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.
As the story spread, a version that reached Caterer had Aikens being led from the restaurant in handcuffs. In fact, the police have no record of being called and Aikens is quick to point out that the reality was "boring and dull". Tom says the Chinese whispers escalated the incident out of all proportion. "Someone had cut themselved badly in the kitchen," he told KR. "It wasn't something you could stitch up with a blue plaster so we called the ambulance and notified the EHOs, as required by law - we went through the right channels. It was not a big hoo-ha. The person only required three stitches and was back at work the following week." According to the local Environmental Health Office, the incident occurred when "the sous chef slipped on a slightly wet floor by the ovens into another chef who was holding a knife." And a message from Tom for those wagging tongues: "It's quite shocking how petty-minded people take something and blow it up out of all proportion. The whole situation is like a ghost hunt."
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