August 2006 Archives

Bonkers hotel story of the day is supplied by the Daily Star, which claims the Gallagher brothers are planning a host of themed hotels across the US.

Perhaps we should take note of their current album title Don't Believe the Truth, but the Oasis front men are apparently planning to use their smash hits as room themes in hotels in Miami, New York and West Hollywood.

Sadly Cigarettes and Alcohol hasn't gone down well in New York where smoking indoors is banned, and although Wonderwall could be tricky, Don't Look Back in Anger might be useful if actor Russell Crow turns up and starts throwing phones at receptionists.

Starwood Hotels' hip urban select-service hotel brand "aloft" is going to makes it debut online in the virtual reality world of the web game Second Life. By September, devlopers will have built the first 3-D virtual "aloft" hotel and then Second Life's users will be able to enter the first "aloft" hotel and interact with others as they get a sneak preview of the concept. If you can't wait until the first "aloft" hotel opens its doors in 2008 and until September for the virtual experience, then see how the developers are getting on building the "aloft" virtual hotel at a a companion site, which will carry a daily blog on progress.

Would you believe it - the latest publication for the hotel industry, whose name sounds like "aitch", has made it off the printing presses yet again. After a spluttering start, which had only seen two issues since its launch in February, I nearly choked on my tea when a third issue crossed my desk last week. So a bi-monthly that launched in February, but has only printed three issues by the end of August... ummmm you do the maths, but by my reckoning readers have already missed one issue of "aitch"!

So is content hard to find for this fledgling magazine? Well, it seems it's not only fillling pages on a bi-monthly that's hard work, but also drumming up reader participation. I was amazed to read that the mag's latest prize for Guest H of the Month had been awarded to its own art director. Of course, we would like to extend our congratulations to the "esteemed" Stuart Hammersley and hope he enjoys his bottles of Moet and Gosling's Rum. You'd think that a magazine with only three issues under its belt (and having already dropped one issue), would have postbags so full of reader feedback that it didn't need to resort to giving away prizes to its own staff!

Harden's latest restaurant guide is due to hit bookshops in the next few weeks and in time honoured fashion those good folk Richard and Peter Harden have been very active in their pre-publicity. This week's Caterer featured the guide's findings on the changing fortunes of London's restaurant scene, but it was a report in Thursday's Metro that caught my eye, not for the content but the rather unfortunate spelling of the Harden's (note spelling) guide's co-editor and founder Richard Harding [sic]. I'm sure that spelling would have rather stuck in the throat of the Hardens.

Pub entrepreneur or middle-aged model for the Kays clothing catalogue? Take a close look at this publicity shot of Enterprise Inns top dog Ted Tuppen and you decide.

Kitchen Rat would like to wish contract caterer Charlton House a happy 15th birthday, although belatedly. The company celebrated its 15th anniversary in July, but it was a rather self-congratulatory press release that caught KR's eye and prompted this entry.

Founders Robyn Jones, 44, and her husband Tim, whose age isn't given, have to be applauded for starting up the business from scratch and growing it to a £50m enterprise. However, the tale of the company's early days becomes more elaborate every year.

According to the coying release, Robyn worked from her spare bedroom, armed only with a telephone directory, a telephone, a wallpaper pasting table as a desk and banana boxes as filing cabinets and with the financial backing of a £50 weekly Government enterprise allowance. So, 15 years later the pair have developed the business into the largest contract caterer in the UK to have grown without acquisition - a point the press release rams home in the final paragraph.

It's funny how sometimes the London rumour mill can get things so amazingly wrong. Kitchen Rat had heard that famed French chef Alain Ducasse had been appointed to run the famous Grill Room at the Dorchester hotel. Some careful digging found this was way off the mark and that Aiden Byrne, currently top man at in Buckinghamshire, is set to be the new head chef for the Grill Room - once contracts have been finalised. Aiden - I am sure would freely admit - has yet to hit the dizzying success of Ducasse, but he's certainly one to watch.

Kitchen Rat has hardly had to have had his ear close to the ground to pick up the vicious rumours that have followed the latest goings-on at Tom Aikens self-named restaurant in Chelsea. The week before last, the sighting of an ambulance - and allegedly police cars - at Tom's Michelin-starred restaurant, caused the rumour mill to go into overdrive. Had Tom reverted to his bad old ways in the kitchen? Unfairly or not, Tom will always be remembered as the chef who was booted out of his kitchen at London's Pied a Terre restaurant for burning one of his brigade with a palette knife. Tom's version of events is that the incident was just a bit of playful joshing that went a bit wrong, but of course it's never possible to completely shake-off that bad boy image. And so the furore outside his restaurant a few days ago soon got tongues wagging.

Isn't it strange that a place that has become synonomous with good dining over the past decade can go through such change so quickly. Ludlow at one time had four restaurants holding a Michelin star simultaneously- quite a feat for a small market town in Shropshire. With Claude Bosi announcing he is going to sell Hibiscus, Overton Grange also being launched on the market and the sale of the Merchant House last year, Mr Underhills (such a lovely name) will be the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the town left under the same ownership. Ironically, the town's fall from grace has coincided with the Slow Food Movement locating its headquarters in Ludlow - in this case the movement might have been too slow in finding a HQ for its own good.

Isn't it strange that a place that has become synonomous with good dining over the past decade can go through such change so quickly. Ludlow at one time had four restaurants holding a Michelin star simultaneously- quite a feat for a small market town in Shropshire. With Claude Bosi announcing he is going to sell Hibiscus, Overton Grange also being launched on the market and the sale of the Merchant House last year, Mr Underhills (such a lovely name) will be the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the town left under the same ownership. Ironically, the town's fall from grace has coincided with the Slow Food Movement locating its headquarters in Ludlow - in this case the movement might have been too slow in finding a HQ for its own good.