Mayfair's celebrity hangout the Met Bar to be reborn as a grill restaurant

The site of Mayfair’s Met Bar — London’s pre-eminent celebrity haunt of the Nineties and Noughties “Cool Britannia” era — is to be reborn as a grill restaurant.

The Met Bar opened in 1997, as Tony Blair entered No 10, attracting stars such as Patsy Kensit and Liam Gallagher, The Spice Girls, Cher and Kate Moss, and was one of the first of a new breed of private members’ clubs.

However, the space in Old Park Lane has been empty since the Met Bar finally shut in May. It is being replaced by Gridiron, a 50 to 60-seater “open-flame” restaurant which formally opens on October 30 at the COMO Metropolitan hotel.

Manager Liam Davy said: “There’s a lot of fun and history to that space and we will have a bar, but it won’t be the sort of bar where you can stand with a cocktail talking to All Saints.

There’s no desire to hark back to those days.” The kitchen will be run by Richard H Turner, executive chef at Hawksmoor, and Colin McSherry, who worked at The Ledbury, The Fat Duck and Murano.