Petersham Nurseries' central London restaurants, La Goccia and The Petersham Covent Garden, have closed after six years of operation.
The Flora Court restaurants in Covent Garden permanently closed earlier this week (16 February), with the owners citing Covid and Brexit as the reasons.
Launched in 2018 by Lara Boglione, the eldest daughter of Francesco and Gael Boglione—founders of the original Petersham Nurseries in Richmond—the restaurants were led by executive chef Simon Whitley, formerly of London’s Devonshire Club.
At their launch, both La Goccia and Petersham Covent Garden received mixed reviews from The Guardian and The Times.
Boglione revealed that in recent months, she and her team had been working with advisers to explore strategic options for both restaurants as they faced “significant cost challenges” due to rising business rates, staff wages, and fixed property costs.
The closure news follows a report from The Daily Telegraph about a dispute between the Boglione family and their landlord, Shaftesbury Capital, over rent.
Petersham Nurseries stated that these issues were “unrelated” to its Richmond-based business, which includes a garden centre, lifestyle shop, and the Michelin Green Star-awarded Petersham Nurseries Café.
Boglione said: “We are hugely proud of what we have achieved. We look forward to welcoming our loyal Covent Garden customers to our beautiful sister restaurant in Richmond. Nonetheless, faced with unsustainably high costs, it is time to move on and consider new locations. We look forward to reporting better news in due course.”
Jo Milner of liquidators Buchler Phillips added: “This is a clearly disappointing for La Goccia and the Petersham, which, in other circumstances, could once again be a stable business, in line with others in the Petersham Nurseries group.
“It’s a very difficult landscape: last year almost 3,500 hospitality businesses became insolvent against a background of tight consumer spending and growing staff costs as a result of the Budget.”
