Recently in Restaurant journalism Category

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.

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...

Kitchen Rat hears that Rosie Millard's interview with Antonio Carluccio didn't leave the chef, or the management team at the restaurant chain that takes his name, best pleased.

Millard managed to elicit from Antonio, who made a reported £10m from Carluccio's listing on the Alternative Investment Market in December 2005, the fact that he believes standards at the fast growing chain are slipping and corners are being cut. Hardly the sort of public statement that the ambitious restaurant group is looking for.

Under the headline It's My Name But It's Not My Food, Millard also asked the chef about the knife incident earlier this year that saw him hospitalised and which he maintains was nothing more than an accident.

All in all it paints a picture of a rather sad and lonely old man, all the more unsettling at a time when the majority of the UK is gearing up for festive celebrations.

Although Antonio is no longer a consultant to Carluccio's he remains a fixture on the company's website. Kitchen Rat hears that after a period of inactivity, the bods at Carluccio's have bought foward several projects planned, although not finalised with Antonio, no doubt mindful of their positive PR potential.

Fair to say then that this isn't the final word from Antonio Carluccio.

Carluccio's holds nerve ahead of critical Christmas trading period>>

Antonio Carluccio not depressed, says pal>>

Gordon Ramsay has predictably got it in the neck from Fleet Street's women columnists, following lurid tabloid allegations of his supposed seven-year extra marital affair.

The likes of Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail, Virginia Ironside in The Independent, Sue Carroll in the Daily Mirror and Catherine Ostler in the Evening Standard all attacked the celebrity chef in the wake of the News of the World revelations.

Pearson's comments were typical of those written by the angry columnists: "As his monumental hypocrisy was revealed, the 42-year-old Celebrity Father of the Year could at least have shown some embarrassment, even a little shame."

One high profile columnist, Jane Moore of The Sun, chose not to write about Ramsay, however, instead focusing on the collapse of Woolworths.

As journalist trade magazine Press Gazette's blog has pointed out, Moore is of course married to Gordon Ramsay's press spokesman Gary Farrow, head of The Corporation PR agency.

Forbes magazine's latest survey of the most expensive restaurants in the world makes interesting reading, not least for the rather bizarre list it has formulated.

While compiling the world's most expensive restaurants makes interesting reading, this article clearly doesn't do as the headline suggests. It could be feasible that Aragawa - a steakhouse in Tokyo's Shinbashi district - is the most expensive restaurant in the world with dinner for one costing a wallet busting £200/head, but why has Forbes listed the other restaurants, some of which clearly aren't the most expensive in the world or probably even in their own city.

For example, is El Amparo in Madrid, costing £37.50 each, really the most expensive restaurant in Madrid? I doubt it. Closer to home, I also doubt that Gordon Ramsay's Royal Hospital Road restaurant - at £107/head - is the most expensive restaurant in London.

I see that blogging is fast catching on and that Charles Campion, the lovable and larger-than-life Evening Standard restaurant critic, now has his own blog on the Evening Standard's website. Lets hope that Campion doesn't just repackage the stuff he writes for the Standard and gives users some interesting stories. His first account on his trip to Les Maisons de Bricourt - Olivier Roellinger's three-star Michelin restaurant in Cancale in France - with last year's winner of the Roux Scholarship Pravin Sharma, who cooks at Silk restaurant in London's Kempinski Courthouse hotel, is interesting enough. Caterer's chef editor Joanna Wood went on the same trip, so we look forward to comparing her take on the trip with Campion's. Of course, if you can't remember what Charles Campion looks like then take a look at a previous Kitchen Rat entry.

I see that blogging is fast catching on and that Charles Campion, the lovable and larger-than-life Evening Standard restaurant critic, now has his own blog on the Evening Standard's website. Lets hope that Campion doesn't just repackage the stuff he writes for the Standard and gives users some interesting stories. His first account on his trip to Les Maisons de Bricourt - Olivier Roellinger's three-star Michelin restaurant in Cancale in France - with last year's winner of the Roux Scholarship Pravin Sharma, who cooks at Silk restaurant in London's Kempinski Courthouse hotel, is interesting enough. Caterer's chef editor Joanna Wood went on the same trip, so we look forward to comparing her take on the trip with Campion's. Of course, if you can't remember what Charles Campion looks like then take a look at a previous Kitchen Rat entry.

I see that blogging is fast catching on and that Charles Campion, the lovable and larger-than-life Evening Standard restaurant critic, now has his own blog on the Evening Standard's website. Lets hope that Campion doesn't just repackage the stuff he writes for the Standard and gives users some interesting stories. His first account on his trip to Les Maisons de Bricourt - Olivier Roellinger's three-star Michelin restaurant in Cancale in France - with last year's winner of the Roux Scholarship Pravin Sharma, who cooks at Silk restaurant in London's Kempinski Courthouse hotel, is interesting enough. Caterer's chef editor Joanna Wood went on the same trip, so we look forward to comparing her take on the trip with Campion's. Of course, if you can't remember what Charles Campion looks like then take a look at a previous Kitchen Rat entry.

Foul-mouthed Gordon Ramsay gets the spoof treatment in a rip-off of his latest show the F-word on video sharing website YouTube. It's called the T-word and its worth a look for a laugh.

Have you seen this great website bitterwaitress.com ..... Basically, waiters and waitresses post comments about tight tippers and mean arses. Of course, there's the odd celebrity entry, such as this one about Brad Pitt which makes interesting reading.