Recently in banking Category

So the heads of state attending the high-profile G20 summit in London's Docklands are to get down to the not inconsiderable task of saving the world economy today.

Well good luck with that one. But it appears the G20 circus has been both feast and famine for the world leaders and those in the hospitality industry.

There was some trouble in the City yesterday affecting Compass Group and Lexington, while later the likes of Barack Obama enjoyed a slap up meal at Downing Street prepared by Jamie Oliver.

The Ritz hotel was one of many taking no chances, electing to board up and hucker down. And thanks to Vacherin for their snap from one of their contracts yesterday that you can see at the top of this entry.

At the Excel Centre at London's Docklands where the summit proper is taking place, it's good news for Compass Group, whose Leith's brand is looking after the feeding duties. However it's not so good for Creativevents who run a number of fixed sites, a stand and on-floor catering at the exhibtion centre on a standard day and have been, essentially, kicked out for the duration.

All around caterers have had to adapt, with Elior, which has many contracts within the City, ordering in extra stock and changing some menus to temporarily make more use of dry and frozen goods in case protests affect deliveries.

Still, with most City clients facing lockdown on the premises, Simon Titchner, managing director at ISS Eaton, candidly told Kitchen Rat: "Actually the protests helped us yesterday as takings were up across the business as all customers used their internal restaurant facilities as they could not go out."

Feast and famine. Feast and famine.

G20 Sumit website>>

World leaders start G20 summit>>

Vacherin appoints head chef for first public restaurant venture>>

Recession presents "great opportunity" for contract caterers to prove worth>>

Although Kitchen Rat can't attest for the validity of this one, rumour has it that an issue fought over vociferously on the departure of former Aramark chief executive Bill Toner was, wait for it, a £50,000 wine cellar at his London pad.

Mr Toner, who left Aramark in 2005, had quite legitimately amassed the collection of fine wines at his South Bank home for the purpose of corporate entertaining, as was the vogue in those halycon days of greed in the City.

However, on having his contract terminated Aramark's American owners demanded the wine back and Toner had to ultimately relinquish it. Surely not the best way to avoid sour grapes.

Still, given the pursuit of disgraced RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin and his £703,000 pension pot, perhaps losing some fermented grape juice isn't all that bad in the larger scheme of things.

Where are they now? Bill Toner>>

Marcus Wareing enters into partnership with Aramark>>

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 >>

While at the launch of the Meal Appeal charity initiative in London this week, Andrew McKenzie, managing director at The Vineyard at Stockcross overhead a gem that he would like to share on Kitchen Rat.

Penny Moore from Hospitality Action to Jonathan Raggett MD of Red Carnation: "I met your son Oliver last week at the St. Julian's Scholars event."

Quite an innocent comment I hear you say... however, Oliver is Jonathan's brother and GM of RC's Chesterfield Hotel - a mere six years younger than Jonathan!

How responsibility and/or working with Terry Holmes must age you...

Americans are already making their predictions for next year - and what happens there tends to come here after a lag time of around four-six months. It's not hard to think of an example...the collapse of the over-funded mortgage market is a pretty good case of something reaching here with knobs on.

Anyway, one thing they're predicting is the demise of the big-ticket hotel restaurant chef next year. No surprise there, you might say, except that it would have a major impact on the dining rooms of Park Lane if that came to pass.

On that particular strasse top name chefs are packed in tighter than a Victoria line commuter train carriage, and some were said to be experiencing some difficulties even before the horrendous past six months came to pass. 

The issue around MFI and Woolworths is that they were just keeping their head above water in the good times. Now things have dipped somewhat the removal men have been called in, and I can think of a few that the same applies to on that famous Monopoly dark blue coloured-road

Let's hope Aiden Byrne leaving the Dorchester isn't a harbinger of things to come.

Alain Ducasse brings in new chef at the Dorchester >>

Aiden Byrne to head the grill at the Dorchester >>

 They may have launched another one of those man-made island things with a party costing over £10m this week, and construction of the tallest building in the world goes on - a kilometre high being the target - but finally there's evidence that the unreal bubble the country lives in may be pricked, if not burst.

The Dubai government has debts of £52 billion, and it's rising fast as investment continues at its breakneck pace. Two banks that are entwined with the booming property market have been recently bailed out by the overarching United Arab Emirates State. Amlak Finance and Tamweel have become the Emirates Development Bank. In effect Abu Dhabi has come to the rescue of its big-spending Dubai neighbours.

We could enjoy their discomfort, but things are nowhere near as bad as they are here, and any pain they have will be likely to affect us eventually too, via higher oil prices.

Atlantis resort launched with £13.5m party >>

Dubai takes lead in Arab hotel expansion efforts>>

Current economic climates as they are we were jolly pleased to see the Financial Services Authority had a presence at WTM at Excel yesterday - well a booth smaller than Superman's telephone kiosk with one bored looking youth slouched at a table looking forlornly out at the world walking by.

Imagining we would be overwhelmed by exciting advice and juicy tips on how to help businesses, kitchen rat took pity on the fella and went to sit with him, asking him what advice he had to help the industry in this time of economic peril..

'Hmm' he mused unconfidently in a 'computer-says-no' kinda way, "not much really, it's not my area, but I've probably got the number of someone who might be able to help?"

What may we ask we  re you doing there if it's not your area? - We'll give you a tip for starters - at WTM there's gonna be quite a few people in the hospitality and tourism industry attending, so why not send someone who knows a little bit about it.

The Cinnamon Club's new spin-off, Cinnamon Kitchen may be hosting a huge launch party tonight, and in fact opens the day after, ready to gather in local spenders. But right now it looks like a building site, with toilet cubicles missing most of the lacquered wood panelling. We had a great time picking our way over the drills and spirit level measures just to have a pee.

Like its mummy restaurant (pictured) that's well-placed in Westminster to gather in politicians in search of an upmarket curry - and with vague colonial overtones that also appeal, Cinnamon Kitchen is targeting the wealthy and powerful too. In this case it's the bankers who like the macho implications of curry, but want to spend a bit more.

However, who's spending now? An upmarket curry house might have seemed a great idea when planning a year ago - in the flashy new Devonshire Square development too - but bankers don't have a great deal of money right now and, worse, there are far less of them.

Anyway, the man himself, Vivek Singh "didn't want to think in that way", and was surprised when we suggested that there might be a few closures in the restaurant sector after Christmas. Did we let you down gently Vivek? Private rooms, the once great money-spinner of the £80-a-head restaurant, have been in serious non money-making vein recently but at least Cinnamon Club's version wasn't pokey like some. It had a vast view onto the kitchen, and felt a part of the restaurant, not a tagged-on license to up GP.

Singh admitted bookings were down in Westminster, but that more people were just showing up to take up the slack. Sensibly, the 'Kitchen', isn't planned to be one of those direct replication formulas that get rolled out everywhere in the same mould, but with elements, as Singh saw it, that could be duplicated. In other words he could take the grill for much smaller Cinnamon place. Or perhaps just bring the bar element somewhere, adding in street food-style dishes.

Anyway, regardless of whether that's the right idea now or not, the food is at the level of Cinnamon Club. 'Red deer' and Rajasthani spices with mushroom was the highlight - huge chunks of venison with smoky spices, although kulfi ice cream was outstanding too. It's the tandoori-style smokiness in his savoury dishes that Singh does so well, appearing again in a vast Indian Ocean prawn, alongside a tiny haddock fillet portion. To accompany there were buttery, sweet potato-filled Nan breads with more of that delicious barbecue-esque taste. Good luck Vivek - hopefully the pre-Christmas covers will cover a quiet January.

London's Cinnamon Club to open sister restaurant in the City >>

Cinnamon Club restructures ahead of roll-out >>

Given that we're all bankers now thanks to the Government's bail out of UK lenders to the tune of £400b, an investment bank related catering story seemed timely.

Last week the Association of Catering Excellence held its annual Ready Steady Cook Team challenge, a popular and fiercely contested competition amongst the contract catering industry.

Ultimate honours went to Charlton House who beat fourteen of their peers to the coverted title.

I say fourteen teams but there were actually fifteen on the billing.

Alas at the eleventh hour industry heavy-weight Aramark called to say that they simply couldn't spare the required two-strong team of chefs as they were mobilising their £10m Goldman Sachs contract.

Well fair play Aramark. It's rare that you hear about such a literal 'all-hands-to-the-pumps' approach to launching a new contract, and rarer still at a caterer with an annual turnover of £400m and more than 12,000 employees in the UK.

I'm sure Goldman Sachs will be very happy and it's a case of credit where it's due rather than credit crunch for Aramark.

Lehman Brothers collapse bad news for Compass>>

Aramark wins BBC catering deal>>

Aramark to cater at all HBOS sites>>

Goldman Sachs says goodbye to catering manager during retender>>