Celebrities are always willing to endorse products but the Rat wonders if the Ready, Steady, Cook presenter bit off more than he could chew getting behind this product?
Either that or somebody with Photoshop skills has been really bored. Anyways we can't wait to get our chops around Ainsley's bangers and the Rat thinks you might enjoy them too. Just remember to follow the cooking instructions.
This week the Rat was out enjoying a quick pint in a London boozer and took this snap with his Rat-Cam of two hapless builders.
The two chaps had spent the day installing bollards to stop cars from parking on the pavement and were just packing away their tools.
Unfortunately the Rat was distracted by the latest chef gossip from his secret contacts and missed their reaction but he did have the fortitude to realise that a picture speaks a thousand words....
Such is Alain Ducasse’s multi Michelin starred winning status and undoubted pedigree that London’s restaurant critics have been rather harsh on his first restaurant in the capital.
The expression making a rod for your own back seems appropriate but with 13 Michelin stars to his name (and more likely) it’s fair to say people are expecting a lot from his eaterie at the Dorchester hotel on Park Lane.
While we can offer you a peak behind the scenes and in the kitchens at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, the Kitchen Rat budget hasn’t stretched to actually eating there yet.
Still, for all his knockers Alain has some big fans.
Kitchen Rat hears a recent visit to Brian Turner’s restaurant at the Millennium hotel in London’s Mayfair had the straight talking Yorkshire chef coming out in full support of Ducasse.
“You don’t win as many stars as Alain has without having the resources to fix problems. His London restaurant isn’t quite there yet but without a doubt he’ll get it sorted,” the moustachioed one told a dinner.
No top awards for restaurants in this year's Michelin guide>>
Alain Ducasse Dorchester restaurant gets another mauling by the critics>>
While the industry giants such as Compass and Sodexo have teams dedicated to marketing it's not so easy for the smaller contract caterers to make their voices heard.
Being the alternative is no alternative at all if no one knows who you are.
Luckily Nathan Jones, the other half of boutique caterer Harbour & Jones (H&J), isn’t too proud and has adapted guerrilla tactics in a low-tech approach to viral marketing.
Curious to know if Jones has passed through the airport or train station you’re at?
Well it’s easy enough to find out. Find the nearest public internet terminal and if you’re unexpectedly confronted with the H&J home page then you’ve had a visit from the firm’s marketing fairy in chief.
Does it work? Well H&J recently took a random, but charming, Californian foodie along on their regular client trips around London’s Borough market after she saw the site at an airport and couldn’t keep her curiosity in check.
No doubt it will snowball from here on in. Watch out Compass!
Harbour & Jones gets top Compass chef>>
It’s time to drop the H bomb>>
Vodka revolution wins Harbour & Jones new deal>>
So Sodexho Alliance has become Sodexo.
At Kitchen Rat we’re all for simplicity and it’s hard to argue with this bit of American English style revisionism.
We’ll even accept the new company tagline, “making every day a better day”. It certainly shows ambition.
However, full disclosure of the thinking behind such a change as the company reinforces its image as a facilities management firm not just a caterer, isn’t always best.
For example, in its press release an earnest Sodexo explains the pesky h in its name has been dropped because “h is often associated with the hotel and foodservices business, particularly in Europe”. Really?
It’s also apparently easier to pronounce than, one supposes, something such as L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon or Leicester Square (if you’re American).
Still, people get paid a lot of money to come up with this sort of stuff, not least the bunch that justified the amalgamation of Sodexo’s five stars into one on the new corporate logo thus:
“The single star symbolizes the performance and energy of Sodexho teams directed toward a common objective. This star differs from other stars, just as Sodexo stands out from its competitors”. So now you know.
Competition in the budget hotel sector is fierce but Kitchen Rat can’t help wonder if gentlemen’s rules have been shoved out the window in a bid to be number one.
Although Travelodge has resisted the urge to rename itself Premier Travelodge and scupper rival Premier Travel Inn’s recent rebrand as Premier Inn (presumably it would be forced to call itself simply Inn), some of the smaller players in the field appear not to have been so lucky.
If you remember just before Christmas the Real Hotel Company (yes, it is a bit eighties-era pop) launched a Prince friendly (maybe the pop reference makes sense after all) budget hotel chain called Purple
They’ve got ambitious plans to take the likes of Premier Inn on by offering a posher take on the budget offer, with lots of mod. cons, a fair bit of style and a promised competitive price.
Although the group should have 1,000 bedrooms operating under the Purple banner by the end of this month, you wouldn’t think PI, which has more than 32,000 bedrooms, would be looking over its shoulder just yet.
With small, privately owned caterers ten-a-penny these days and the industry frighteningly incestuous, rumours of imminent takeovers reach Kitchen Rat on an almost daily basis.
Ignoring the fact that Charlton House, according to industry gossips has been up for sale seemingly since Robyn Jones founded it, one slightly more credible whisper doing the rounds recently was that City caterer In House was being offered for sale.
The rumour seems to have grown out of the fact that joint managing director Andrew Merret has this month left to pursue other interests.
However, a bit of digging and a chat with a source close to the company reveals Merret wasn’t a shareholder and the story with In House is something different.
With a healthy conference and event business combined with executive dining services the company, which was launched in 1995 and has around 100 staff and 22 contracts turning over around £7m, is doing nicely enough for its three major investors.
So much so that chairman Gary Hall is apparently considering a move into the concessions market. It appears he is pursuing the recruitment of a bright young thing or things to have a shot at running it almost as their own business under the In House umbrella, keeping things very much in house.
Contract catering news round up>>
Contract catering's big five in push for healthier school meals>>
It’s that time of the year again and chefs across Great Britain and Ireland are bracing themselves for the release of the annual Michelin guide.
Tomorrow (23 January) is the big day they’ve all been waiting for and full coverage of the results will be going up live on Caterersearch from lunchtime.
But as Kitchen Rat spends a lot of time trying to uncover gossip in the restaurant and cheffing sector, I'd thought I'd let you know, what I think about who the winners in the 2008 race for Michelin stars will be.
Property agents Christie & Co held their annual Business Outlook presentation yesterday in Trinity House opposite the Tower of London.
As ever it was a professional affair with as many statistics on the hospitality property market last year, and predictions for 2008, as a statistician could wish for.
Christie’s international managing director Chris Day led the way, highlighting some of the company’s greatest successes in 2007 by sector.
When it came to a round-up of done deals in the leisure sector the dead pan Mr Day was on fine form when he described the successful sale of Pantiles nightclub, a cavernous site in Bagshot, Surrey, to Sunrise Senior Living.
After the briefest of pauses for effect, Day, with a completely straight face, added: “One imagines they will be changing the use of the building”, which drew well deserved laughter from the audience.
Earlier this week Caterer reported on peer review website TripAdvisor naming and shaming Oxford hotel Nanford Guest House as the UK’s dirtiest hotel.
The property topped this year’s top 10 list of the UK’s grimiest establishments, after some of the reviews described it as “horrendous”, “squalid”, “total and utter dump”, “dirty, smelly and should be shut down”.
Not great publicity for Nanford Guest House but to make things even worse, a review in yesterday’s Mirror revealed just how bad things really are at hotel.
There may be trouble ahead (for the economy), but skipping the music and dance bit, being thrifty is always nifty if you’re a caterer.
Yes operating on wafer thin margins is tricky at the best of times and with rampant food inflation at the moment the business of feeding people isn’t getting any easier (or cheaper).
Still, a recently uncovered initiative by a multi-million pound contract caterer straight from the school of every-little-helps managed to raise an eye brow or two on Kitchen Rat.
A request for a mug shot to illustrate an appointment story – the not unusual news of a chef moving from one caterer to another – was declined. In itself this is not unusual, the Caterer journalist in question simply thinking it was to do with sensitivity or politics around the move. Not so.
“It’s a large file and they only send those out after seven pm as it’s cheaper,” an incredulous sounding contact at the smaller caterer reported back to the journalist.
Presumably for hard copies you now have to send in a self addressed envelope and it’s a case of bring your own ketchup in the staff canteen and share tea bags.
Motivational sleeping. Yes, inspire someone in your slumber and make those boring afternoon meetings truly unmissable.
Actually, this rather silly term is the work of budget hotel chain Travelodge and a somewhat silly press release, which claims British workers are in the grips of an insomnia epidemic.
Although that may be true (watching Big Brother usually works) it appears that the budget hotel sector has become sleep obsessed with this latest news following on from Premier Inn’s guide on what side of the bed to get out of.
Anyway, 23 million British workers are losing an hour’s sleep a night due to anxiety about work, says Travelodge.
However, although Red Bull has its place, Travelodge has commissioned Neuro Linguistic Programming (this may be a made up title) therapist Greg Laws to record a series of “Nodcasts”.
Rather than anything to do with a nodding dog flogging car insurance, these “Nodcasts” will cover work related issues such as being more assertive, combating stress and motivating yourself while at work.
They’re available free at Travelodge’s website under the “What’s New” section. Sweet dreams.
Travelodge to save millions with new construction method>>
On the face of it Aramark had a darn good 2007 with a number of high profile contract wins including the BBC and HBOS.
It also opened a fancy new innovation centre at the London Underwriting Centre, getting Gordon Ramsay, no less, along on launch night to endorse it.
Aramark’s Innovation Centre is a collection of its "high street" offerings, technology and a demonstration kitchen, put in place to showcase the range of options it has to offer customers.
So it was probably with a few choice oaths that the news Aramark has been replaced to cater for underwriter Catlin, one of the LUC's larger tenants, was received at its headquarters at Millbank Tower, London.
Last October, Travelodge announced it was offering a £25m bounty to the public to help drive its ambitious expansion plan across the UK.
It was offering up to £150,000 to individuals who could find a new or existing UK location which results in the opening of a new Travelodge.
Safe to say the scheme has been a big success, with more than 7,000 proposals (this has been whittled down to 100 sites, currently being followed up by the group’s property team).
However, one suspects many of those suggesting ideas were blinded by the prospect of free money.
The pub industry is still reeling from the retirement of stalwart Tony Hughes, the architect of pub giant Mitchells & Butlers’ (M&B) thriving food business, but the gossip among publicans is not how will M&B cope without their food figurehead but who will turn up to the year's award ceremonies to collect a gong?
Hughes, who stepped down from the M&B board at the end of the year, has since gone on to join the board of the struggling Restaurant Group.
According to that most scientific of tools, Google, a search of the terms "Tony Hughes + Mitchells & Butlers + Awards" generates 43,800 possible answers including Hughes winning a Pub Industry Award Catey in 2001. Searching on the terms "Mitchells & Butlers + awards" generates just 24,400 potential hits. It could be a lean year in the M&B trophy cabinet.
It's fair to say there's a certain pecking order when it comes to celebrity chef endorsements.
While Jamie Oliver has a tasty sideline plugging Sainsbury's and Gordon Ramsay has put his craggy face to a bottle of gin of the same name, Ken Hom choses always to travel with a wok and Tom Aikens is working with Wembley Stadium and upmarket event caterer The Admirable Crichton.
So, with Pancake Day fast approaching (5 February) and Government figures suggesting around 250 people have to visit their local hospital as a result of burns on the big day it's time for another cash-in.
Worried about your family getting burnt? Then you need to protect them with Antony Worrall Thompson's (AWT) extra long oven mitt.
Yes as part of the AWT kitchen linen range - available at the likes of TK Maxx no less - you can transfer hand protection along your forearm with this natty bit of kit.
Still, lends itself well to a catch line. Perhaps: Don't be a twit, get yourself a mitt.
No jokes about tossers though, please.
The Yorkshire Tourist Board (YTB) has found via a survey that people from Yorkshire are the most welcoming. Well, who could have predicted that?
Not content to stop there the tourism body has gone one step too far and commissioned some mad-scientist type graphic artists to create both female and male amalgams of the features survey respondents found “most friendly”.
Friendly!
Forget Brangelina, forget Frankstein’s Monster, this is considerably worse.
Yes, thanks to YTB we seem to have a combination of Donny Osmond, Peter Andre and Kryten from Red Dwarf on the male side and some sort of vampiric android Nigella representing friendly female kind.
Visit Yorkshire? I think not.
