Where did Jamie get that black eye?
Go on, admit it, despite all the other important industry stories this week, that’s the one you’ve been discussing over lunch today.
Well, apparently the shiner was the result of a fall down the stairs at home. And there was me hoping Jools had smacked him one.
All a touch ironic, I thought, in a week when Oliver was named chef of the decade by none other than Men’s Health magazine.
But while Oliver’s star continues its unstoppable rise, that of Compass, his opposite number in the school meals saga, continues to plummet.
After Compass suspended its new UK boss, Peter Harris, at the end of last week, the caterer’s ESS division was itself suspended as a contractor by the UN.
And today came the news that the company has called in an independent auditor to review the accounts of ESS.
Not good news for Compass’s share price, of course, a situation made worse by market jitters about the impact of bird flu on poultry sales.
On that note, London’s one-Michelin-star Roussillon restaurant became the first high-profile outlet to publicly chicken out, dropping the bird from its menu
Other national stories affecting the industry centred, of course, on the complete farce that has now become the Government’s smoking policy.
In the end, it looks like former health minister John Reid threw his toys out of the pram and blocked Patricia Hewitt’s push for an all-out ban.
All of which leaves us back with the original plan to still allow smoking in pubs that don’t serve food, amid accusations from opposition MPs that the Government’s tobacco policy has been knocked up on the back of a fag packet.
The law, by the way, is set to come into force from summer 2007.
People in the news this week included Vince Power, Tim West, Richard Shepherd and Alan Parker.
Ex-Mean Fiddler boss Power bought the Spiga restaurant in Soho with plans to open a new nightclub in the basement.
Former Avenance boss Mr West announced he would be joining Lexington Catering, while Shepherd was busy denying rumours that his Langan’s Brasserie was up for sale.
Whitbread’s Parker said on Tuesday he was going to cut 250 head-office jobs while unveiling flat like-for-like sales for the six months to 1 September.
Meanwhile, a rash of statistics this week looked like good news for London hotels, which recorded their first rise in revpar since the 7 July bombings.
http://www.caterersearch.com/Articles/Article.aspx?liArticleID=303146
On the other hand, the tourist figures for the capital weren’t looking too clever, and consultancy TRI warned that the predicted bounceback was not going to lead to a bonanza.
And finally, it looks like we’re all working far too hard.
A survey by Ramada Jarvis revealed the most-requested time for a wake-up call is now 6.45am, against 7.00am a year ago.
Still, at least we’ll get an extra hour on Sunday
Quote of the Week:
“No, I haven’t taken up smoking.” – health secretary Patricia Hewitt