£15m restaurant with 100 vintages of Yquem to open in London

Russian restaurateur Leonid Shutov is to open a £15m site in central London boasting a vintage Champagne bar and 100 vintages of Yquem.

Russian restaurateur Leonid Shutov

Dating back to 1887, ten of the vintages of the prized Sauternes from the last 30 years will be available to buy by the glass.

As reported by the Evening Standard, the 250-steater restaurant in St James’s Street will be among the largest in London’s West End and similar in size to Chris Corbin and Jeremy King’s cavernous Brasserie Zédel in Piccadilly.

Shutov, who also owns diner deluxe Bob Bob Ricard in Mayfair, plans to call the venture Biblioteka and serve “English classics and Russian delicacies”.

The restaurant will boast 100 vintages of Yquem

The name, meaning library in Russian, comes from Shutov’s desire to display the restaurant’s extensive wine collection along the walls like books.

Among the fine wines on offer will be 100 vintages of Château d’Yquem; Krug dating back to 1915; Bordeaux first growths Château Haut-Brion and Château Margaux going back to 1937.

Some 80 vintages of first growth Château Mouton-Rothschild will also be available by the glass, with mark-ups kept deliberately low.

“It will be on the grand imperial scale that visitors to London have in their head when they come.

“There will be Michelin-star ambition. Not necessarily in the complexity of food; there is great beauty in simplicity, but in the precise execution and honed presentation,” Shutov told ES.

Housed in a former Lloyds Bank flagship branch, the 200,000 square foot Biblioteka, for which Shutov has secured a 25-year lease, will have a private dining room seating 75.

The restaurant is due to open in 2015. Click here for our review of Bob Bob Ricard.