Overall ranking: 69 (new entrant)

Restaurateurs’ ranking: 19

Richard Shepherd – Snapshot
Richard Shepherd is the owner of Langan’s Restaurants whose flagship eaterie, Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair, has proved an enduringly popular and busy landmark of the London scene. It has served up some 600 covers a day for the past 30 years.

Shepherd was one of the first British chefs to win a Michelin star and Langans’ Brasserie was London’s first Parisian-style brasserie  - and one of its original celebrity hang-outs to boot.

He currently oversees five London restaurants which include Odin’s and Langan’s Bistro (Marylebone), Langan’s Coq D’Or (Earl’s Court) and Shepherd’s (Westminster).

Shepherd has also built up a collection of floating Langan’s Brasseries on 11 P&O cruise liners.

Richard Shepherd – Career guide
Richard Shepherd was born in 1945 in Weston-Super-Mare where worked in hotels and restaurants during his school holidays. In 1960 he became an apprentice at the Mount Pleasant hotel in Great Malvern, Worcestershire before moving to London.

He served as a commis chef at Simpsons-in-the-Strand in 1963 and (from 1964) at the Savoy where he worked with legendary chefs Silvano Trompetto and Louis Virot.

In 1967 Shepherd became chef de partie at the Grand Hotel in Cap Ferrat and La Reserve in Beaulieu. He returned to London to take the same position at the Dorchester hotel from 1969 to 1971.

He joined the Capital hotel as chef de cuisine in 1971 where, with Brian Turner as his number two, he won the hotel a Michelin star in 1974. He left to become chef de cuisine/chef partner at Langan’s Brasserie in 1977.

Richard Shepherd – What we think
Richard Shepherd was one of the first British chefs to break into the French, Italian and Swiss-dominated kitchens of the capital’s five-star hotels and one of the first to win a Michelin star.

Shepherd quit Capital when his plans to open the Greenhouse restaurant with hotel owner David Levin went sour. He threw in his lot with Langan’s Brasserie, which had been opened just months before by hell-raiser Peter Langan and actor Michael Caine. He bought out Caine’s share in 1999 to become sole owner of Langan’s restaurants, Langan himself having died tragically in a fire in 1988.

Shepherd adapted his classic French training to devise a more straightforward, affordable form of haute cuisine without the frills which he describes as “basically English, respecting French tradition”. The brrasserie provided a less formal and stuffy alternative to the fine dining restaurants of the time and it was an instant hit.

Yet its future looked shaky at the start. Within months of joining, Shepherd discovered the restaurant was insolvent and was forced to trek around suppliers and the Inland Revenue with £260,000-worth of post-dated cheques begging for more time. He returned the restaurant to the black within three years and has never looked back.

During its peak period, between 1978 and 1988, Langan’s Brasserie was the most fashionable destination in capital. Its guest list included Marlon Brando, Mick Jagger, Robert de Niro, Princess Grace of Monaco and Harold Pinter and the paparazzi, unsurprisingly, were practically glued to the pavement outside for the decade.

And it has never fallen out of favour since. In 2001, Shepherd calculated that he had served a mind-boggling 3,750,000 meals over the past 25 years.

Having added the side-by-side Odin’s and Langan’s Bistro in 1987, Shepherd’s in 1993 and Langan’s Coq d’Or in 1998, Shepherd hung up his whites in 2001 to co-ordinate the operaton.

There were other openings – Shepherd’s in Portugal (1987) and Langan’s Bistro Brighton (1998) – but Shepherd prefers to run a tight ship in London where he can retain control. The exceptions are the P&O Langan’s Brasseries which he started up in 1997 and expanded in October 2005.

Shepherd’s achievements were acknowledged in 2000 when he received a CBE for his services to the catering industry. He is also the recipient of two Cateys - Restaurateur of the Year in 1984 and the Special Award in 1993

The five restaurants remain profitable as well as popular, having boosted a 2001 turnover of £12m to £17m today (of which £7m come from Langan’s Brasserie).

Shepherd has made a number of TV appearances since debuting in Thames TVs first series of Take Six Cooks.  A former examiner for City and Guilds, he continues to be involved in training and education.

He was a member of the original chef’s Club Nine, became a Fellow of the HCIMA in 1988, and was given an Honorary Professorship at Thames Valley University in 2005.

He has been an active member of the British branch of the Academy of Culinary Arts since 1980, becoming its chairman in 1986, its president in 1990 and an honorary president in 2004.

Richard Shepherd – Further information

Langan's Restaurants official website