

The company, which runs restaurants and one hotel in the UK as well as four restaurants abroad, saw its turnover rise to £93.1m for the year to 31 March 2014, while EBITDA was up to £8.4m.

The business hailed strong performances from South Place hotel, which saw a like-for-like increase in revenue of 40%, as well as 14% like-for-like sales rises for Old Bengal Warehouse and Bluebird.

Des Gunewardena, chairman and CEO of D&D London said: "We have had a very good first year with LDC as investors. A strong underlying sales growth of 5% from our established restaurants together with a substantial contribution from our recently launched ventures (South Place Hotel and the restaurants at the Old Bengal Warehouse in London and Crafthouse & Angelica restaurants in Leeds) has resulted in D&D's biggest growth in sales since its buyout from Conran in 2006.

"Since the year end we have seen like for like sales in our London restaurants accelerate to +7% (six months to 30 September). This together with the impact of the acquisition in May of Madison Restaurant & Bar at 1 New Change in the City will result in significant further growth in revenue and profits in the current financial year. Longer term, we have secured a number of landmark restaurant sites which, along with investment in the remodelling of existing venues such as Avenue and Quaglino's, will deliver a continuation of growth in earnings in future years. We are also actively considering a number of sites for our second hotel following the critical and financial success of South Place."

The iconic Quaglino's restaurant in London's St James's is set to re-open its doors following a multi-million pound renovation on Friday 17 October.