The Editor's Hospitality Blog

The world's richest truffle enthusiasts gathered in restaurants in London, Florence and Macau today, for a video link-in to the International Tuscan Truffle Auction. Here in London, the event took place at Reffetorio, Giorgio Locatelli's restaurant in Blackfriars.

The auction, which was reported tonight on the Guardian's Word of Mouth blog
saw one 1.5kg monster truffle sell for a record $330,000. If the successful bidder is reading this post and wondering what to do with this most perishable of investments, they could do far worse than to check out the Caterersearch recipes database for inspiration.

I'm off on holiday for a week, safe in the knowledge that last Friday's judging of Caterer and Hotelkeeper's Best Places to Work in Hospitality 2007 was a resounding success.

Once again, we've managed to identify the hotel, restaurant and leisure companies doing the most to ensure good practice in the recruitment, training, retaining and motivating of their employees. Last year's winners included McDonald's Restaurants, whose commitment to providing a positive working environment led them to start a campaign to get the word "Mcjob" (definition: a low-paying, low-prestige job) taken out of dictionaries. As of last week, the fast-food giant's campaign petition had attracted over 100,000 signatures. Good on them for taking steps to challenge prejudices and boost the self-esteem of their workforce.

I could tell you who our Best Places winners are, but then I'd have to kill you, so you'll just have to wait until we announce them at a ceremony during next year's Hotelympia.

See you in a week, when there'll be plenty to tell you about the announcement of the 2007 Hotelier of the Year.

Calling all hoteliers. The new Hotelier of the Year will be announced at an awards lunch hosted by current incumbent, Richard Ball of Calcot Manor, tomorrow lunchtime.

To mark the occasion, Caterersearch will be simultaneously posting a webcast featuring an interview with the mystery winner at 1pm.

I’m delighted to unveil the 2007 Hotelier of the Year as Michael Gray, general manager of the Hyatt Regency London – the Churchill.

Together with our partners Louis Jadot, we are thrilled to bestow this, in its 25th year, the most prestigious award for hoteliers to a man dedicated to the development and growth of his team, his industry and its future.

You can watch Michael’s thoughts about winning this coveted title here or see tomorrow’s issue of Caterer to read his story and the judge’s comments.

It's traditional for the outgoing Hotelier of the Year to host the following year's award lunch. This year's award was therefore presented to Michael Gray at Calcot Manor, whose Managing Director, Richard Ball, was the 2006 winner.

Welcoming guests to the lunch, Richard emphasised the fear-factor involved in throwing your hotel open to an A-list of pretty much every UK hotelier of note from the past quarter-century. (This year, the lunch drew its usual stellar list of hotelkeepers, among them Robin Hutson, Ramon Pajares, Peter Lederer, Martin Skan, Harry Murray ...)

He described how, as a younger man trying to establish his country house hotel in Gloucestershire, he had read of Hoteliers of the Year in the Caterer and wondered whether perhaps, one day, one of these iconic hoteliers would deign to come and stay with him.

"I never imagined 17 of the buggers would turn up on the same day!" he quipped.

A few months ago I posted a story about a kitchen porter at Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant in Chelsea who claimed he had been a victim of racial harassment and religious victimisation.

The story set me thinking about how you can ensure healthy banter doesn's get out of hand in the commercial kitchen. Check out this response to the posting from a chef, who thinks there is still a place for a good bollocking in the kitchen from time to time:

The head chef's job is to make sure all foods go out the kitchen to his standard not his underlings'. If this does not happen the chef loses his rag - is this not acceptable?

Do you agree or disagree? let us know.

The last mince pies have been eaten at the end-of-year office party and the combined might of the Caterer editorial team is in the pub, celebrating the start of the Christmas break with a well-earned pint. Before I join them, here's a link to all the best Christmas recipes on Caterersearch, in case you're a chef in need of some festive inspiration.

This will probably be my last posting for a week. Whoever you are and wherever you are working or relaxing in the coming days, have a happy Christmas and a splendid new year.