WSJM-9-2019

WSJ. MAGAZINE 79

I

’M A FARMER at heart,” says Camilla Fayed. It’s

not the way most people would expect a London-

born heiress to describe herself, but Fayed, 34,

lives on a biodynamic farm in Kent, England.

It supplies her three-year-old Notting Hill vegan

restaurant, Farmacy—a favorite of Fayed’s friends,

like Stella McCartney and Margherita Missoni—

with much of its organic produce, including squash,

strawberries, herbs and five varieties of lettuce.

This month, Farmacy joins the restaurant-in-

residence program at Chefs Club Counter in New York

City’s SoHo neighborhood, serving “Earth bowls”

of quinoa and kombu seaweed as well as seasonal

pizzettas. It’s the first extended foray stateside for

Fayed, who hopes to have a permanent location in

New York by the end of 2020 and has her sights set on

Los Angeles after that.

One of four children of former Harrods owner

Mohamed al-Fayed and former model Heini Wathén,

Fayed grew up in Surrey. (She also had a half-brother,

Dodi Fayed, who died alongside Princess Diana in a

car crash in 1997 when Camilla was 12 years old.) She

went to boarding school in Brighton, then worked

at various family businesses. In 2011 she bought

a controlling stake in the London-based clothing

label Issa, whose wrap dress Kate Middleton wore to

announce her 2010 engagement to Prince William.

Fayed’s own conversion to veganism was spurred

by her first pregnancy. (In addition to her daugh-

ter, Luna, now 9, Fayed and her husband, real

estate developer Mohamed Esreb, have a 7-year-

old son, Numair.) “I did everything to excess,” she

explains. “My eating habits were predominantly

fast food—I had high cholesterol. Having my daugh-

ter at a young age propelled me into thinking my

relationship with food had to change.” She spent

years educating herself about nutrition, veganism

and fasting.

Unable to find many restaurants in London that

fit her new lifestyle, she started planning her own.

In 2016, the year after Issa closed, she launched

Farmacy. “I love restaurants, I’m social, I love eat-

ing out with friends,” she says. “It was a gap in the

market.” Farmacy is popular, Fayed says, because

it doesn’t feel like a vegan restaurant. “It’s not a

preachy space,” she says. “It’s part of the restaurant

industry. It’s not a hippie joint.”

Transparency in food, she believes, is becoming

standard. “It’s exciting to help define the new nor-

mal,” she says.>

BY LANE FLORSHEIM PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAROLINE TOMPKINS

The vegan restaurateur, an avid convert to the healthy life, brings

her London hot spot, Farmacy, to New York City.

CAMILLA FAYED

TRACKED

VEGAN, BABY

Camilla Fayed at the Chefs

Club Counter in SoHo,

where her restaurant,

Farmacy, has a residency

this month.

the exchange.

SEPTEMBER 2019