The Caterer Blog

Reading this article in the New York Times about the unbelievably haughty nature of some restaurants (and in some cases their celebrity chef owners) prompted me to post. It's a great read, but really what I'm interested in is - are the UK's restaurants and celeb chefs like this too.... and are we helping to boost these inflated egos by dancing to their every tune?? Please let me know by posting some comments, no answers on a stamp addressed postcard please!

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".

To say there's been a few parodies of Scotland over the years is like saying there's a few calories in a deep fried Mars Bar, when in truth there's enough to stun an elephant.

Rab C Nesbitt, deep fried heroin, Nessie in a kilt, the Bay City Rollers; the list goes on of creations based partly on Scotland but mainly on adsurdity.

However, mix these all together, boil them down and season with grated Supergran and you still wouldn't have something quite as ridiculousness as the Dorchester Grill Room.

Poor Aiden Byrne, the head chef in charge of the excellent food offering.

With 10 foot tall paintings of kilted jocks lining the walls, looking like they were lifted directly from an 18th century Scottish Bodens catalogue, tartan so garish you could stare at it in the mistaken belief it's a magic eye puzzle and a dolphin might soon appear, and brothel bed-head style chairs, you expect a ginger Byrne to appear from the kitchen wearing a Rangers shirt and clasping a half eaten turkey leg.

But instead he's a softly spoken Liverpudlian. Un-ginger, I should point out. And the poor chap has to serve up his excellent dishes of complex flavour into what appears, to all-extents and purposes, to be a large, decorated shortbread tin.

It was with interest if not complete surprise that the news FishWorks co-founder Mitchell Tonks was being moved from his chief executive role , and effectively sideways within the business he created, reached me here on Caterer today.

It's been a painful year for a bright company that seemed to be soaring away only to come crashing down back to earth in a rather painful and ungainly manner.

It's a competitive market place out there and in their efforts to keep pace with their restaurant rivals the previous management team took their eyes off how their existing stores were performing and it all got ugly from there with a bail out from new backers required in February.

As with all drama - human or business - it's been fascinating watching it unravel but horrible also, as having met Tonks who is a thoroughly nice guy and passionate about seafood, the troubles of the company have taken on the morbid attraction/revulsion dynamic of a bad accident where you don't want to look but know you will.

Still, with a new team and structure in place and Tonks still involved here's hoping FishWorks now works, finding better fortune in 2008.

Speculate to accumulate as the economy wheezes say entrepreneurs, but it’s a nervous time for struggling restaurants across the land.

Celebrity chefs such as Ollie Couillaud and Michelin winner Hélène Darroze are no doubt well cocooned within the luxury London hotel-restaurant market, but the humble neighbourhood restaurant looks to be feeling the pain of slowing consumer spending.

Here’s a departure from dining etiquette: Yo! Sushi has partnered with games console maker Nintendo in a move that is actively encouraging playing with your food.

Yo! Sushi, which recently gained a new financial backer, is offering kids – and the young at heart – free Nintendo DSs to play handheld game Cooking Mama 2 on while they wait for their order.

Budding sushi chefs will be able to challenge other restaurant diners to a game via the console’s built in Wi Fi at two of the noodle chains stores Yo! Farringdon and Yo! Soho.

The Second Test in the four-match series between England and South African starts today at Headingley.

While most cricket watchers are expecting another close game, after the bore draw at Lords, one London-based South African restaurateur has, quite literally, put his shirt on his country winning series.

Gerrie Knoetze, owner of Vivat Bacchus in Farringdon Street, has promised his (largely England-supporting) customers that if South Africa lose the test series, he and his staff will wear the England cricket top for a week. 

I was out in Leicester Square last night meeting a mate before heading to the cinema and in need of some casual dining fast (as was Keira Knightly who was attending a premiere at the Odeon next door).

We opted for the Tragus owned Bella Italia - it's hard not to as there's at least four scattered around the Square - and had a perfectly servicable meal, which had the important ingredients of being quick and - for London's West End - inexpensive.

However, what with restaurant space being pricey there the eaterie was predictably snug with a spiral staircase leading down to "compact" toilets in the basement.

Some bright spark - the sought that flicks a lightswitch to see if the blown bulb is on or off - had decided a busy Wednesday evening was the perfect time to paint said bannister and staircase and erect "warning wet paint" signs everywhere ( yes, transfer any responsibility for your actions in one easy step).

Although soap got the paint off my hand I suspect some of my fellow dinners were not so lucky.

Perhaps Tragus are simply hoping customers will follow the example of their other best known brand and paint the town Cafe Rouge, or in the case of the wet paint in question a far from romantic brown.

 Tragus to double Cafe Rouge restaurant chain>>

Tragus boss confident consumers will still spend>>