The Caterer Blog

A strong performance - that was the general verdict from the 300 diners at London's Dorchester Hotel who watched Compass Group UK managing director Ian El-Mokadem grappling with Alastair Stewart's questions at today's Arena lunch.

Elmo, as he's known in business circles, had a few factors against him - not least the fact that most of the audience owned up to having worked for Compass at some time, so of course knew exactly how they would run the catering giant.

But despite that, El-Mokadem put in a confident performance after almost a year in the job.

You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

So said poet John Lydgate in a phrase that has been adapted by Abraham Lincoln, Bob Dylan and others.

And it is a sentiment shared by Andrew Creese, general manager of the Malmaison in Leeds.

Anton Edelmann, former maître chef des cuisines at the Savoy hotel in London and now principal chef for Sodexho's Directors Table, shared his tip for getting a plum restaurant seat with delegates at last week's Hospital Caterers Association annual conference in London.

Opening the conference on the second day, Edelmann told us to phone the restaurant we intended to eat at two weeks before the booking and complain "that last time you visited - regardless of if you have - your wife didn't like the table you were on because it was in a draughty area of the room".

Had an interesting chat with British Hospitality Association (BHA) chief executive Bob Cotton last week. Bob will be Caterer's guest editor on 28 June to tie in with the association's 100th anniversary.

Our meeting was to flesh out some of the ideas he had put forward for the issue. I was interested particularly on his take on what we term the skills crisis.

A trip to Brussels would not be compelete without picking up a couple of EU-isms. Well my visit has not disappointed.

Whilst roaming the enormous halls of power that consititute the EU parliament and commission, I've come across two - Annualisation - (please be careful how you spell this) a new word used to describe on average within a year - and my personal favourite, flexicurity - yes, a cunning combination of the words flexibility and security which is used in relation to employers and employees, meaning flexible yet secure working arrangements for worker and employers- what?! And we think our tax-payers money is wasted over here....

On my recent gravy train excursion/fact finding trip to Brussels, I encountered one side effect of the smoking ban I had not expected.

While we are all aware of the negatives of folks gathering in corners and outside our doors for a quick puff, I had underestimated the smokers-on-the-street factor.

As a former smoker, I'm obviously the worst person to comment, none being so righteous as the reformed - but it really was quite shocking - every other person in Brussels is lighting up a fag - completely oblivious to whoever is standing next to them, behind them, or wherever the wind happens to be directing the smoke.

There's definitely a kind of indignant 'it's my right' air about their actions too, as the smokers, being branded lepers in every other walk of life, blatantly flaunt their habit, almost daring you to comment.

Perhaps when our ban comes in there will be internet organised smoke-ins in Trafalgar Sq and the like, where smokers can gather together and puff happily, collectively sticking two ciggies up at the fresh-smelling cafés and restaurants surrounding them.

Hot on the heels of the story of the Greene King delivery driver who was found to have downed 20 pints during his 12-hour shift, comes the tale of the Brazilian beer-taster who this week won £25,000 after turning into an alcoholic.

In court in Rio Grande do Sul, the taster said Ambev (brewer of the popular Brahma beer) did not provide the health measures needed to prevent alcoholism (er, not giving him 16-25 glasses a day might have helped).

In a fairly shaky defence, Ambev - part of global brewing giant InBev - alleged the employee was an alcoholic before becoming a taster, but the judge said that an alcoholic should not have been given the job.

We await with interest the first case of a food critic suing his employer for becoming obese...

The launch of Elior's venue finding service, Venue-Elior, at the impressive Lloyds of London building was, aside from a few technical gremlins (remember caterers, never feed them after midnight!) a slick affair.

Speeches by Elior head Mike Audis and venue project leader Ray Santamaria set the scene well and the rolling video of the 40 venues available to book through Venue-Elior around the country was impressive.

Journalists have been known to get the odd perk every now and again, but no flash bedroom or brimming goody bag can beat the recent treatment I experienced at the World Travel and Tourism Council Summit in Lisbon on Friday.

To be fair the VIP treatment was not laid on for us hacks, but for the significantly more important 600 other delegates such as Stelios, Andy Cosslett, Ed Fuller, Sarmad Zok and many political big wigs from all over the world.

So, slightly jaded as we all were after the first day of the conference, thrashing out issues of the moment, we wandered from the conference centre to our coaches to return us to our hotels for a quick spruce up before the gala dinner.

As we sat on a full coach, waiting to leave for over ten minutes, some folks started getting a little annoyed at the delay, this was after all, cutting into our valuable half an hour free time - the only time that day.

However all was soon explained as eight seriously well equipped uniformed police motorcyclists turned up to escort us through the Lisbon rush hour. So there we sat, careering past confused Lisbonites, as the bikes stopped traffic, parted jams and broke red lights to get us to our dinner on time.

Very impressive.

Can you imagine that happening in London? Call the Met police, there's a bus load of Dutch tourists that need to get to Mamma Mia on time!

Just goes to show what can happen when the Prime Minister of the host country attends your conference. Certainly gets the wheels in motion.

The whole security nightmare at airports these days is enough to drive anyone mad. The seemingly endless restrictions which mean that our travel has become just that bit more uncomfortable, almost tempt you into disobeying.

I for one draw the line at a long haul flight without lip salve - it can't be done and I'm not going to blow up a plane with a tiny tube of chapstick - so I will admit that I have smuggled one on, deep inside my coat pocket to slyly apply during the flight when no one is watching.

But I didn't realise how far this rebellion had gone until I overheard two American tourists chatting about it...

Premium casual dining (PCD). Not familiar with the term? Well in this job I've started to encounter it more and more in recent years, sometimes dropped into conversation by analysts and on other occassions used by proud restaurateurs as short-hand for quality.

Regardless, there's a tangible shift occurring in the casual dining market with the maturing sector undergoing a sort of brand stretch (think of the emergence of the premium lager a few years back and you get the idea).

Consumers with money to spend that are either put off or too lazy to go the fine-dining route but want more than Pizza Express, now have the PCD to meet their very particular needs.

Never one to miss out on a bit of PR, budget hotel chain Travelodge's latest ruse to give customers a good night's sleep is, and I kid you not, goldfish hire.

Following its controversial appointment of a £60,000 director of sleep and trials of window transfers giving customers' nicer views than the nearest A road, the company is today claiming that staring at a friendly goldfish can take away the pain of a stressful day.

Congratulations to London's Capital Pub Company who are set to float on London's AIM market in early June, but this public future appears to be coming in tandem with a Ronseal approach to marketing.

While Ronseal does "exactly what it says on the tin" Capital chief executive David Bruce views the Stock Exchange in the same way. He was quoted today as saying: "The Directors believe that admission to trading on AIM will provide a market for shareholders to trade the ordinary shares of the company."

The excellent hotel-focussed blog site Hotelchatter has posted an interesting posting about how the Arizona Biltmore Resort has launched a series of podcasts to advertise its restaurant, spa and other amenities. This sounds like a good idea to me: if you could capture your chef on camera waxing lyrical about the new menu he has compiled, wouldn't that be a great message to send out to your customer database?

Well done to Toby Hartley, who was named winner of Springboard's 2007 Olive Barnett Awards at London's Langham Hotel on Monday night. The awards reward excellence in customer facing roles across hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism, and Toby and his seven fellow finalists are clearly destined for great things in the hospitality industry.

Well done, also, to Duncan Palmer, Managing Director of the Langham, for delivering a speech that had guests laughing out loud - despite his early assertion that his slot would be "quick and painful".

To illustrate the Langham's venerable past, Duncan introduced a 90-second video featuring dramatisations of formative events from the hotel's history. When the video began without any sound, he ad-libbed expertly, providing a running commentary that any Grand national commentator would be proud of.

Before revealing the identity of this year's Olive Barnett Award winner at London's Langham Hotel earlier this week, Ian Scarth of Switzerland's L'Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne introduced a neat twist in his speech to the gathered guests.

Ian read out a quote "full of, inspiring, logical and profound words", which turned out not to have been penned by a leading hospitality exec, academic or consultant, but to comprise one paragraph from the submissions of each of the eight finalists.

It's an impressive quote, and I post it here in full:

In today's Sun newspaper TV chef James Martin has come under fire because some the recipes in his latest cookbook seem to lack originality.

The Saturday Kitchen host's eponymous cookbook reportedly includes three desserts resembling those of Delia Smith as well as six dishes that are similar to a recipe book called Pie.

While the publishers of these books have decided not to pursue the matter, the whole story raises the question of whether there actually is such a thing as originality when it comes to recipes.

A lot of chefs I have asked about where they find their inspiration say they nick ideas from everywhere they can, including other chefs and recipe books.

So I guess the question is: "Is there anything wrong with nicking ideas?"

What do you think?

In a neat example of symmetry last time we interviewed Bromie chef Glynn Purnell he was heading up a new restaurant, Jessica's, and excited about a future that would shortly deliver a Michelin star and had already granted AA Newcomer of the Year and promotion for his beloved Birmingham City.

Well speaking to him this week and coming full circle, Purnell was talking once again about an exciting new restaurant - this time his own called Purnell's, which is due to open in July - and looking forward to a season of top flight football after Birmingham's promotion back into the Premiership.

Not a bad time to be in Birmingham I suspect and of course wish both parties success in their endeavours.

It'll be interesting to see if Steve Bruce and his boys can match the ambition and ability of Purnell but at least the manager and ex Manchester United star will have a new venue to celebrate/commiserate in as the football season unfolds from August.

Jessica's to close as chef Glynn Purnell starts up on own>>

It had died down for a few months, but it was only a matter of time before the whole foie gras argument kicked off again. Should or shouldn't it be allowed? Well, the RSPCA have now launched their own campaign asking for a nationwide ban on it.

But is there another solution for the restaurant keen to pop the delicacy on its menu?

The romantic (if that's the right word) image of maltreated ducks and geese is of plump birds nailed to the floor and force-fed corn with metal pipes. It might not always be the case, but news broke earlier this year of the most ethical method yet.

Spanish farmer Pateria de Sousa claims to be taking advantage of the birds migratory feeding patterns to swell their livers before slaughter, thus taking force feeding out of the equation.

Mergers and acquisitions might excite the pub operators as they all seek to dispose of and purchase as many boozers as possible but what does this corporate activity mean for drinkers? Well the Shropshire Star covered the launch of the Save Our Sun (SOS) campaign last week to get the Sun Inn - which the paper describes as a "mothballed village pub" - reopened in the small village of Welshampton.

The Sun Inn was closed in March by former owners Punch Taverns residents in the village set up a comittee to get thier pub re-opened but the very next day after the meeting Punch went and sold the pub, along with 868 others, to Admiral Taverns.

So the people at the Beeb have announced the chefs who will represent Britain in France this week as part of the BBC2 programme the Great British Menu. Hats off to Mark Hix who secured two of the four courses - the main and the dessert - and to Richard Corrigan who will be serving the fish starter. But the chef who I'm happiest for has got to be Sat Bains.

I first met Sat eight years ago when he was competing in the Roux Scholarship. Despite being out of work at the time, he went on to win the 1999 Roux Scholarship title, spending his three month stage at Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier with the Pourcel twins.

There's a lot of talk these days about how important it is to improve the quality of services offered in the UK, so we can compete with emerging destinations in the increasingly bitter fight for marketshare.

A lot of this will depend on the use of technology, but it seems we still have a few issues to iron out.

This could not have been better illustrated on my travels last week when I took work to do on a press trip, feeling confident that, staying in a four star hotel, there would be internet access at the property.