The Caterer Blog

"The last thing that Starbucks wants is watered down coffee" says Leslie Wayne in an article for the New York Times. And if like me you can't get through the day without a gallon of coffee flavoured milk, your head will be rocking back and forth like a nodding dog.

Still, we gotta face the facts. From the mouth of Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz via a recent internal memo comes the admission that the company "no longer has the soul of the past" due to a drive for efficiency that has led to a "watering down of the Starbucks experience." Blimey, you said it Howard.

Maybe if he'd been writing to us consumers he'd have kicked off "to all of you silly, sad caffeine addicts who line up like lemmings for your overpriced lattes every morning: there are some things you should know..." - words that were actually used in a rant by an anonymous Starbucks barista on why he and his compadres are most definitely not our friends.

In these environmentally aware times few of us may think there's a future in Coal but ex Ma Potter's boss John Gater is the exception.

Gater, who has already pulled off the Eskimo-and-snow-style trick of selling Coal to the Welsh with the launch of the first of the casual dining restaurants in Cardiff in 2006, is back on the expansion trail having sold his Ma Potter's chain to Cafe Rouge owner Tragus earlier this year.

The casual dining market is a beast but Coal, the first of which is in London's Wimbledon (the Cardiff site went to Tragus and is being rebranded as a Bella Italia) looks to have what's needed for success and Gater appreciates that he needs to move fast.

Pubs and clubs across England have been busy preparing for the July 1 smoking ban, with "solutions" (how the hell has this horrible management speak entered the hospitality market?) ranging from broadening the food offer to implementing scented air conditioning (the smoke smell masks a lot of other wafts you see).

But one Surrey pub has taken a different route, designed largely to appeal to the male demographic.

In time honoured tradition, the School Food Trust has turned to a raft of celebrities to spearhead its new campaign urging schoolkids to eat more healthily.

Which is, of course, entirely laudable but eyebrows have been raised in some quarters over a couple of the choices.

Hope you're sitting down because a study by the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society in Dublin has found an 83% reduction in air pollution in Irish pubs following the implementation of the ban there almost three years ago.

Yes, I know it's hard to believe such an outcome since the ban on setting fire to paper and dried leaves stuffed with cancer causing agents inside came in but it's true.

As well as improving all round visibility, the removal of the fugg from Irish boozers has had the direct effect of reducing the exposure of bar workers to airborne carcinogens by a staggering 80%, states the report.

All good stuff you'll agree although being an ever sceptical journalist would anyone expect anything different from a group calling itself Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society. Erm, perhaps not.

I was lucky enough to be invited along to London Zoo last week to see the splendid new Gorilla Kingdom as a guest of Charlton House who look after event catering at the mammouth Regent's Park site.

The £5.3m enclosure gives a remarkable view of Bobby and the other lowland Gorilla's within and is definitely worth a visit.

Although it's true you certainly get to visit some unusual venues covering hospitality and see the odd sight or so that's far from run of the mill.

A hundred years ago, urinals up and down the country would be reeking this time of year as the short English asparagus season starts. And, while I'm sure many chefs are more than aware when the veg is at its best, it's amazing how many good quality restaurants will still have asparagus, or maybe a similarly unseasonal strawberry dessert, on their Christmas menu.

I have to agree with the sentiments of Pete Weeden, head chef at the Paternoster Chophouse in London, when we chatted about the subject earlier today: "Someone told me it was great that we could get strawberries six months a year now and I nearly cried," he said. "I want to eat English strawberries for two months a year when they're at their best, stuff my face with them 'til I feel sick and don't want to see one for another 10 months."

Gordon Ramsay's at it again. After the turkeys and his two adorable piggies, Trinny and Susannah, he now plans to rear a flock of lambs only to then slaughter them on his Channel 4 TV show the F Word.

Unfortunately for Gordon, however, the garden at his Wandsworth pad in south London, where he brought up the birds and pigs, isn't quite big enough for the sweet little things and so he's asked his celebrity pals Victoria and David Beckham to accommodate them on their 25-acre Hertfordshire grounds instead.

Scoop of the year (well so far anyway), I can reveal that the owners of Arbutus (Will Smith and Anthony Demetre) have named their second site. Wild Honey (I'm assured it's not named after the 1967 Beach Boys album), will open in St George Street at the end of May or early June.

The owners of Caterer's Adopted Business Arbutus gave us the exclusive news this afternoon and added: "We know the name is a bit off the wall, but it 'says' informality."

Ridiculous story of the day (well, apart from Jose Mourinho escaping from Stamford Bridge in a laundry basket) is about the nutter who walked in to a Zizzi's restaurant and, ahem, removed his crown jewels

This blogger's local boozer, the Ye George Inn in Beckenham, Kent, celebrated the feast of St George with a live broadcast of the Johnny Vaughan Capital radio breakfast show from their beer garden on Monday morning.

The George, as it is locally known, has never seen such revelry in its 300 year history with local Morris dancers, brass bands and military battalions turning out for a good, old-fashioned street party to celebrate England's all-saints day.

As well as normal English activities such as drinking beer before breakfast and parking an old routemaster bus in the pub carpark - the celebrations were topped off with a race to down a pint of beer and a pint of microwaved chicken tikka masala.

Having had a fun day out in central London last week making the most of the weather, my wife and I and our two mates decided to grab a bite to eat.

We ended up in that well worn slightly down-at-heel favourite Leicester Square. Not a salubrious location I'll concede but convenient.

Anyway, we rocked up at a rammed Chiquitos mexican restaurant. The food served within filled a hole, we had a few drinks, and bar slight sunburn, all was as it should be in our world. That was until nature intervened and we headed to the toilets (not in a pack you understand, individually ).