February 2009 Archives

Well you know you have arrived when the nation's best selling daily newspaper gives you a mention (and underneath a picture of Dolly Parton's best assets as well).

The Sun picked up on Caterer's interview with tourism minister Barbara Follett, in which she said cathedral cities were her favourite UK holiday.

The paper's The Whip column points out that the minister - who is married to top selling novelist Ken Follett - also owns a villa on Jumby Bay, near Antigua, a private, 300-acre island and millionaire's resort where house prices start at £20m and a Pina Colada at the beach bar sets you back £15.  

And nice of The Sun to get the name right as well. Not Hotel & Caterer or Catering & Hotelkeeping.

The fall out from Presiden Obama's warning about company junkets is starting to happen. Following on from VisitBritain's David Hornby's concerns the other week, US hoteliers have cottoned on to the disastrous implications Obama's 'no corporate conferences' policy could have on the industry and have banded together to lobby congress.

Kitchen Rat fears contract caterer Harbour & Jones may be making the most of an unfair, other-worldly, advantage over rivals when it comes to picking up new business.

A recent visit to London landmark St Paul's Cathedral to meet some of the new Harbour & Jones team, suggested something more than a strong offer and charisma might have come into play when the caterer was competing for the contract.

Apparently when H&J was invited to pitch for the deal last year they arrived at St Paul's only to be told that one of their rivals was running late.

The knock-on effect was that the caterer was asked to present in a chamber away from the main dining area of the Crypt.

This, H&J co-founder Patrick Harbour conceded, suited his team down to the ground as they had a "Best of British" selection of produce with them to showcase, which they were then able to arrange fetchingly on a stone shelf inside.

This was all good, but better still, as the cathedral's top brass walked in to hear the pitch, a shaft of golden sunlight, as if on demand, shone through from the window above, illuminating the produce and creating a bucolic harvest scene. Divine intervention?

It's hard to say, but H&J co-founder Nathan Jones was apparently sighted later in the cathedral lighting a candle, which one imagines was in reverence but could have been in gratitude.

Well, in these tough times it pays to keep the supreme being on side, after all.

Harbour & Jones wins £5m St Paul's Cathedral deal>> 

H&J scoops advertising agency deal>> 

The school dinners journey instigated by Jamie Oliver may be far from over, but Kitchen Rat hears that the end is nigh for school catering brand Scolarest.

Having received a very public kicking at the height of the school dinners story in 2005 - Turkey Twizzlers becoming a catch-all phrase for all that was wrong with the system - "new Compass", as it essentially is now under Roy Gardner and Richard Cousins, has decided to make a break with the past and phase out the Scolarest brand.

So, before term is out, the sector's biggest private caterer will be trading as Chartwells, a brand that is active in the USA and until now had been reserved for the independent school market in the UK.

It would seem, Jamie Oliver casts a long shadow...

Sodexo's Jane Bristow on a mixed future for school catering>> 

Graysons appoints ex-Compass education man to head schools business>>

Compass wins £4.5m school dinner contract>>

It seems the age of decadence has been consigned to the past and the International Hotel Investment Forum (IHIF), held annually in Berlin, is suffering for it.

Considered Mecca for all those in the hospitality industry, the pinnacle of the event, (and the place with all the best schmooze and booze), has traditionally been CBRE hotel's party held on the Tuesday night.

Many a hotelier, banker and general VIPer has drunk themselves into oblivion at the infamous knees up, and Kitchen Rat was without doubt not the only one rubbing their hands together in glee at the prospect of a repeat performance this year.

Imagine The Rat's horror then, when we learned that the party of the century had been cancelled due to cost cutting, budget restraints and economic depression...

The party is well and truly over.

Michelin-starred chef John Burton Race's ex-wife Kim has been declared bankrupt by London's high court for money owed on their old family home.

The order is for an undisclosed amount due for renovation work done to the former couple's Grade-II listed Victorian Rectory in Ashprington, Devon.

Kim, who has two children by John and four by her previous marriage, had offered to pay off the debt to Crownhill Renovations at £50 a week but this was rejected. She reportedly won a £3.6 million settlement when they divorced almost two years ago.

Kim was also responsible for shutting their Michelin-starred restaurant, The New Angel in Dartmouth down while he was on the reality TV show I'm a Celebrity Get me Outta Here.  

John Burton Race left Kim and their children  in 2007 for his mistress Suzi Ward, with whom he'd had a lovechild. He also has two other children from his first marriage to Christine. 

Cyrus Todiwala was among the speakers at a Caterer round table debate on Scores on the Doors sponsored by P&G Professional and Fairy Expert - and you can read about it in the magazine this week.

The chef proprietor of London's Cafe Spice Namaste Indian restaurant was vociferous in his condemnation of the new programme proposed by the Food Standards Agency for highlighting cleanliness in the UK's hospitality outlets.

"How do you tell people what these stars mean?" asked Todiwala. "I went to a restaurant on Brick Lane once and a rat came into the kitchen. The chef's attitude was: 'It's not my rat, it came from next door.' It's the kitchens that feed the bulk of this country at 3am that we should worry about."

Nick Bish, chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, criticised the six-tier nature of the scheme, with more stars awarded the cleaner a property is deemed to be. "If I get on a plane, I expect it to be safe. I don't want to see some score suggesting how likely it is to crash."

James Arnold, UK business leader (sales and marketing) for P&G Professional added: "Only a tiny percentage will have interest in what the stars mean. If this is to educate the industry about what they should be doing in an ideal world then fine, but the public just want a red flag or a green flag, not three stars or five stars - they won't understand what they mean."

FSA defends Scores on the Doors decision >>

Six-tier Scores on the Doors plan labelled ridiculous >>

You probably remember all the fuss over the new Versace hotel in that fabled place of restraint and good taste, Dubai.

Well now the hotel owners have handed out the fitting contract - and very tasty it is too. Dubai-based Depa Limited has won a $32.7 million cheque to organise the interiors of the hotel rooms and furnished apartments.

The hotel is part of the $395 million Palazzo Versace resort, which is itself in Culture Village a multi-billion dollar project being developed by Dubai properties in Dubai creek.

The hotel is due for completion on April 30 2010, but will all that money still be merrily swilling around by then?

Giorgio Locatelli takes authentic Italian to Dubai >>

Dubai takes lead in Arab hotel expansion efforts >>

Wozza's having a tough time of it, as any of you who've been reading the papers or switched on the news will know. Last week he and his wife toured the six restaurants in his group to tell 65 of his 105 staff that they would be losing their jobs as his company had bust.

The administrator that was winding up his firm was supposed to do it, but he was stuck in snow. At least the fact AWT did the deed meant it was "more gentle" for his staff, albeit the same outcome ensued.

A few staff will remain, due to the fact that Worrall Thompson has bought back two of his restaurants he tells the Evening Standard: the Kew and Windsor grills. The Lamb Inn and the Greyhound, both in Henley-on-Thames, the Notting Grill and the Barnes Grill are those locking their doors for good.

Worrall Thompson owes Lloyds Bank around £250,000, and suppliers and loans make up another £200,000, but he was working towards paying it off, if only the banks had listened to him.

"This is a recession that didn't need to happen," he says. "It's a recession created by greed. Why isn't there rioting in the streets?"

Antony Worrall Thompson forced to close restaurants >>

Credit crunch forces Antony Worrall Thompson to close the Greyhound >>

  We've heard of a hotel formed from shipping containers, as built for Travelodge recently in China, but the small kiddies plastic bricks? Lego? Give us a break.

Well apparently this is - partly - the case for the people behind Legoland in San Diego, frequented by Heidi Klum among others. They're set to put up - very slowly perhaps - a Lego hotel outside the theme park.

Not every element of the building, made up of 250 rooms, will be made from the small plastic brickies. But a few areas will be Lego-themed, and children will surely love this place - good thinking on the part of the theme park organisers, we say.

Travelodge opens hotel made from shipping containers >>

Lego shows how to build a theme park >>

Lunch on the 31st floor of the Canary Wharf Barclay's Bank building, with a snow-covered scene spread out via London docks, the winding path of the Thames, and the hills of Kent in the distance. Drink: 2002 premier cru St Emilion, with a fillet of rare breed beef, and surrounded by £8 million-worth of art.

The image of contract catering can for some be one of hospital slops and turkey twizlers, but that's not the reality in every single one of the foodservice sites.

Baxter Storey, for example, has this Barclays bank contract - and yes there are still employees there after the recent culls. And they can offer their employees the chance to work in the outstanding directors' rooms on the 31st floor, or at the Benugo outlet part-way up the tower.

The company also operates at Slaughter & May, the lawyers, where a team of ex-restaurant chefs work in the kitchen, serving up home-made pies and Scotch eggs, along with a range of modern British dishes for partners

Cooking for foodservice has more of a 9-5 lifestyle, few split shifts - and even some glamour.

Baxter Storey's Mike Smith to step down from managing director role >>

Baxter Storey loses senior Holroyd Howe director >>

Oh dear (or och aye as the Rat is led to believe our learned friends in Scotland are prone to utter).

Poor old Richard Bath, the food critic at the Scotland on Sunday newspaper, has got himself into a bit of a muddle with his latest review, of the Malmaison in Leith, Edinburgh.

"With the possible exception of the twee little Berkshire village of Bray, where Heston Blumenthal and Raymond Blanc jostle for elbow-room next to the Thames, nowhere outside of London has as great a concentration of restaurants as Leith," the piece begins.

Now, correct us if we're wrong, but Raymond hasn't got a presence down in Bray, although the Roux family runs the Waterside Inn down there. These French chefs eh? All the same...

Bath then goes on to complain that "there seemed to be no woodcock" in his companion's Truffled Scotch Woodcock.

More eminent foodies that the Rat have got in touch to point out that Scotch Woodcock is in fact soft scrambled Eggs on toasted brioche with anchovies, truffle and capers.

Back to school Richard...

Gordon Ramsay isn't usually short of a swear word or five but his latest show isn't foul-mouthed enough for Channel 4 executives.

In the US version of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the celebrity chef's effing and blindings have been bleeped out, much to the dismay of Channel 4 staff who have been working frantically to edit the curses back into the show.

"Gordon is Gordon so he does swear, as do some of his contributors," a Channel 4 source told The Daily Star.

"The American network usually bleep the bad language out but we will not."

The news is kind of ironic considering Ramsay came under fire last week after he served up no less than 312 swear words in just 103 minutes (that's one every 20 seconds) in his Ramsay's Great British Nightmare show.

In an interesting career move, Derek Bulmer, editor of the Michelin guide for Great Britain and Ireland, has come forward as a love guru giving couples tips on how to get the most out of their Valentine's Day experience.

Check out Caterer's restaurant blog Guide Girl for the full story.

Sometimes you're just damn unlucky. Take for instance Tomahawk Hotels.

They've just been walloped with a £20,000 plus fine due to a somewhat relaxed attitude to staff safety back in June 2006 at their Great Victoria hotel in Bradford.

Basically they got into trouble after two workers were sent to take down a flag-pole from a fourth-storey roof without the correct safety equipment (or any at all infact from the looks of things).

However, that's not the unlucky part but rather the fact that unknown to the workers health and safety officers viewed the incident from their office window directly opposite the hotel roof and took photographs.

Drat. A fair cop then.

Tomahawk Hotels>>

COMPETITION:

Caterer has great competition on offer for all GMB fans.

All you need to do is tell us here what your "taste of home" is and why and you can win one of two tickets to a dinner cooked by seven of last year's finalists.

For more information and to enter go to Caterer's Editor's blog.

UPDATE: Welsh chefs competing in this year's Great British Menu are: Stephen Terry (The Hardwick, Abergavenny) and James Sommerin (The Crown at Whitebrook, Monmouth) 

While for Northern Ireland, Danny Millar (Balloo House, Killinchy) vs Clare Smyth (Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road) go head to head.

Here it is; the line-up for the BBC's Great British Menu 2009, according to the Rat; pieced together through tittle-tattle and hard-nosed fact-digging journalism. However, it's a form of hard-nosed journalism that stops dead around Shropshire, because the Rat hasn't been able to find out either of the chefs competing in the Welsh heat. If you know then drop a line.

For the mean time, here's 95% of the list. There's a few old faces, a few new and (hoorah?) no Jenny Bond sticking her nose around about the kitchen with inane, grin-fixed questions. Instead there's the equally attractive past winners Sat Bains and Jason Atherton presenting.

It takes more than a few inches of snow to stop Kitchen Rat from digging around for hospitality gossip, but how have you been affected by this morning's weather?

Hoteliers - are you putting on extra entertainment for guests stuck indoors?

Restaurateurs - are you expecting anyone to turn up today?

Pubs - people are off work in their droves, could this be good for you?

Caterers - not much call for workplace dining or school meals one would assume?

Let us know!

Update 12.00: Kitchen Rat can exclusively reveal that the Compass Group-run staff restaurant at Caterer Towers in Sutton is closed...

Update 12.45: Word from the Oxo Tower Restaurant in London, which is open for both lunch and dinner today. We are told that customers will be given hand warmers while outside on the terrace. Their coats will also be kept warm while dining.

Update 15.30: The Federation of Small Businesses has estimated that 20% of the UK's working population, or 6.4 million people, would not make it to work today, costing the economy at least £1.2b. 

And Stephen Alambritis, spokesman for the lobby group, said the actual cost was likely to be even higher.

"There is also the knock-on effect of passing trade going down as people won't be buying their sandwiches for lunch or picking up a coffee or newspaper," he told the BBC.

Update 16.00: Hotels near Heathrow Airport are reporting being "overwhelmed" by stranded passengers seeking rooms for the night. 

Update 16.35: Hotels in London are beginning to put the "fully booked" signs out as employers pay for staff to stay overnight rather than risk travelling home.

Update 17.25: Caterer understands that hotels near Heathrow Airport are now 100% booked...

Final update of the day (KR is retiring to warmer climes): We're getting heart warming reports of old fashioned east end sing songs in London boozers. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..."