Elena Salvoni @ Elena's L'Etoile - Queen of Soho forced off her throne because ‘insurance is too expensive’

Published: 06 August 2010
by TOM FOOT

SHE is the Queen of Soho – the West End’s legendary maître d’ and friend to the stars who liked to joke how her managers would never let her retire.

But Elena Salvoni, days after celebrating her 90th birthday, has been asked to leave her own restaurant in Fitzrovia.

A letter sent to Ms Salvoni in April by owners of Elena’s L’Etoile said it was too expensive to insure her against accidents.

Ms Salvoni said: “The letter caught me completely out of the blue. It was a real blow. 

“They said that at my age they can’t get insurance for me. But this is all double-Dutch to me. They’ve got my name up on the front of the restaurant. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Management said the restaurant’s doors will “always be open to her” and she would be “welcome” to pop in any time.

The story took a twist on Monday when the Government revealed plans to stop workers being forced out of their jobs when they turn 65.

Ms Salvoni added: “If only they had changed the law earlier. I didn’t want to stop working.”

In an interview with the West End Extra in 2006, Ms Salvoni joked: “They won’t let me retire – they say: ‘But people expect you to be here’. 

“You may not know it but I’m very bad at doing nothing. I keep getting told off because I do too much.”

Born in Islington to Italian parents, Ms Salvoni left school to work in the rag trade and was a neighbour of Joe Orton, “before he got famous”. She has worked in Soho for 61 years at Soho’s Bianci, L’Escargot and the Gay Hussar restaurants, before opening her Elena’s in the late 1980s.

The five-floor restaurant is famous for more than 300-signed photographs of Hollywood and West End actors. 

Messages of goodwill from Sean Connery, George Baker, Alfred Hitchcock, Peter O’Toole and one from Stephen Fry saying “to my second mother – the kindest woman in London” tell you all you need to know. 

Her books, chronicling 50 years of meals booked by the great and the good, are stored in the British Museum.

Andrew Hollett, a manager at Corus Hotels group, which owns the restaurant, said: “When Elena reached her 90th birthday we felt it was an appropriate time to retire. 

“Our doors are always open to her. We look forward to welcoming Elena at the restaurant.”