Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis (a Latin phrase meaning “Whither goest thou?”) is a restaurant in Dean Street, Soho, founded in 1926 by Peppino Leoni in premises formerly occupied by Karl Marx.
It began as a seven-table Italian restaurant in one room, and expanded to fill four adjacent townhouses, now all knocked together. Over the decades it became a notable fixture on the Soho scene.
After changing hands a number of times the establishment was acquired in 2007 by the brothers Sam and Eddie Hart, who reinvented it as a traditional British restaurant and a private members’ club. Marx’s attic rooms comprise the Harts’ offices.
Quo Vadis nowadays also has a bakery and offers private dining facilities in the small Leoni Room and the large Marx Room.
“While the food was Italian, it was a somewhat anglicised version. ‘He was a shameless self-publicist and always entertaining Lord and Lady Muck,’ Eddie Hart says. ‘Leoni would have had no qualms about serving shepherd’s pie if someone had wanted it.’”
Caterer and Hotelkeeper (5 June 2008)