Taking The Keys To Bentley's

Some restaurants are older than anyone who works in them. Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill, just off Piccadilly, has served oysters and seafood since 1916^[1].

Richard Corrigan knew it well. He first got a taste of cooking there in 1992^[2]. More than a decade later, the old seafood house needed new life, and he was ready to give it.

A Group Is Born

In 2005 he bought Bentley's and reopened it^[3]. His company dates its own beginning to that moment. The Corrigan Collection says it was established in 2005, with Bentley's as its first house^[3].

Bentley's is not small. The Caterer counted two kitchens, about 70 staff and two private dining rooms^[2]. Running it took a different set of skills from running a single starred dining room in Soho.

Sea Grill In Harrods

For a time the brand grew beyond Swallow Street. Bentley's Sea Grill ran in the Harrods Food Hall for four years, until the store rethought its hall and the counter closed^[2].

A Face On Television

Around the same time, Corrigan stepped in front of the camera. He told The Staff Canteen that he did his first television work at the age of 40^[4]. He became a regular on the BBC's Great British Menu^[5].

On that show he cooked for Northern Ireland and won four times, before returning as a mentor and judge^[4]. Viewers across the UK and Ireland came to know the warm, outspoken chef from Meath.

Running an old institution is a balancing act. Regulars want it to feel the same. New guests want it to feel alive. Corrigan's answer was to keep the oysters and the seafood at the centre, the way Bentley's had done for almost ninety years before him, and to build a strong team around the stoves^[1][2].

Today Bentley's is still at the heart of his group^[1]. A dining room from 1916 became the start of a 21st-century restaurant business, and the oyster bar where he first cooked became the place he owns^[2][3].