Veeraswamy, the UK’s oldest Indian restaurant, has begun a trial against its landlord, the Crown Estate, in a bid to stay at the Regent Street premises it has occupied since 1926, with its owner claiming the landlord would not act the same way towards Gordon Ramsay.
The hearing opened yesterday at the Central London County Court and is expected to run until next Wednesday.
Ahead of the trial, Ranjit Mathrani, chairman of MW Eat, Veeraswamy’s owner, questioned whether the Crown Estate would take “the same stance had it been a cuisine with which they were familiar”.
“Would they have done that to Gordon Ramsay? No,” he told the Financial Times.
Mathrani said Veeraswamy had “done everything” to meet the concerns of the Crown Estate. “It is obvious that they [the Crown Estate] do not appear to have sufficient regard for Veeraswamy and its tradition, its background, its role and its culinary heritage.”
The Michelin-starred restaurant is based in Victory House, near Piccadilly Circus, and is one of the oldest occupants on Regent Street. Its guests have included Princess Anne, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, Charlie Chaplin and Mahatma Gandhi.
Its £205,000-a-year lease expired in June 2025. The Crown Estate wants to take back the building so it can carry out a “comprehensive refurbishment” of the offices on the upper floors, which have been empty since the end of 2023 after a flood in the basement. The damage did not affect Veeraswamy, which has a separate power supply to the offices.
The landlord has said repeatedly that it could not carry out the necessary works while the restaurant was still in situ. MW Eat disputes that, with Mathrani arguing that contractors could work around the restaurant.
The Crown Estate’s plans for a 12-month renovation include removing the wall that separates the restaurant’s entrance from the office entrance. It has said the larger reception would allow it to charge future office tenants higher rents.
MW Eat has said it offered to share the enlarged entrance and to match the rent the Crown Estate expects from office tenants, and that both proposals were rejected. The company estimates that relocating, fitting out a new site and a temporary closure would cost about £5m, and says the compensation offered by the Crown Estate covers only a fraction of that.
The Crown Estate rejected any suggestion that the type of food served had influenced its decision.
“We strongly refute any suggestion that the Crown Estate prefers particular types of cuisine. We are proud to have a diverse dining offer across our West End portfolio, reflecting the diversity of London itself,” it said.
“This difficult decision has been taken in line with our responsibilities as stewards of this historic area, and alongside an offer to MW Eat to help them find new premises on our portfolio and to provide financial compensation.”
The Crown Estate describes itself as an independent commercial business whose profit is delivered to the Treasury. Last year it reported a record £1.1bn profit driven by offshore windfarm fees, alongside its central London property holdings.
The trial had been due to begin on 29 June but was postponed for what the judge described as “administrative reasons”. Mathrani said at the time that Veeraswamy “will make every effort to see if the dispute can be settled before” the hearing.
In February, a petition with more than 20,000 signatures was delivered to Buckingham Palace asking the King to intervene and reverse the decision not to renew the lease.
Veeraswamy, which marked its centenary on 16 March, has continued to trade while the dispute is before the courts.
