mirrors, prominent bars and a multiplicity of
finishes. The rollout went well and over the
next few years MBDS would continue to work
on high-street walk-ins such as Jamie’s Italian,
Côte, Las Iguanas and Gourmet Burger Kitchen.
It was 2005, though, when Le Caprice and
Caprice Holdings were taken over by the busi-
nessman Richard Caring, that Brudnizki first
met the man who gave him his biggest breaks.Very expensive,” says Richard Caring.
We are standing in front of a Marc
Chagall canvas, in a room with a floor
made from cut-green agate, in which almost
every surface is reflective, but I’m not payingattention. I’m looking at the Modigliani instead.
The Legacy Bar in Annabel’s is usually kept
locked, for obvious reasons – it is decked out
with a dozen or so paintings that would make
a MoMA curator swoon. On top of the Chagall
and Modigliani, there’s art by Joan Miró, Raoul
Dufy, Fernand Léger... a whole raft of inter-
War painters who carry six- to eight-figure
price tags. The room is usually reserved for
members of the original Annabel’s, so it’s a treat
to be in here and I don’t want to overstay my
welcome. As we leave the room, Caring pats
the large monkey-shaped door handle approv-
ingly. “Real gold.”‘ Where else do you
know in the world that
looks like Annabel’s?’>> 1950s. His father was a civil engineer who
had settled in Sweden. His mother worked in
retail interior design – hence the opportunity
for Brudnizki to create his own bedroom. “I
grew up in a very beautiful environment where
everything was thought through, down to the
cutlery, the glasses and the plates.” Despite his
early interest in design, Brudnizki studied busi-
ness for two years at Stockholm University,
before working as a model. Eventually, he ran
into a friend who was studying interior design
at the American University in London and who
showed him some of his work. “I remember
looking at it,” says Brudnizki, “and thinking,
‘Oh, I can do better than that!’ So I enrolled.”
He began his studies in 1990 and
worked for the architect Philip Michael
Wolfson after graduating, then the
gallerist David Gill. Since 1988, Gill had
represented French designers Elizabeth
Garouste and Mattia Bonetti. Brudnizki
was captivated by their ability to mod-
ernise historic forms. A typical Garouste
and Bonetti piece might be a pair of
toned-down bronze candlesticks, plated
in silver, whose shapes resemble the
fluted columns of the Parthenon or a
table in scagliola (a type of imitation
marble), whose three legs mimic the cur-
vature of classical nudes. It’s not hard
to see how his own penchant for updat-
ing historical designs – looking at the
baroque, the rococo, art deco, surrealism
and making them more “luxe” – might
have its origins in this period.
In the mid-1990s, Brudnizki worked
for David Collins, then London’s most
influential designer. He travelled to
America, witnessing a more devel-
oped fine-dining scene and learning
by osmosis from New York restaurants.
He mastered how to run a major interior
design project. Then, ten years after
enrolling on the interior design course,
he founded his own studio.
It was unusual, at the time, for “serious” inte-
rior designers to work on restaurants. David
Collins had been one of the first, designing
Harveys and Mirabelle for Marco Pierre White
and the Blue Bar at The Berkeley. And when
Collins died unexpectedly in 2013, Brudnizki
became the natural next port of call for those
looking to open a new luxury eaterie. But the
bread and butter of MBDS in the early days
included a number of restaurant chain rollouts,
which required easy-to-replicate, yet distinctive
interior designs. Through Mogens Tholstrup,
the one-time owner of Daphne’s, Brudnizki
met Andy Bassadone, a director of Caprice
Holdings, which owns a number of chains, and
the two worked together to create what would
eventually become Strada, the pizza chain char-
acterised by – you guessed it – banquettes,A North Londoner who had made his fortune
importing clothes from Hong Kong in the 1970s
and 1980s, Caring is now worth north of £600
million. At 71, he also has all the sorts of anec-
dote that tend to attach themselves to men
as rich as he is: he survived the Indian Ocean
tsunami in 2004 through sheer luck, having
been scuba diving on the sheltered side of an
atoll as the shock wave passed. Nowadays, to
stay in shape, he reportedly skips breakfast
and lunch whenever possible.
Caring and Brudnizki’s relationship dates
to 2004, when Caring bought Wentworth
Golf Club. Brudnizki redesigned the club’s
restaurant, bar and lounge and a year later,
when Caring bought Scott’s, the famous
fish restaurant on London’s Mount
Street, he was on hand again as the
natural (re-)designer.
Critically acclaimed, the restaurant
cemented his relationship with Caring,
and further work followed: The Ivy,
Harry’s Bar, Sexy Fish, Aquavit. Caprice
Holdings expanded at an astronomical
pace; in a May 2008 interview with Mail
Online, just four months before Lehman
Brothers went bust, Caring estimated
that he had spent “half a billion” on
property in or around London.
Today, Caring and Brudnizki’s is an
increasingly close relationship; when
Ewan Venters, CEO of Fortnum &
Mason, managed to pry MBDS away
to redesign the in-store restaurant,
45 Jermyn St, it was widely seen as a
coup, with Venters telling me Brudnizki
“is widely regarded as the industry
bar”. He’s right – but Brudnizki stopped
doing high-street rollouts in 2012 and,
as of this year, only undertakes London
projects that are Caprice related.
After such a long and fruitful collab-
oration, Caring is now closely involved
in Brudnizki’s London projects and
his own taste is on show, even if that taste
is sometimes hard to pin down. When asked,
Caring pauses to think, then names the post-
impressionists Matisse and Gauguin as among
his favourite artists – explosive colour (and
massive price tags) abound. Famously, Picasso’s
“Girl With A Red Beret And Pompom” greets
you as you enter Annabel’s.
Often, hostility towards Brudnizki’s work
appears to stem from Caring’s dominance of
the Mayfair restaurant scene and the percep-
tion that he only caters for the jet set. Which,
to be fair, he does. Back in 2015, when Sexy
Fish opened, the Guardian called it “a restau-
rant designed to knock your silk socks into
next week”. The Spectator, half admiringly,
called Sexy Fish’s look “Scrooge McDuck”
before declaring, “It is like being punched in
the face by Abu Dhabi.” Tim Hayward agrees, PhotographsJames McDonaldInside the bejewelled women’s bathroom at Annabel’s,
where pink and patterns rule supreme04-20FeatureMartinBrudnizki_3446750.indd 214 10/02/2020 15:21
214 GQ.CO.UK APRIL 2020