The UK's oldest Indian restaurant is suing King Charles’s property business, claiming it is being forced out of its 100-year-old Regent Street home because the business doesn’t want an “Indian restaurant in [the] midst” of its “smart” new offices.

Winston Churchill, Marlon Brando and Charlie Chaplin have all dined at Michelin-starred Veeraswamy in Victory House, and its chefs have twice catered for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.

It is thought to be where Britain's love of lager with curry originated, when Prince Axel of Denmark shipped over Carlsberg to have with his meals.

The owners of the historic eatery are now locked in a court fight over their future with landlords the Crown Estate Commissioners, the managers of the property portfolio owned by King Charles.

The Estate, which generates income for the Treasury and Royal family, wants to kick out the restaurant so the upper floors of the building can be turned into “high-class” offices as part of a £1bn regeneration of Regent Street.

As part of the plans, the Crown Estate is opposing a bid by Veeraswamy's owners, MW Eat Ltd, to renew its lease on the property, which ran out in 2025.

The case reached court on Thursday after the restaurant owners asked a judge to rule that the Estate is “precluded from objecting to the grant of a new tenancy” under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.

They said that the only conceivable reason why such a prestigious restaurant is being forced out is that “the landlord simply does not wish its hoped-for smart new offices to have an Indian restaurant in their midst”.

But lawyers for the Crown Estate insist there is "nothing remotely improper" about their bid to oust the legendary curry house.

Veeraswamy was founded in 1926 by Edward Palmer, the great-grandson of General William Palmer, the secretary to the first Governor General of India, and the Moghul Princess Faisan Nissa Begum.

Although centred on the mezzanine floor, it is based on several floors of Victory House, in Regent Street, which is also occupied by a basement level nightclub and a Jo Malone store.

For MW Eat Ltd, Guy Fetherstonhaugh KC told Judge Alan Johns KC: "The landlord plans to carry out works to the building which it says will require the permanent removal of the tenant, but not the tenants of the nightclub or the retail unit on the ground and basement floors.

"The tenant, which has just celebrated its century of operation from the building, is unwilling to leave."

He continued: "The premises are very much not old and worn or ripe for redevelopment. To the contrary, they are smart and well kept, with no suggestion made that any part of the fabric requires work, save perhaps some of the windows, which are in part the landlord’s obligation to repair.

"All that the landlord is now proposing to do is to carry out a limited amount of work to enable the premises to be used as offices, in order to recover a higher rent from them, thus, it says, performing its duty under Section 1(3) of the Crown Estate Act 1961 to 'maintain and enhance its (the Crown Estate’s) value and the return obtained from it, but with due regard to the requirements of good management'.

"The tenant’s surmise, there being no other reason of which it is able to conceive, is that the landlord simply does not wish its hoped-for smart new offices to have an Indian restaurant in their midst, no matter how prestigious that restaurant may be.

"The landlord comes close to saying this in its evidence, in relation to the spectre of its office tenant having to share the main building access with the tenant.

"This would be 'inconsistent with the Commissioners’ intention to provide a high-end fitted office offering' and would not be what 'customers would expect from a high-class fitted office offering'."

In February, he urged King Charles himself to overturn the Crown Estate's decision, while a petition backing the bid to save it has passed 20,000 signatures.

But for the Estate, Mark Sefton KC told the judge that it is "entirely legitimate" for a landlord to want to remove an existing tenant so as to redevelop premises and re-let to a different type of tenant at a higher rent.

"The Crown Estate is the freehold owner of Victory House, which is one of the buildings that makes up the Crown Estate’s Regent Street Portfolio," he said.

"For over 20 years, the Crown Estate has been undertaking a £1 billion improvement programme in relation to its Regent Street Portfolio.

"Apart from the restaurant premises that the claimant occupies, and apart from a retail unit on the ground floor and a further unit in the basement, Victory House currently comprises outdated and unlettable office accommodation.

"The Crown Estate intends to carry out a comprehensive scheme of work to strip the building back to its basic structure, and to re-fit it as modern, sustainable and energy-efficient, high-quality fitted office accommodation.

"The Crown Estate’s intended scheme of works includes the claimant’s premises, which are to be turned into offices, and accordingly the claimant’s lease renewal is opposed."

He said the work, for which planning permission has been granted, involves the "demolition and then the reconstruction of virtually all the physical features that are comprised in the tenancy."

"The Crown Estate has made a firm decision to carry out these works and there is no basis for thinking it is unrealistic for the Crown Estate to be able to implement that decision," he said.

"If the claimant left the premises voluntarily tomorrow, the Crown Estate would carry out precisely the same scheme of works. The simple fact is that the Crown Estate believes the premises on the mezzanine and first floor of Victory House that are currently occupied by the claimant will be worth far more if they are redeveloped as high-quality fitted offices than if they remain as restaurant premises.

"The Crown Estate therefore wants to include the demised premises in its redevelopment scheme. The Crown Estate also wants to carry out works to the ground floor to incorporate the restaurant entrance into the office entrance, to enlarge and improve it, and to install facilities such as showers in the basement.

"Nothing about any of that is remotely improper."

The judge is being asked to rule whether the Crown Estate is precluded under Paragraph (f) of Section 30(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 from opposing the grant of a new tenancy.

The provision allows a landlord to oppose a new tenancy in a situation where "on the termination of the current tenancy the landlord intends to demolish or reconstruct the premises comprised in the holding or a substantial part of those premises or to carry out substantial work of construction on the holding or part thereof and that he could not reasonably do so without obtaining possession of the holding."

MW Eat says that, as an alternative to a full new tenancy, it would be willing to accept a new tenancy on the basis of a reduced part of the building.

Victoria House is part of the Crown Estate property portfolio, which belongs to the reigning monarch "in right of the crown," but is not their own personal property.

Its income goes to the Treasury with some money then issued to the King in exchange by the government via the Sovereign Grant.

The hearing is expected to run into next week, with Judge Johns likely to reserve his judgment on the issue until a later date.