Exclusive: 'Langoustine Lifter' mystery solved

Dear Londoners — Welcome back to a new week; one where, supposedly, it's going to be 16 degrees and sunny (come Wednesday). Have you earmarked which flimsy jacket you're going to wear? Which pub you're going to park yourself on the pavement in front of? (Let us know in the comments.) We don't want to jinx it, but it really does feel like spring is emerging, and we couldn't be happier about it.

We're also feeling joyful about the corker of a line-up we've got in today's briefing. We finally cracked last year's hottest mystery in the capital: the identity of the langoustine thief who stole hundreds — if not thousands — of pounds' worth of shellfish, steak and flowers from high-end restaurants and florists around the capital. That's in addition to more news on Victor Garvey, the Michelin-starred chef whose trail of creditors and embittered former-friends we wrote about last year, and his latest venture. And if that isn't enough, there's an update on billionaire developer Asif Aziz's controversial pub empire.

But before we get onto that, we wanted to thank those of you who've emailed and commented about our Saturday read from Melissa Blease, which detailed her (ultimately futile) efforts to find a trace of her long-lost family friend, the debonair Chelsea socialite Barrie Stonehill. It's a beautiful reminiscence about a man, and an era of London, that's now long past — think sidecars at the Dolphin Square bar, or champagne at the Dorchester with Elaine Stritch.

Special thanks goes to reader John Westbrooke, who undertook some marvellous detective work in the comments of the piece, and helped us find out vital and previously unknown information about Barrie's life:

"His father was Israel Marks Steinberg, an East Ender of Russian and Lithuanian extraction who seems to have anglicised his name to John Stonehill (1896-1968). His mother was Hettie Benjamin (1898-1985). They married in Islington in 1921."

Do give the story a read, and let us know what you can find out about Barrie, too. And now, let's get stuck in.

The Chelsea socialite who vanished into thin air

He belonged to a long-gone London of glitz and glamour. Did he disappear with it?

The LondonerMelissa Blease

Exclusive: The capital's notorious langoustine thief has been sentenced

Londoner readers may remember the mysterious saga of the “langoustine lifter”, a thief who stole thousands of pounds' worth of deliveries of seafood, steaks and orchids from high-end restaurants and florists around the capital towards the end of last year. 

A manhunt was launched by the Met back in November after CCTV footage of the theft of a box of langoustines from outside Chelsea’s exclusive Elystan Street restaurant went viral on Instagram, spreading like wildfire among the capital’s chefs (and media outlets). High-end produce has become an increasingly enticing prospect for would-be thieves: in 2024, a con artist stole £300,000’s worth of cheese from Neal’s Yard Dairy.

Well, the Met has now confirmed to The Londoner that they have caught the “langoustine lifter”. 46-year-old Ekaterina Frolova pleaded guilty to theft and burglary at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, and was remanded in custody and sentenced at the same court on 5 January. She was also given a total fine of £350.

Victor Garvey opens a new venture

More news from the world of fine dining: long-term Londoner subscribers will remember our expose last year on Victor Garvey, one of the capital’s most lauded Michelin-starred chefs. Speaking to suppliers, friends and former staff, we discovered that in his wake, Garvey has left a trail of bailiffs, shuttered restaurants and Warhammer 40k enthusiasts who say they’ve lost tens of thousands of pounds. 

Many of those we spoke to at the time were worried about the fact that Garvey seemed to be on track for another one of his many rebirths, by crowdfunding £130,000 to open up a new restaurant called Materia Prima (also called Mater1a) — though after the fundraiser was removed, the project seems to have been completed with private funding. 

Well, that site — an “intimate” 16-seater chef’s table experience, soundtracked by a live DJ — has now opened in Notting Hill. But in the aftermath of our exposé, which was shared by some of the country’s biggest food critics like Jay Rayner and Marina O’Loughlin, the once-beloved Garvey saw a rather muted reception to his latest opening. That didn’t stop two solitary critics making the trip to experience Mater1a: one from CityAM and one from The Times, whose star critic Giles Coren once called Garvey “a wonderful guy” and his “favourite kind of chef”.

This time, Coren decided not to make the trip to Notting Hill, with Camilla Long heading down in his place. Her three-star review is both deeply funny — expect impromptu Kabuki performances and a chef that “drift[s] out like Winnie the Pooh” from the kitchen, apparently — and makes sure to underscore the precarity of this new venture. “Is that also part of the concept, not knowing exactly when the bailiffs will kick their way in?” Long writes, concluding: “I wish this talented chef could get it together”. 

A tale of two bridges

It was just a few weeks ago that the ongoing plight of Hammersmith Bridge graced this newsletter. Shut to traffic since 2020, the cost of repairing micro-fractures found in the bridge’s pedestals to make it safe for motor traffic has been estimated to potentially cost upwards of £250m, splitting the local community in two over whether the repairs are even worth doing.

But it’s far from alone. Just a few miles up the river, the Albert Bridge by Battersea Park has now been shut to traffic after cracks were found in its North pillar during a regular inspection. Kensington and Chelsea council claimed last week that it should all be fixed relatively easily, but that the bridge could be shut for “up to a year” to complete repairs.

The cases of the two bridges are strikingly similar: both are Victorian-era suspension bridges which weren’t designed to carry cars; both now have structural defects in their cast-iron pedestals. 

There are dozens of Victorian-era bridges in the capital, including the nearby Chelsea Bridge, another 19th century suspension bridge. So, could a third bridge soon be closed?

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Is Asif Aziz selling up his London pub empire?

Interesting news from the world of controversial billionaire property developer Asif Aziz. We’ve covered lots of his antics in The Londoner before, ever since we exposed how companies linked to Aziz had attempted to shutter and redevelop dozens of the capital’s pubs into flats (and often succeeded). But new protections for pubs have meant that, more recently, many of those sites have been saved from redevelopment.

Well, it seems like these measures might’ve led the model to yield diminishing returns for Aziz. In the last week, we’ve noticed that the freeholds on at least three of the pubs we previously identified as being part of his portfolio are now up for sale. In Borough, the Gladstone Arms has been listed by Savills for £1.1m (any takers?). Meanwhile, in south east London, locals of the White Swan in Charlton, which has been empty and abandoned since high rents forced its closure in 2020, are fundraising to try and buy its freehold. Finally, we spied a listing for an unnamed three-storey Lambeth pub with a big open-plan bar room that’s sat next to a major sports stadium, which by process of elimination we concluded had to be the Beehive, another Aziz-linked pub next to The Oval in Kennington.

Has the billionaire developer, who fled the UK for Abu Dhabi in 2024, also decided to depart the pub space? His spokespeople didn’t get back to our enquiries, so it may take some time to work out if this trickle is the beginning of a flood, but rest assured it’s one we’ll keep our eyes on.

Quick hits

1. The Dog and Pot has a new sign, unveiled by Charles Dickens’ great-great-great grandson.
2. London underground fares are going up next week.
3. A gender-critical charity wants to appeal a legal ruling that gave protection for trans people to swim in the segregated ponds on Hampstead Heath.
4. Someone is trying to poison foxes in Highgate.
5. The Chelsea Flower Show’s mystery donor has disappeared.

In case you missed it…

• On Saturday, writer Melissa Blease tried to find out what happened to family friend Barrie Stonehill, a once-renowned Chelsea socialite who seemed to disappear into thin air. 
• After our reporting on the closure of Brixton News after 36 years, thanks to its rent being tripled by TfL-owned landlord Places for London, we looked into the impact Places for London was having across the capital. It’s a saga of suicides and ruined livelihoods, empty shopfronts and musical City Hall protests. 
• Our Wednesday story was an explainer on the capital’s much-discussed New Town proposals, and how a former dump for toxic waste from the Olympic site has been repurposed as London’s new hope for housing. 

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Wining and dining

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

One perfect meal: It’s a real shame when those buzzy London restaurants turn out to be duds. You spend weeks poring over the menu and amping yourself up, only to get there on the day and it just be… fine. Fortunately, at Cafe Cecilia it is not so. Opened in 2021 by chef Max Rocha, of River Cafe and St. JOHN acclaim, the restaurant serves up a hearty array of British and Irish dishes. The interior is sleek and minimalist; think dark wooden tables and a steel-brushed open kitchen, its bare concrete ceiling lined with thick metal tubes. 

Onto the food. The sage and anchovy fritti — a parcel of sage leaves folded into a big anchovy and fried in a light tempura batter — is a sensation. What else? The Guinness bread is rich, straight out the oven, and a fine vehicle for the accompanying dollop of salted butter, and the onglet with chips and peppercorn sauce is rich and hefty. It’s the kind of dish your grandmother might make, if only she went to culinary school. And that, I think, is Cafe Cecilia’s appeal. It is resolutely not a small plates restaurant, and manages to balance interesting flavours and great produce with making sure you get a decent feed. Who could ask for more than that?

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One perfect drink: King’s Cross has had something of a glow up in the past decade. With Coal Drops Yard opening in 2018, this former industrial hinterland has transformed into a solid promenade of restaurants and bars. Spiritland King’s Cross is what it insists on calling a “listening bar”, which translates into vinyl records played seriously through high quality speakers and at a decibel level that doesn’t drown out the conversation. Whatever its pretensions, it’s a great night out. 

The ambience is warm and decidedly retro, with two-tone mid-century wooden tables and plush forest green chairs. The obligatory stacks of records line the walls. For some horrifying reason, which I assume must have to do with staying afloat in the 2026 economy, Spiritland also offers a medley of sloppy breakfasts to accompany the audiophilia. Please ignore them. This is a bar, the kind of sultry venue to take a date or a couple of close friends when it is dark and chilly outside. The wine list is broad, and the cocktails are fresh and inventive.

Our favourite reads

What one day of eavesdropping in London taught me — Amelia Tait, Financial Times

Ever earwigged a snippet of interesting conversation and wanted to find out more? Well, Amelia Tait spent a whole day scurrying around London hoovering up interesting morsels of conversation so you don’t have to. It’s a compelling look at the city through snatches of dialogue; people-watching in written form.

‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today — Dan Hancox, The Guardian

It only takes a cursory scroll through social media (Facebook groups and reddit pages especially) to realise that many of our digital worlds are drenched in nostalgia. In few places is this more true than in London, where everything from crime statistics to pubs seem to be eagerly recounted through suspiciously rose-tinted glasses. In this enjoyable piece, which the Guardian has dug out of the archives this week, Dan Hancox probes the Facebook nostalgia groups which have ballooned in number in recent years. Were binmen really better in the 1960s? And why are so many online communities determined to think so?

To Do List

1. Check out the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum. The show is a fascinating look at an often-caricatured group of people; beginning with their origins in the 10th century right through to their modern influence in films and videogames. Best of all? It’s free.

2. Arguably even better than sifting around in the mud of the Thames is attending the London Museum Dockland’s showing all about it. Secret Thames: Mudlarking London’s Long Lost Treasures is a gem of an exhibition. But be quick: it’s only open until 1 March. 

From the archive

“Good afternoon from the Kilburn High Road, this is a street in north London that is becoming increasingly familiar to a great many young Irish men and women, more familiar perhaps to most of them than Patrick Street in Cork or O’Connell Street in Limerick.” 

Back in April last year, we wrote about the death of Country Kilburn: how this corner of north west London, once known as the 33rd county of Ireland, saw its Irish diaspora disappear. Since then it’s been quoted in news pieces and by Instagram influencers, but when we saw Ireland’s RTE network sharing an old news segment filmed from the area back in its heyday, we thought it would be worth a share.