Veeraswamy goes to court to save its Regent Street site
London's oldest Indian restaurant, open since 1926, argues the Crown Estate's £500,000 offer falls far short of a £5m relocation bill.
Veeraswamy, London's oldest Indian restaurant, went to court on 5 November to fight eviction from the Regent Street site it has traded from since 1926.
The restaurant's landlord, the Crown Estate, declined to renew the lease on Victory House, the building that has housed Veeraswamy for a century, ahead of a planned refurbishment. The Crown Estate wants to convert the space into offices once the work is finished.
A century on Regent Street
A hundred years of curry on Regent Street now turns on an office refurbishment schedule.
Veeraswamy opened in 1926, founded by Edward Palmer, the great-grandson of a British general and a Mughal princess. The current owners, led by chairman Ranjit Mathrani of parent company MW Eat, bought the restaurant in 1996 from the Rembrandt hotel's then owner. It holds a Michelin star and is marking its centenary this year.
More than 20,000 people have signed a petition to save the site, launched after chefs Richard Corrigan, Michel Roux, Phil Howard and Raymond Blanc backed the campaign in December 2025, when the Crown Estate first refused to extend the lease. In February, Mathrani wrote to King Charles, asking the Crown Estate, which manages property on the monarch's behalf, to recognise the restaurant's history.
The gap between offer and estimate
The Crown Estate has offered Veeraswamy £500,000 in compensation. Mathrani told the Financial Times a move would cost closer to £5m and that the restaurant has no intention of relocating. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, commercial tenants usually keep the right to a new lease unless the landlord can show one of seven specific grounds; the Crown Estate argues it needs access to the building during the works, which a sitting tenant would prevent.
The Crown Estate denies failing to give Veeraswamy “sufficient regard” and says it offered to help the restaurant find a new site, a claim Mathrani disputes. A hotel a few streets away faced its own lease trouble this month, part of a wider squeeze on long-standing hospitality tenants as central London landlords weigh redevelopment against legacy leases.
The Veeraswamy court battle opened on 5 November without a ruling reported yet. The outcome will decide whether Britain's oldest Indian restaurant spends its second century at the same address.
