L’Escargot is one of London’s oldest restaurants.
L’Escargot is housed in a Georgian town-house in Greek Street and is London’s oldest French restaurant.
In 1741, the building was the private residence of the Duke of Portland, At that time Soho was a country area, very popular for horseback hunting.
Soho started to be developed after the Great Fire of London in 1666, when over 13,000 houses were destroyed and 100,000 citizens left homeless. The area, then called Soho Fields was the obvious choice for the wealthy to build their property, being within easy reach of the royal palaces of Westminster, Whitehall and St James’s.
In 1896 M. Georges Gaudin established a restaurant at the bottom end of Greek Street called Le Bienvenue. He became famous for his snails and was the first restaurant in England to serve the great delicacy. When in 1927 he moved to larger premises at 48 Greek Street, his customers implored him to rename his restaurant L’Escargot after his most popular dish. He surrendered to them and called the new restaurant L’Escargot Bienvenue. His snail farm in the basement of the new restaurant became a talking point. A plaster bust of M. Gaudin riding a snail with the motto “slow but sure” is to this day on display outside the restaurant.
After his retirement his son Alex ran the restaurant and it established itself as the "best French restaurant in London".
In the 1980s Nick Lander and his wife Jancis Robinson took over the restaurant.
L’Escargot was refurbished in 1998, when Jimmy Lahoud and renowned chef Marco Pierre White took over the reins.
In February 2014 L’Escargot was acquired by a group including Brian Clivaz and Laurence Isaacson.
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