La Grillade owner on why it closed
THE founder of one of Yorkshire’s best known and longest established restaurants, La Grillade, has spoken about why he shut it after 33 years.
The popular basement restaurant in Wellington Street, Leeds, failed to reopen after New Year and owner Guy Martin-Laval said he took the decision because of an “unsupportive” landlord.
Mr Martin-Laval, who has not ruled out a return to the Leeds restaurant scene in the future, said that until a few weeks ago he was planning to invest in his restaurant, which is popular with the city’s business community as well as writer Alan Bennett who has been a regular diner for two decades.
“I had an unsupportive landlord who didn’t realise that the recession had an effect on us and the opening of Trinity didn’t help on top of that,” he said.
“We were trying to renegotiate the rent and he had an unrealistic expectation of what that rent should be based on the reputation of La Grillade.
“Up until a few weeks ago I never considered shutting. I was actually looking at investing in the property and even repainting the front red, white and blue ahead of the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire,” he said.
Robert Pudney, one of the landlords of the commercial premises on the ground floor and in the basement of the building which was formerly the Wellesley Hotel, has been quoted as saying that he had been talking to Mr Martin-Laval in recent months about helping him maintain his business.
However Mr Martin-Laval said: “There have been constant problems with the drains over the last four years and the fish and chip shop next door didn’t help me.
“The final straw was the city council food and health team insisting that we pre-cook the steak tartare before chopping it and also saying that we couldn’t serve a raw egg in an egg shell with it.”
Speaking about his future, he said that he may return to the Leeds restaurant scene. “But it won’t be underground with all the problems that come with that.
“And you can tell people I haven’t run away abroad, I am still in Leeds holding my head high.”
Born in Marseilles, Mr Martin-Laval came to Britain in the 1970s and worked as a travelling champagne salesman before moving to Leeds and opening its first French restaurant La Grillade in 1981.
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He opened a larger brasserie in East Parade – where Blackhouse Grill is now – in 1993 before selling it to City Centre Restaurants and moving back to his original site in the late 1990s.
He also ran a popular wine bar and restaurant called The Waterhole, in Great George Street and owned a vineyard near Narbonne.
