Story of the week: Two major chef departures this week as rumours surround Cliveden and the news that Chris Horridge, star of the Great British Menu and head chef of the property’s Waldo’s restaurant, is to leave, while earlier in the week Michelin-starred chef Ryan Simpson – and his brigade – quit the Goose at Britwell Salome after the owner said he wanted the restaurant to return to its ‘gastro-pub’ roots.
Woburn Park’s stunning Paris House, the landmark restaurant owned by the late Peter Chandler and now run by Michelin-starred-chef Alan Murchison, opened its doors this week.
As one door opens another shuts – or something like that. A London council has used emergency powers to close a restaurant after a customer spotted a rat scurrying around the premises. Camden Council health inspectors found that the Lords Indian restaurant in Whitfield Street was severely infested with rats and posed a “serious risk” to public health.
But in brighter restaurant news, culinary legend Michel Roux, the three-Michelin-starred chef and owner of the Waterside Inn in Berkshire, and his chef patron son Alain Roux, are to create the menu for the Panoramic restaurant at Royal Ascot 2010, it has been announced.
In the hotel sector, meanwhile, more sombre news as insolvency experts announced that as many as 40 hotel companies could go into administration in the first quarter of 2010 alone.
The five-AA-red-star Stafford hotel in London, however, confirmed that is to be taken over by Kempinski and renamed as the Stafford London by Kempinski.
Fancy yourself as a bit of a hotel inspector? Marriott hotels in the UK are looking to recruit six voluntary hotel inspectors from the general public.
In the cost sector, primary school children are choosing healthier lunches following the introduction of mandatory standards for school food, according to a new report by the School Food Trust (SFT). In the meantime, newly-appointed School Food Trust chairman, Rob Rees, called for lunchtime school lock-ins to promote healthy eating. The former chef, who took over the role from television cook Prue Leith, said he would like headteachers to have a policy of no one being offsite during lunchtime.
On the subject of school meals, have you signed our School Meals Matter campaign? Launched by Caterer, in association with the Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA), it seeks a commitment from the incoming Government to support the school meals service and continue investment in the wellbeing of the nation's children.
Leading caterer and Catey Award winner Linda Halliday, founding director of food service management firm WSH, announced this week that she will retire from the business next month.
In the pub world, Wentworth MP John Healey has been appointed as the UK’s first Minister for Pubs. However, Miles Templeman, chairman of Kent-based brewer Shepherd Neame, has questioned what John Healey "will actually do” in this role. And changes to tax regulations which would see pub quiz and games machines like Cluedo and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire reclassified as gambling machines, will cost the industry £85m, or £2,500 per pub.
Finally, the nomination deadline for Caterer's 2010 Acorn Awards is fast approaching. Now in their 24th year, Caterer's Acorn Awards, sponsored by Unilever Foodsolutions, acknowledge rising talent within the industry and celebrate the future stars of hospitality. Enter now!
Editor's Pick
Watch a video interview with Brett Graham, chef patron of the two-Michelin-starred Ledbury in London
Check out our photos from the opening of Alan Murchison’s Paris House on Table Talk!
Find out who’s taking part in the Great British Menu 2010
Win an Adande single drawer chef base worth more than £2,500
Young, gifted and talented? There’s only two weeks left to enter Acorn Awards 2010 – get your entries in now!
Quote of the Week
"Paul Castle told staff that the restaurant was losing money and that despite the team having won a Michelin star last month, the food was too poncy. He wanted the Goose to go back to basic pub grub"
Executive chef Ryan Simpson on why he walked out of the Goose