The Editor's Hospitality Blog

Next Monday (May 14th) sees Caterer and Hotelkeeper's Chef Conference at London's Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel.

The event kicks off with a keynote speech from restaurateur and head of the School Food Trust, Prue Leith, after which there'll be demos from the likes of Tom Aikens, Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing and John Campbell of the Vineyard at Stockcross.

The evening's gala dinner promises to continue the star studded theme, with courses from Simon Young of the Jumeirah Carlton Tower, Gleneagles' Andrew Fairlie, Hywel Jones, executive head chef at Lucknam Park in Wiltshire, Nigel Haworth of Northcote Manor in Lancashire and Andrew Turner of Pennyhill Park in Surrey.

As well as the chance to sample dishes from these stellar chefs, there'll be plenty of opportunity for networking with other delegates and catching up with old friends.

So click here now, and book your place. You know it makes sense ...

This week, London's Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel hosted the 2007 Caterer and Hotelkeeper Chef Conference. Here are a few of the memories buzzing around my head, in no particular order.

* Jumeirah Executive Chef, Simon Young and his team deserved all the plaudits they received in the bar after dinner for pulling together a spectacular conference lunch and a magnificent dinner. As I was speaking to Simon, two other chefs approached him to tell him they had just enjoyed the greatest banqueting dinner of their lives. Praise indeed ...

[By the way, Simon is hosting a dinner in July in support of the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation, set up by Executive Chef at the Mandarin Oriental, David Nicholls. The event is a sell-out, but you can find other ways of supportig the charity at http://www.nichollsfoundation.org.uk/.]

* Chris Galvin, our roving reporter in the kitchen, whose chef interviews were beamed to diners through the evening, can look forward to a thriving career in TV, if he ever decides to step away from the stove.

* Prue Leith, chair of the School Food Trust, made an interesting point when she said she had never known a child who didn't enjoy cooking. She' s right - I, for one, fondly remember helping my mum mixing dough for Welsh cakes when I was a nipper. So why don't more kids go into catering careers later on in life?

* Charles Boyd of Chester Boyd was proudly sporting a Charlton House lapel pin - interesting!

* Agar is made of seaweed and sets at room temperature.

* English asparagus is spectacular this year.

* Santes des chefs rarely run smoothly ...

* The guy that won the Villeroy & Boch canteen of cutlery was on a motorbike - I hope he managed to get home okay.

* I want to sample a gull' s egg, having seen Phil Howard of two-Michelin-starred the Square add one to his wonderful plate of asparagus and wild salmon belly.

* I just remembered that I am provisionally on the guest list for Rob Kirby's spring fishing trip to Scotland! Will I survive to tell the tale?

* Researching our speakers before the conference, I spent a happy hour reading through Rowley Leigh's FT columns online - especially his interview with Fergus Henderson.

Do you have any recollections you would like to share? If so, why don't you respond to this posting?

After a week defined by the Cateys, it's nice to be able to sit back and enjoy a couple of bashes laid on by other organisations this week. Last night saw the Craft Guild of Chefs' annual awards at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London; tonight, it's the turn of the Academy of Culinary Arts, at Claridge's. Tomorrow, I diet ...

The Guild put on their usual uptempo evening. Host with the most Alan Dewberry, who MC-ed as energetically as ever, introduced Guild stalwarts David Mulcahy and Steve Munkley as the Ant and Dec of the chef world when he invited them on stage to run through the shortlist. Later, Lilia and Darren from Strictly Come Dancing lent a little Latin pizzazz to the evening.

The Guild has a lovely tradition of giving winners a dinner jacket with its motif on the left lapel, when they go on stage to receive their award - a nice bit of theatre that reminds me of the moment the winner of the US Masters dons the green jacket.

I was thrilled to see Simon Young of the Jumeirah Carlton Tower pick up the conference and banqueting award - he did such a sterling job for us when he hosted our Chef Conference a couple of months back.

All the winners were present except Marco Pierre White, who picked up the Special award at the end of the night. There to receive the trophy for him was Marco's group exec chef, Callum "I get free psychoanalysis as part of my salary" Watson.

I'll be interviewing Marco Pierre White onstage at this year's Chef Conference - but I need your help with writing my questions.

What burning issues would you like to hear Marco address? Or what episodes in his colourful career would you like to hear more about?

To make things more interesting, there's a great prize for the best question we receive. The person who sends in the question that the Caterer team judges to be the most thought-provoking will receive a free ticket to the 200 Chef Conference, plus a place at the conference dinner - a package together worth £250.

Submit your question to Marco by responding to this blog posting. Good luck!