New owners on the menu for West End favourite Joe Allen

 
4 December 2012

A restaurant favoured by the stars of London’s theatreland for decades has been sold.

Joe Allen in Covent Garden is changing hands after Richard Polo, 78, who has run it for 35 years, decided it was time to sell up.

The restaurant has been bought for about £1 million by Carluccio’s chairman Stephen Gee and west London restaurateurs Tim Healy and Lawrence Hartley. The trio have also taken over Orso, a diner linked to Joe Allen by an underground passage.

Joe Allen is popular with actors and directors in the West End and Royal Opera House. Sean Connery was once nearly thrown out because he was ordering drinks rather than food, while Sir Trevor Nunn courted third wife Imogen Stubbs there.

The original Joe Allen opened in New York in 1977, with London in the same year. There are branches in Maine, Miami and Paris. Mr Hartley said: “We are very, very excited. We will be taking the place forward, but we will be retaining the principle of being the ultimate American dining experience in London.”

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