June 2007 Archives

Today's car bomb scare in Haymarket understandably has us all worried and will no doubt curtail a busy Friday trade in central London, but you have to admire the commitment to work some employees in the area have.

Caterersearch.com called today, entirely at random, Bar Blanca, the Morroccan themed-bar in London's Jewel bar and cafe to ask them for comment on how they were coping with the scare.

The startled employee on the other end of the line asked: "What bomb scare? I didn't know there was a bomb scare. Let me get our marketing team to call you."

I would seriously take a look at the police tape and blue tent surrounding a car just outside your window. Or maybe just turn on a TV.

How do you melt the heart of one of the industry's bad boys, Gordon Ramsay?
Write him a limerick of course, silly!

At the launch of contract caterer Aramark's innovation centre, housed in the London Underwriting Centre in the City, one female guest's slightly suspect prose was enough delivered face-to-face to the guest star big Gord. to render him momentarily, uncharacteristically, speechless.

Of course, Mr Ramsay is never speechless for long and after a split second accepted the invitation to visit Portsmouth naval base, which had come with the performance of the limerick, and told the person to **** off because she was scaring him. Normality restored.

You'd think everyone was on board with the start of the smoking ban in England on Sunday. Not so.

While Government body Smokefree England is happily releasing disingenuous stats. in the run up to the ban, try:

- 95% of businesses in England are already compliant, or will be for July 1st? So that will be places such as the London Underground, offices the breadth of the country and munition manufactuerers, included as well then not just pubs and bars -

And ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman making headlines saying the ban will bring him no satisfaction (in fact he's going to defy it), one eagle eyed Kitchen Rat reader spotted the above on a trip to the Warwick Hilton hotel recently.

A case of preparing for the smoking ban on the cheap, perhaps?

Smoking ban round up>>

House wifes' favourite and former 400m Great Britain star Roger Black was on hand at last week's Association of Catering Excellence conference in London as a motivational speaker.

Kitchen Rat hears that the taller and leaner than you might think Mr Black, who has a couple of Olympic silver medals and a team relay gold from the 1991 World Championships, was there to deliver a pep-talk to delegates on achieving your full potential.

Some of you may be looking forward to the Taste of London event in Regent's Park which starts today and are preparing to gorge yourself on sample-size signature dishes from some of the Capital's top hotels. But odds on is that those in the trade have had a slightly more stressful experience.

One chef told Caterer that when he decided to participate in the last year for the first time he grossly under-estimated the number of servings he would have to prepare for, sold out of food in next to no time, and begged and pleaded with his suppliers to bring him more ingredients as soon as possible.

This year the chef has gone in slightly more prepared; much to the disappointment of his kitchen staff. So on Tuesday, having finished a busy evening service the staff settled down to chop 1,250 peppers until 2am.

We all know that failure to prepare is preparing to fail but preparation of peppers until you perspire has forced the staff to prepare for time off instead.

Mr Particular - self proclaimed country hotel expert - is, well, no where in particular to be found at present.

Following the launch of a book Mr Particular - Telling the Truth about Country House Hotels in 2005 the reviews were rebadged as an online subscription service early this year but have since been removed from their host site.

Has anyone out there heard anything about Jams O'Donnell, which was an anagram of the writer's real name, in particular? Let us know.

Mr Particular relaunches as online service>>

Last week contract caterer Elior UK leant its support to Across the Line, a sports themed event held at the home of cricket, Lord's in North-west London, to raise funds for development agency Plan.

Guest stars included rower Ed Coode, Badmington's Gail Emms, former England cricket star Alec Stewart and champion jockey Richard Dunwoody.

After dinner and a desperate attempt by the now slightly addled guests to complete a sports quiz, a charity auction commenced and the real fun began.

Well that hopefully got your attention. This monkey has very little to worry him other than finding a supply of good quality nuts but it's likely as a hospitality worker or business owner you have far more on your plate (unless you really do pay your staff peanuts).

We want to know what is worrying you and your views on a number of topics drawn from the themes that will be explored in Caterer and Hotelkeeper later this month when British Hospitality Association boss Bob Cotton joins us as guest editor.

Please take a few moments to share your thoughts and complete our Hospitality Industry Survey 2007.

Hospitality survey>>

Guest editor on foreign workers>>

Yes with the euphoria of the London Olympic bid success well and truly behind us and cost projections for the project spiralling to an eye-watering £9b, it seems the Great British public have returned to type and are busily moaning about the 2012 Games.

In a wonderful whirl of empty marketing speak and pomp, the organisers of the London Games revealed the "new brand and vision" for the project today, essentially an odd looking logo.

Still, if the London tabloids are anything to go by, this has drawn a level of public criticism not seen since the Millennium Dome from the great unwashed, with one enterprising type even going as far as to launch an online petition to get it changed.

Midlands contract caterer Olive Catering Services, which was set up by some former Catering Alliance bods and a PwC accountant three years ago, has grown the business to more than 50 contracts and £6m-plus of turnover off the back of a no-compromises commitment to excellent food, in the main locally sourced.

Although based on premises at a working farm in Ratcliffe Culey, Warwickshire, efforts to impress upon clients that Olive's focus on quality ingredients is a sincere one, at a time when everyman and his food-miles friendly hound seems to have hopped on the locally sourced bandwagon, must be hard work.

Chef-proprietor Rowley Leigh has decided to change the name of his new restaurant, which is due to open in September.

In a drastic move, the former Kensington Place chef has changed the name of the west London eatery from Café des Anglais to Le Café Anglais.

Reasons for the radical name change are unknown although it is rumoured that the previous name did not meet Leigh's personal taste.

Le Café Anglais, which will be located in the Whitley shopping centre in Bayswater, will be a 200-cover restaurant. It is a joint venture between Leigh and his business partner Charlie McVeigh. Head chef will be Colin Westal and the menu will offer high-end brasserie food with an English twist.