A Michelin-starred restaurant that has served Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin and Queen Elizabeth II is fighting for survival – not against a pandemic or a recession, but against its landlord. Veeraswamy, the UK’s oldest Indian restaurant, is taking the Crown Estate to court after the property portfolio owned by King Charles refused to renew its lease on London’s Regent Street.
The dispute centres on Victory House near Piccadilly Circus, where Veeraswamy has operated since it opened in April 1926. The restaurant’s parent company, MW Eat, faces eviction after the Crown Estate declined to renew the £205,000-a-year lease last year. The estate wants to carry out a “comprehensive refurbishment” of the offices on the building’s upper floors, which have been empty since a flood affected their power supply in 2023. The plans involve knocking down the wall separating Veeraswamy’s ground-floor entrance from the office entrance to create a larger reception area for office tenants, allowing the estate to “materially increase” the rents it can charge. MW Eat argues the work can be done without evicting the restaurant, and has offered to share the larger entrance and match whatever rent the Crown Estate believes it can get from new office tenants – but the estate has refused.
“Explains the legal battle between the UK's oldest Indian restaurant and the Crown Estate over lease renewal.”
To understand why this matters, it helps to know what the Crown Estate is. It is a vast portfolio of land and property owned by the monarch “in right of the Crown”, but managed independently under statute. Its profits go to the UK Treasury. The Crown Estate has a statutory responsibility to manage its land and property to create long-term value for the UK. This means it can make commercial decisions – like refusing to renew a lease – that can displace long-standing tenants, even ones with historic and cultural significance.
For UK readers, this case highlights a tension that plays out across the country: the conflict between preserving heritage and allowing property owners to maximise returns. Veeraswamy is not just any restaurant – it is the UK’s oldest Indian restaurant, a century-old institution that survived the Blitz and claims to have started the British habit of having a pint with a curry (the King of Denmark used to ship casks of Carlsberg to be stored at Veeraswamy for his visits). Its supporters, who delivered a 20,000-signature petition to Buckingham Palace in February 2026, see it as an irreplaceable piece of cultural history. But the Crown Estate argues it must act responsibly to generate returns for the public purse.
Key questions answered:
Q: What is the Crown Estate? It is a collection of land and property owned by the sovereign, managed independently to generate profit for the UK Treasury. It includes Regent Street, farms, forests, and the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Q: Why can the Crown Estate evict Veeraswamy? Because the restaurant’s lease has expired and the estate has decided not to renew it, citing plans to refurbish the building to increase office rents. As the landlord, it is within its rights to do so, subject to any lease protections or court rulings.
Q: What happens if Veeraswamy loses the case? The restaurant would be evicted and the space could be converted into office reception areas. The Crown Estate has offered to help find new premises in its West End portfolio and provide financial compensation, but MW Eat has so far rejected these offers.
What happens next: The five-day hearing is set to begin on 29 June 2026 at the central London county court. If the court rules in favour of the Crown Estate, Veeraswamy could be forced to close after a century of operation. The case is being closely watched as a test of how far property development can override the cultural and historic value of established businesses.