March 2007 Archives

Kitchen Rat has heard the Mayor of Lewes, Merlin Milner, is attempting to work some mayoral magic and get local brew Harveys bitter reinstated in the now notorious Lewes Arms pub, scene of a boycott by locals.

Taking advantage of Greene King's decision to split its managed pub estate, Milner has called upon incumbent Local Pubs director Jonathan Lawson to reinstall Harvey's bitter in the Lewes Arms as his first act in charge.

Kitchen Rat congratulates Milner for pulling a cracking PR trick out of his hat in order to get the brew back in the boozer. As the feud has been running since December it could well be time for a new kind of magic.

So Gordon Ramsay "has fessed up", as he calls it, and admitted to stealing his own reservation book way back in the day when he was head chef of the Chelsea Michelin-starred restaurant Aubergine.

It's an extraordinary revelation given that the police haven't ruled out reopening the nine-year-old investigation into the theft.

The confession was given to Bill Burford a reporter for the "New Yorker" magazine, who followed Gordon around while he was opening his first New York restaurant in November last year.

Kitchen Rat guessed that Tom Aiken's new restaurant would be called Tom's Place (although I felt that he should have gone the full cheese factor and gone for Plaice) when we broke the story in February that he was soon to open a fish and chip shop in Chelsea later this year.

Well KR is pleased to note that he was on the money again.... Tom confirmed it was to be called Tom's Place this week.

So John Burton Race has left his second wife Kim and the family home for another woman, according to reports in the Daily Mail.

It seems that the fiery chef, who started his new venture the New Angel in Devon after his successful TV series French Leave, which featured his now estranged family, has had a secret love child - a son now two year's old - with his agent's personal assistant Susan Ward.

Burton Race has two children with his first wife,Christine, and two with Kim, who also had four children from her previous marriage.

John Burton Race on TV when wife closed restaurant >>

More on John Burton Race from Caterersearch >>

The bods at Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels sound as though they had a high old time at their annual get together at Cancun recently. I am told that after one team building exercise, the losing team had to wear CBRE Hotels t-shirts for the rest of the day. This was doubtless intended as a jokey slight, but Kitchen Rat wonders whether it betrays a feeling of insecurity over its closest competitor.

If you're foolish enough to think fairies are found at the bottom of the garden this news will come as a shock.

Forget Tinker Bell, fairy dust is in plentiful supply at Host Contract Management, which amongst a platter of extras offers the wee people at no extra charge to clients.

Host has made it easy for customers to add a magical extra and reward hard working staff with the addition of the wonderfully named Muffin Fairy.

This year's Association of Catering Excellence pub quiz held at Imperial College in London's South Kensington earlier this week was a great success with 32 teams competing. Unfazed by the bookies' predictions, last year's winners Bartlett Mitchell rose to the task before them and monstered the opposition to win again. Coffee supplier Peros came second and the Stern Consultancy snuck in for third. Good game, good game!

What is Bartlett Mitchell's secret to their quiz success? Well Ian Mitchell, co-founder and director at the caterer, proffered the straightforward answer that it's simply a good mix of wise old heads with strength and depth across the varied quiz categories.

I bumped into the very knowledgeable and well known chef Shaun Hill at the launch of a new magazine for chefs called Yes Chef! yesterday evening. Interestingly Shaun Hill, formerly of the Merchant House and now the owner of the Glasshouse Brasserie and Bar in Sidbury, Worcester, was less than complimentary about the new publication, even though he is included on the magazine's inside cover as one of its "specialists", although he wasn't entirely sure he'd agreed to be one. Hill is doing the magazine's book reviews, but I doubt he'll be giving up his day job. "Vanity publishing" was what one of the chefs at the launch called it and Hill joked it would only last "three issues".

I overheard last night that Michael Jackson is back in town staying at Jumeirah's Carlton Tower in London. One source was overheard talking all about the upheaval and madness that ensues when Jacko stays in your hotel... fun and games, I bet!!

Scant details at the moment but apparently there's been quite a bit of unrest at Will Ricker's latest restaurant in London town called XO in Belsize Park.

I heard that the kitchen staff were unsatisfied with the way things were being run and threatened to walk out of the operation during last weekend.

French chef Pierre Gagnaire is set to open in Dubai's bonkers Festival City development, the Rat has learnt.

Gagnaire, who is credited as being at the front of the fusion movement in France, does not lack international reach as he already has an eponymous restaurant in Paris, leads the culinary direction of London's Sketch and last autumn opened a restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.

So Rat fans, the National Skills Strategy has been launched in a slick presentation in London headed by People 1st.

Fair play, it's a comprehensive document based on sound research, although I'm told due to the wonders of devolution each 'nation' is getting their own bespoke action plan - good thinking or an unnecessary complication?

Certainly Bob Cotton, chief executive of the British Hospitality Association, has his concerns about effectively communicating this bold and much needed plan to employers.

It appears the London Development Agency (LDA) may have taken onboard the spirit of the Olympics too enthusiastically, choosing to adopt the Greek mentality to the Games and time management, which at the 2004 event was pretty much, it'll be done when it's done.

At the Fit4Pace conference in Coventry a few weeks back the Rat hears that the LDA, London mayor Ken Livingstone's device for hopefully getting things done, had stalled on the start line.

A speaker from the organisation, who shall remain nameless to save his blushes, was down on the conference bill to talk about 'opportunities for all' around the 2012 London Games.

On the eve of the long-awaited unveiling of hospitality and tourism's National Skills Strategy by People 1st in Westminster tomorrow, the head of the British Hospitality Association (BHA) has urged caution.

On his blog Bob Cotton, chief executive of the BHA, says that while skills provision and training in the industry is indeed a terrible state, at least part of the blame lays at the door of a raft of ill thought-out education initiatives that have been launched thick and fast during the past 20 years.

Hoteliers are used to rock stars trashing their rooms, guests thieving everything or leaving the most random items behind and businessmen conducting clandestine "meetings" with their secretaries but news reaches KR that will have even the most wizened industry veteran shaking their head

Just what does a Premiership footballer want for? Not money, fan adulation, fancy cars or swanky homes...hell they even have someone to clean their expensive custom-made boots.

But wait, Kitchen Rat has learnt that Chelsea football club's apprenticeships are missing, literally, mama's cooking.

Yes it's all very exciting being plucked from obscurity and given your own swish London gaff but most of these kids don't know how to fend for themselves or cook.

Onto the field of play has stepped London's Westminster Kingsway College (WKC), which features Jamie Oliver as an alumni, to teach six Chelsea youngsters at a time how to cook, a task that will take place at the kitchen facilities at the club's state-of-the-art training facility in Cobham, Surrey.

Education, education, education, nice soundbite but the rat's school days weren't exactly the best. Let's put it down to a gnawing feeling I didn't fit in. People 1st, the sector skills council for hospitality and tourism, looks like it's having a turblent time in class as well.

At last week's PACE conference in Coventry word reaches my furry ears it received a very public dressing down infront of its peers.

Nigel Flood, lead inspector at the Adult Learning Inspectorate, a part of OFSTED that looks at the job catering colleges are actually doing, took time out from his talk to give People 1st the classroom equivalent of "must try harder".