Mayfair restaurant The Square forced to close after administrators seize property

According to The Staff Canteen​​​, who first reported the closure, customers and staff were asked to vacate restaurant The Square during lunch, as administrators seized Abela's assets.

Abela, who runs Marlon Abela Restaurant Corporation (MARC), was served with a bankruptcy petition by his lawyers in October 2019.

The Square was originally opened in 1991 by chef patron Phil Howard, and moved to its current location in Mayfair in 1997.

A year later, the restaurant won two Michelin stars, which it retained for 19 years and only lost after Howard sold the business Abela.

In 2017, under MARC’s ownership, Clement Leroy was brought on board as executive chef for The Square and was assumed to still be leading the kitchen at the time of the incident.

Rumours, however, suggest that Leroy, his wife Aya Tamura, who was the restaurant’s head pastry chef, and a large number of the kitchen team had stopped working at The Square three weeks ago, and that the head chef from Abela’s Mayfair-based Morton's Club had taken on the role.

At present, Abela’s other restaurants appear to be unaffected, with The Greenhouse and Umu (which are also Mayfair-based and have two Michelin stars apiece) still trading.

However, The​ Staff Canteen​ reports both could also be closed ‘imminently’ according to a source.