Caviar House Airport Premium (CHAP) went into administration on 6 September 2024 with Ken Touhey, director of Insolvency & Recovery Limited, and Marco Piacquadio, director of FTS Recovery Limited, appointed joint administrators.
The business and its assets were subsequently sold to SBC Travel Limited, a newly incorporated company that counts Peter Rebeiz, CEO of the wider Caviar House & Prunier business, among its owners.
As a result of the administration process, CHAP has closed four of its Heathrow sites including its seafood bars in Terminal 2, Terminal 4 and Terminal 5.
The group’s seafood bar in Heathrow Terminal 3 has been secured as part of the sale, as has its more casual Sandwich House offshoot in Terminal 2.
Caviar House & Prunier’s seafood bar in Gatwick’s South Terminal has also been saved.
It is not known how many jobs have been made redundant as a result of the closures.
Commenting on the sale, Touhey said the severe impact of Covid on the global travel industry combined with the post-Brexit trading environment had made it ‘impossible’ for CHAP to continue trading.
“Caviar House Airport Premium’s unique position within the travel and luxury food industries has unfortunately resulted in multiple financial shocks over the past decade,” he said.
Piacquadio added: “Our goal was to find the best solution for Caviar House’s creditors, customers, and employees.
“SBC Travel are looking to diversify their product offering and widen their reach across the high street and other travel locations, making them an ideal candidate to take the company’s service offering forward and protect jobs.”
Caviar House & Prunier is the union between the Caviar House company, founded in 1950 by George Rebeiz, and French caviar producer Prunier, created in 1872 by Alfred Prunier.
The group’s London estate, which comprises a flagship restaurant and retail boutique in Piccadilly and a Champagne and oyster bar in Selfridges, operates under a separate company called Caviar House UK City Ltd.
Chris Mehmet, MD of Caviar House UK City Ltd, said: “We were extremely sad to hear that the operating company CHAP had gone into administration, but this is in no way any reflection on the brand Caviar House or the locations in London.”
In October last year, Caviar House & Prunier partnered with the Threadneedles Hotel to launch its first outpost in the City of London, which also marked the group’s first new location in the capital for nearly a decade.
However, the restaurant subsequently closed quietly in the spring of this year.
Mehmet added that the closure of the Threadneedles restaurant was not related to CHAP in any way.