Grand Divan at Simpson’s in the Strand is the restored heart of one of London’s most storied dining rooms. Founded in 1828 as a coffee house and chess salon, Simpson’s grew into a grande dame of British dining — a room of silver trolleys, master carvers and Edwardian ceremony that hosted the city’s writers, statesmen and chess champions for the better part of two centuries.

When restaurateur Jeremy King secured the building after pursuing it for more than twenty years, Studio Shayne Brady was appointed to bring the Grand Divan back to life.

The brief was singular: returning guests should feel that nothing has changed. In a listed interior of this significance, the studio’s approach centred on the lightest possible intervention — protecting the elements that carry both craft and memory, and strengthening the room’s character rather than rewriting it.

That discipline shows in the detail. Original timber panelling, inset with distinctive marquetry, has been carefully restored. The chandeliers have been relamped rather than replaced. Fireplaces work again. Deep red velvet and leather upholstery returns warmth to the room, while new Edwardian-inspired leather seating and high-backed banquettes create an unexpected intimacy. Each table is enclosed like a private room, even at the centre of the restaurant. Between them, the famous silver trolleys glide once more.

The Grand Divan retains its Edwardian gravitas, yet the energy is less formal than before — an enlivened room rather than a relic, designed for celebration as much as tradition.

Guests should leave with the sense that Simpson’s has simply always been this way; that every owner in its long history loved it into its present form.

For Studio Shayne Brady, the Grand Divan at Simpson’s in the Strand is a study in restraint — proof that the most powerful design gesture is sometimes the one nobody notices. It sits alongside the studio’s work on Romano’s, Nellie’s and Simpson’s Bar within the wider revival of Simpson’s, each space distinct in character, all bound by the same respect for craft, memory and the theatre of British hospitality.