July 2009 Archives

French chef Eric Chavot is leaving the two-Michelin-starred restaurant at the Capital hotel in London.

The surprise move sees Chavot leave the restaurant in Knightsbridge after more than a decade behind the stove. He will leave on 15 August.

His departure is one of a series of recent staff changes at David Levin's Capital and Levin hotels including general manager Henrik Muehle, who left to join the St James's Hotel and Club in Mayfair last month.
 
The Capital's restaurant manager, Christoph Thuilat, is also leaving to join Muehle and become food and beverage manager at the St James.

Last year, Levin's son Joe left his long-serving role as managing director at the Capital Group.

Chavot said he made the decision to leave the Capital, where he has held two Michelin stars for eight years, to change his life.

"I am leaving after ten years and my departure is amicable," he said.

"I have done everything I can at the Capital and it's been great. But I feel the time has come for me to do something different with my life. I've been doing Michelin cooking for so long and I'm not sure I want to do this anymore.

"I have no idea what I am going to do or where I am going to go. Some people may call me crazy to do this in a recession but you only live once and now is as good a time as any."

Chavot added that after his departure in August he will take time off to go on a culinary tour of England.

"For now I am going to take time off and go see my friends - Sat Bains, Nigel Haworth, Michael Caines, Raymond Blanc and David Everitt-Matthias."

Is ex-Aubergine chef William Drabble set to join the St James's Hotel and Club in central London?

Drabble, who left Aubergine last month, has been linked to the property's vacant restaurant space, formerly occupied by the three-Michelin-starred German chef Dieter Müller.

Alan Murchison, chef-patron of the Michelin-starred L'Ortolan and La Bécasse restaurants, has also been linked to the 60-bedroom hotel in Mayfair but rumours suggest Drabble has won the race.

Drabble, who took over the reins at Aubergine from Gordon Ramsay in 1998, spent more than a decade behind the stove at the Chelsea restaurant. During this time he retained its Michelin star and successfully launched a sister restaurant in Marlow last autumn.

He left to pursue other opportunities and his departure coincided with that of the London Fine Dining Group's marketing and operations director David Herbert. 

St James's general manager Henrik Muehle, who joined from the Capital and Levin hotels in Knightsbridge last month, declined to comment on the rumours.

He did however confirm that former colleague Christoph Thuilat, restaurant manager at the two-Michelin-starred Capital is joining him to become food and beverage manager at the St James.

Lots of staff changes at the Capital then, could there be more to come?

 In a somewhat ironic development, road restaurant chain Little Chef today sent out images of its redesigned mascot, which has been given a makeover to look more like a professional chef.

"What?" I hear you scream. Yes, dear reader, it's true after all that Heston Blumenthal's menu has inspired Little Chef to introduce a new look.

But - and it's a fairly big but - the old chap is still Fat Charlie, not Little Heston, and while he's now sporting a proper chef's jacket instead of his old neckerchief, there are no glasses or any other Blumenthalesque features.

Last week, a statement was released suggesting Little Chef had redesigned its logo to make it look like Heston but a spokeswoman for the restaurant chain today confirmed that the information had been "mis-sold".

The actual new logo of cheffy Fat Charlie was unveiled today (29 July) at the relaunch of Little Chef's York outlet, which has reopened with new interiors and Heston's menu. The outlet in Kettering, Northamptonshire, is next.

But it seems things have got worse than we may have realised for poor old Gordon as news has emerged of his attempt to kiss and make up with arch enemy Antony Worrall Thompson.

For years Ramsay has been ridiculing Wozza; nicknaming him a "squashed Bee Gee" and banning him to the kitchen sink to do the washing up at his dream dinner party. "He can't cook to save his life," he's been quoted.

Oh but the tables have turned.

In an interview with Waitrose Food Illustrated Wozza speaks of how his former bully made his peace offering at the Birmingham Good Food Show, where both chefs were holding cookery demonstrations.

"He came into the room and said, 'Antony I just want to wish you luck'," Wozza recalls.

"I was shocked. I said, 'Hang on Gordon, why the change of heart?' He said, 'Well, when you are down you realise you are picking on people and you realise you shouldn't have done what you did'.

"It was bizarre. It was like saying 'I'm being kicked in the teeth, therefore I'd better not kick anyone else in the teeth'."

Heart-warming stuff, isn't it?!

Well, don't get too excited. Wozza clearly still bears a lot of resentment over the years of abuse he had to put up with.

"Gordon knows Michelin food but I have a feeling he hasn't got any depth," he snipes. "I don't think he reads cookbooks like they were novels like I tend to do. He's a one-trick pony."

Oh Wozza, can't you find it in your heart to forgive and forget?

Now I get a lot of dodgy emails everyday but a press release that dropped into my inbox on Friday takes the proverbial cake (at least for last week).

"LITTLE CHEF 'FAT CHARLIE' LOGO TO LOOK LIKE HESTON BLUMENTHAL - CHEFS COAT, GLASSES ADDED" - the subject line screamed at me.

It went on to explain exactly that - that Little Chef's chubby chef is to be redesigned to make him look identical to Heston, complete with chef's jacket and specs.

"Next week the Heston Blumenthal menu is being rolled out to Little Chef's in York and Kettering," the press release continued.

"As Little Chef pins it's [note the bad grammar, dear readers] future of Heston's new menu, the iconic 'Fat Chef' will reflect that. The iconic chef will remain chubby however, after customers revolted when plans to slim down 'Fat Charlie' caused up-roar."

Sounds like a reasonable story, doesn't it?

Well, being the responsible journalist I thought I'd double check with Heston's people. And, you've guessed it, the story turned out to be a complete hoax.

Some people really do have way too much time on their hands.

Others don't seem to have enough...

Big Honour for Heston

Blumenthal makeover for Little Chef's mascot 

This week's Restaurant of the Week is the Pass at the Exclusive Hotels-owned South Lodge in West Sussex.

The Pass is a new restaurant concept, I've not seen anywhere else before - the whole dining room is situated in the kitchen, offering customers views of the chefs' live action.

It's an evolution very apt for our times, when foodie customers are just as hungry for the process and personality behind restaurant dishes as they are for the food itself.
The concept of the Pass grew out of an idea for a chef's table, and expanded to its current guise as the hotel incorporated the adventurous design into its refurbishment programme.

The new restaurant is a gleaming hall of chrome and muted clattering, with a green leather banquette and facing stools wrapped round the edge of one corner allowing full views into the quiet hubbub of the chefs in the kitchen.

The man in charge of the youthful four-strong brigade is Matt Gillan, a graduate of acclaimed kitchens including Gordon Ramsay's three-Michelin-starred restaurant on Chelsea's Royal Hospital Road, and the two-Michelin-starred Vineyard at Stockcross, where Gillan worked under John Campbell.

All seems not well in celebrity chef land and our favourite Saturday morning host Antony Worrall Thompson could be in for an embarrassing legal battle from two disgruntled former employees.

The week started out so well for Wozza, who on Monday celebrated the reopening of his pub the Greyhound in Peppard, Oxfordshire, along with fellow Ready Steady Cook regular Ainsley Harriott.

So what went wrong?

According to The Independent, former employee Richard de Wet, who helped set up the Windsor Grill, claimed Wozzer owes him and his wife £5,000 of holiday pay after being made redundant. The restaurant was one of the casualties of AWT Restaurants' collapse into administration.

Wozza apparently reassured the couple hours before they were due to board a flight to Thailand that they were going to get all of their payments. But he never kept his promise.

"This isn't about bad-mouthing Antony," de Wet said.

"I had a good time with him and I learned a lot. However, I think what he is doing is totally wrong. He said he treated the business like a big family. I think he was taking the piss."

All that over £5,000? Come on Wozza, you can do better than that.

Credit crunch forces Antony Worrall Thompson to close Greyhound 

Iconic chef Pierre Koffmann is set to return to the stove later this year in a pop-up restaurant at London department store Selfridges.

The former three-Michelin-starred chef patron of the famous La Tante Claire restaurant will run the 80-cover pop-up restaurant on the roof of Selfridges for one week in October.

La Tante Claire at Selfridges forms part of the inaugural London Restaurant Festival, which will run from 8-13 October.

Koffmann will be joined in the kitchen by some of his former protégés including the Michelin-starred chefs Eric Chavot, Tom Aikens and Tom Kitchin.

Raphael Duntoye, head chef at La Petite Maison, and Helena Puolakka, head chef at Skylon, will also be part of the restaurant together with award winning chocolatier William Curley.

Pierre Koffmann told me he was thrilled to be getting back behind the stove.

"It's fantastic to be at the stove again with some familiar faces with me in the kitchen," he said.

He added that he's off on holiday now to the south west of France and will be spending most of his time coming up with recipes for the restaurant.

Well, I for one can't wait!

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has admitted he is terrified of eating out at UK restaurants in case chefs and restaurateurs "want revenge".

Ramsay said he's convinced that he has offended so many people during his various Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares series that operators are out to get him. The show sees him revive the fortunes of flagging eateries by mostly shouting at staff and even having some chefs fired.

The famously foul-mouthed chef worries they will sabotage his meals by spitting in them or even worse.

Describing his typical experience of dining out, Ramsay said: "First of all nothing happens for 45 minutes so you sit and think, 'Here we go. What's going on?'

"Then you sort of worry if it's a chef seeking revenge. Is my starter going through the dishwasher three or four times, or are they stamping on it for revenge? Maybe they're putting all bits and bobs in the dressing. You never know."

Despite his fears, however, Ramsay insisted that he would never cause a scene at a restaurant and wouldn't send back food he is unhappy with.

Considering his reputation for famously kicking diners (including AA Gill and Joan Collins) out of his restaurant for complaining about the food, it's good to see he's sticking to his guns on that front.

Is Heinz Beck, the renowned chef who runs the world-famous three-Michelin-starred La Pergola restaurant at the Cavaleri hotel in Rome, heading to London?

The German-born chef is rumoured to be in talks to take over the reins at the Lanesborough hotel whose restaurant Apleys has been without a head chef since the departure of Nick Bell last autumn.

The official line from the Lanesborough is that it is "in touch with multiple chefs at this point and no decision has yet been made". But the rumours about Beck coming to town just won't give up.

However, the hotel on Hyde Park Corner says it won't be in a position to make an announcement until September.

A relatively unknown chef, Bell's appointment as head chef at Apsleys last year had widely been considered somewhat of an unusual move for the Lanesborough. He left the restaurant just six months after launching it following mixed reviews from the critics.

Heinz Beck, who has held the top accolade of three Michelin stars since 2005, is one of the most recognised chefs in the world and it would be a real coup for the Lanesborough, and indeed London, to sign such a high calibre chef.

Picture of Heinz Beck supplied by Camilla Morandi/Rex Features.

This week's Restaurant of the Week is the 2009 Catey Menu of the Year winner, the Harwood Arms in London's Fulham.

Good beer, a simple countryside-in-London atmosphere, and unfussy yet inventive British cuisine. This pretty much sums up the Harwood Arms, which launched last October as a joint venture between rural celebrity chef Mike Robinson, publican Edwin Vaux and Brett Graham, head chef at the Michelin-starred the Ledbury.

The menu at the 60-cover gastropub is the brainchild of Graham and head chef Stephen Williams and it's a menu of exclusively English produce. Its creativity is what stands the Harwood Arms apart from competitors and marks its appeal amidst a sea of so-called London gastropubs.

And of course there's the price point: à la carte starters rarely exceed £6, mains rarely £15. The key: everything is fastidiously seasonal and, beyond the protein, the luxuriousness of the dish is in the cooking alone.

Michelin-starred chef Philip Howard is set to open a new restaurant in partnership with London restaurateur Rebecca Mascarenhas.

Howard, who is head chef and co-owner (with Nigel Platts-Martin) of the two-Michelin-starred The Square restaurant in Mayfair, will launch the new venture in the autumn. It will be an informal neighbourhood restaurant housed in the former site of Mascarenhas' Bistrot Eleven (previously Abingdon Road) in Kensington, which closed today.

Mascarenhas also owns London neighbourhood restaurants Sonny's in Barnes and the Phoenix in Putney.

More details to follow on Caterersearch soon.

Picture of Phil Howard supplied by John Alex Maguire/Rex Features.  

Angela Hartnett was one of the big winners at last night's Cateys, picking up the sought after Chef award.

Angela, who is chef-patron of the Michelin-starred Murano as well as the York & Albany in London, became the first female chef in the Cateys' 26-year history to receive the prestigious accolade.

It's fantastic to see a woman recognised in the traditionally testosterone-fuelled world of professional cooking and Angela truly deserves her status as the first female chef to win the Chef Catey.

She beat off fellow Gordon Ramsay Holdings chef Jason Atherton of the Michelin-starred Maze and John Williams of the Ritz to win the coveted award.

The "F" word (female, not her boss, Gordon Ramsay's, trademark expletive), is an ongoing issue for Angela and she says there are still so few women in the hospitality industry.

"If being a woman is one of the assets that make you stand out because you're in a male environment, and as good a chef as, if not better than, a man, then use it. It's part of who you are," she told Caterer last year.

"I'm not saying parade yourself naked through the kitchen - but women have certain attributes that blokes don't have and vice versa. I don't see it as a problem."

See the full list of the 2009 Catey winners here.

UPDATE

Angela winning the Chef award has made headlines beyond the hospitality industry.

The Evening Standard says: "Hartnett beats the boys to be named top chef at food Oascars", while Bloomberg writes: "Hartnett becomes first woman to win UK chef award". The Daily Telegraph says: "Hartnett has become the first female chef to win a 'Catey', one of the highest accolades in the restaurant world."

Picture supplied by Jonathan Player/Rex Features. 

This week's Restaurant of the Week is the Dorchester Grill in London.

After a two-year accord with Aiden Byrne's complex modern cuisine, the Dorchester Grill has returned to its roots with a more wholesome, comforting menu under the guidance of new head chef Brian Hughson.

Moving across from a similar role at the Michelin-starred Rhodes W1 in London's Cumberland Hotel after Byrne left to set up a gastropub in Cheshire last December, Hughson's assumption of the reins at the Grill has, for personal reasons, been fairly low key these past six months. However, it has meant that he has been able to reshape the restaurant to a more traditional grill room offering away from the eyes of the media.

Although the high prices of some dishes might deter prospective diners - on the grill menu, Dover sole is £42 and aged Welsh black rib-eye steak is £29 - there are certainly bargains to be had, such as the honey glazed ham with buttered cabbage, smoked sausage and parsley sauce at £36 for two people.

In fact, one of the triumphs of the restaurant is a lunch menu that continues through to a reasonable hour of the evening. Diners happy to eat before 7.30pm - late for a pre-theatre menu - can enjoy two courses for £19.50 or three courses for a respectable £25.

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is set to hike the prices at his three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant by a third.

Our favourite culinary wizard pushed up the cost of his much celebrated 12-course tasting menu from £130 to £140 this week. But he plans to eventually bring it up to £170, making it the most expensive tasting menu in the UK.

Even the tasting menu at Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, comes in at less than Heston's new prices at $240 (£147), while Jean Georges Vongerichten's flagship eatery in New York City charges $148 (£90).

However, the Fat Duck's prices are still nowhere near those of the three-star restaurants in Paris, many of whom charge in excess of €250 (£214) for their Menus Prestiges.  

Blumenthal said the hike was the result of the sheer investment in staff, produce and research that goes into the production of the Fat Duck's menu.

"The costs associated with employing 45 chefs to cook for, on average, 42 covers a service are huge," he told Restaurant Magazine.

Seems like the recession isn't much of an issue to old Heston but then again the Fat Duck did lose hundreds of thousands of pounds when it was forced to shut for two weeks amid a food scare earlier this year.  

On a separate note, Heston has agreed to appear at the Caterer and Hotelkeeper Chef Conference in September.

He will take to the stage in a one-on-one interview and is expected to talk about the breadth of his culinary experiences over the past two years, as well as future projects, including a 140-seat restaurant at London's Mandarin Oriental hotel, which he plans to open in 2010.

London chef-restaurateurs Chris and Jeff Galvin have confirmed that their City of London restaurant will be called Galvin La Chapelle.

The long-awaited restaurant is due to open in late autumn 2009 in the Grade-II listed St Botolph's Hall in Spital Square, east London.

Its name is a nod to the Rhône wine Hermitage La Chapelle, vintages of which will be stocked at the restaurant.

Chris Galvin said: "The wines from the Rhone Valley have a particular resonance with our cooking - visiting the area had a big impact on us and we wanted to bring this to our new restaurant."

The 290-cover Galvin La Chapelle, which will comprise a fine dining area, café, bar and outdoor terrace, is the third Galvin restaurant to open in London, joining sister eateries Galvin de Luxe in Baker Street and Galvin at Windows at the London Hilton Park Lane.

It has taken the Galvin brothers around two years to tie-up the deal after they were forced to abandon plans to launch a restaurant at London's Waldorf Hilton hotel.

It means the restaurant will now launch in a recession, although the brothers said they'd never considered abandoning plans to expand their business.