November 2009 Archives

The weekend papers were full of good reviews for a variety of different restaurants including one of the most expensive in the country and a pop-up restaurant housed in unlicensed premises.

Jasper Gerard of The Daily Telegraph, was accompanied by Heston Blumenthal on his visit to Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, where the reality really does live up to the hype.

However, he adds that he has no answer for diners complaining about the price - £318.37 for two at lunch. "Just as motoring correspondents review Rolls-Royces as well as Reliant Robins, so restaurant critics should test drive high-octane, turbo-charged culinary marques as well as old bangers," Gerard says.

The Observer's Jay Rayner meanwhile enjoys a more down-to-earth eating experience at Dock Kitchen, one of London's latest pop-up restaurants. Run by River Café chef Stevie Parle, its friendly and lightly chaotic service, very good food and unlicensed premises, make the experience an enjoyable one that doesn't burn a hole in his expenses.

Tracey MacLeod of The Independent dines at the newly opened Ashmolean Dining Room at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. She says that despite its informal, café-like feel, the confident, friendly service and ambitious menu marks this out as far more than an add-on to the museums' visitor experience. 

Finally The Times's Giles Coren raves about Mitch Tonks's Seahorse in Dartmouth, Devon, describing the seafood restaurant as perfect. Taking the produce, cooking, service, ambience, location and company into consideration, he rates it as the best meal he has had all year.

Cornwall-based chef Nathan Outlaw has closed his Michelin-starred restaurant at the Marina Villa hotel in Fowey and will relocate it to the St Enodoc Hotel in Rock next year.

The move, which comes just months after the Marina Villa was put on the market, will see the chef reopen on 12 February at the St Enodoc Hotel where he also runs his more casual Seafood and Grill restaurant.

Outlaw, who opened his eponymous restaurant in 2007 and has been tipped by Michelin as a rising two-star chef for two consecutive years, told chef networking website Staff Canteen the move would give him more control of his business.

"Over the past six months I have been trying to put Restaurant Nathan Outlaw into a much more secure place from a business point of view, which would in turn allow my team and me to push our standards to a higher level," he said.

It's a tough market out there at the moment and some operators are clearly worried about filling their restaurants during the festive season.

One group seems particularly concerned that its restaurants will be empty on New Year's Eve, so much so that it's offered its two sites up for exclusive hire through auction on Ebay.

London Tapas group Pinchito is auctioning off its sites in the City and the West End, with the exclusive New Year's Eve package for up to 100 guests including tapas and cocktails, a DJ and special late licence.

"We throw amazing parties and we embrace everything online, so Ebay seemed like the perfect way to combine the two and offer something truly unique to people this New Year's Eve," trills founder Jason Fendick.

With bids starting at just 99p, it doesn't take a genius to work out that this promotion could seriously backfire.

Let's hope for Pinchito's sake that its PR machine creates enough hype to get people bidding.

Restaurants at opposing ends of the culinary spectrum - a Michelin-starred eaterie and a college offering - both came in for fulsome praise in this weekend's national newspapers.

Simon Rogan's fine dining restaurant L'Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria, scored five out five in the Daily Telegraph, with critic Jasper Gerard arguing it could possibly be the best restaurant in the world. 

Comparing Rogan to Heston Blumenthal, he said L'Enclume was the Fat Duck of the North: "Blumenthal deserves his three Michelin stars, but it's absurd that Rogan has only one."

At a very different level, the Vincent Room Brasserie at London's Westminster Kingsway College offers first class cooking and friendly service at reasonable prices, according to The Guardian.

"We left utterly charmed by a venture that combines the indulgence of youth with professional rigour far, far better than this review," Matthew Norman enthused.

Mark Sargeant, Gordon Ramsay's right hand man and former head chef at his Michelin-starred restaurant at Claridge's, has resigned from the celebrity chef's restaurant group.

Sargeant, who has worked alongside Ramsay for 13 years, will leave Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH) at the end this month to join pub group the Swan Collection as creative director.

His resignation follows months of speculation after his departure from Claridge's earlier in the year and a rumoured fall out with Ramsay.

It also comes just months after GRH head of operations, Gillian Thomson, left the group to join contract caterer Company of Cooks. And let's not forget the high profile fall out with Marcus Wareing.

Sargeant first joined Ramsay at Aubergine in the 1990s. He went on to work as sous chef at Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant on Chelsea's Royal Hospital Road before becoming head chef at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, where he won a Michelin-star in 2002.

He will join the Swan Collection next month. The company currently runs the Swan at the Globe Theatre, London, and the Swan, West Malling, Kent.

It seems Ramsay's original stable of faithful protégés is getting smaller and smaller, with only Mark Askew, Jason Atherton and Angela Hartnett left. Let's hope for Ramsay's sake there won't be any more high profile departures...

Things aren't looking quite so rosy for critics' darling Alan Yau.

Guide Girl has learned that the restaurateur's budget Chinese noodle bar Cha Cha Moon has closed its outlet at Whiteleys shopping centre in west London less than a year after opening.

A spokeswoman at the KFG restaurant group, which owns the restaurant, confirmed the site closed last Saturday (14 November).

While she revealed that it will soon be replaced by another opening from the group, she remained tight-lipped when pressed for further details.

What with the closure of brother Gary's ill-fated Japanese restaurant Aaya in Soho at the start of the year, it would seem that even these oriental restaurant wunderkinder haven't been immune to the perils of the recession.

Let's just hope that Yau's Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Yauatcha doesn't meet a similar fate...

Gordon Ramsay's unpopularity seems to have reached a new low as his latest season of the F Word has been moved to a late-night slot.

Usually screened at 9pm, the Channel 4 show has been shifted to a 10pm slot after ratings dropped to less than two million for the first couple of shows of the new series.

Worried bosses are also re-editing episodes to appeal more to food fans, according to the Mirror.

Last night's show was scheduled to show actress Kelly Brook making stuffed peppers (how inspiring!) but she was edited out to focus on independent restaurants and recipes.

Channel 4 reportedly said the programmes had been rescheduled for "strategic purposes prior to the series' launch". Oh reeeeeaaally...

Indian chef-restaurateur Vineet Bhatia has won a Michelin star for his Rasoi by Vineet restaurant in Geneva, Switzerland.

The chef-proprietor of the Michelin-starred Rasoi Vineet Bhatia in London has won his second star for his venture at Geneva's Mandarin Oriental hotel, which he has run for two years.

The result sees Bhatia become only the second British chef (after Gordon Ramsay) to hold Michelin-stars in more than one country. He was the first Indian chef to gain a Michelin-star in 2001.

Bhatia said he was thrilled with the accolade. "We wanted to have a Michelin-star at this restaurant and are very proud to have won it," he said.

He added that he will launch a new restaurant in India next year.

Located at Mumbai's famous Oberoi Hotel, where Bhatia trained to become a chef 25 years ago, Zaffran will launch in early-January.

"The team from the hotel will be training with me in London for one month before we launch the new restaurant," Bhatia said.

"The menu will have to cater for the local Indian market, which is very different from London. There will be more intense flavours but the food will still bear my modern style."

Picture supplied by kaacha!!

Some excellent quality cooking can be found in the provinces, according to the restaurant reviews in this weekend's national newspapers.

Restaurants in Leeds, Bristol, Kent and Cornwall, all received glowing reports for producing some delicious meals from well chosen, quality ingredients.

Jude Kereama, who is half Maori, a quarter Chinese and a quarter Malaysian, was applauded by Jasper Gerard of the Daily Telegraph for introducing exotic flavours to well-chosen Cornish ingredients at Kota in Porthleven.

Meanwhile, Tracey MacLeod of the Independent was impressed by the inventiveness of Toby Leigh, nephew of renowned chef Rowley Leigh, for using locally-foraged ingredients to add an intriguing twist to well-known dishes at Age & Sons in Ramsgate, Kent. For instance, gravadlax comes with buckthorn berries, and sea bass with samphire and sea beet.

At the City Café within the City Inn, Leeds, the Observer's Jay Rayner is amazed to find such accomplished, proper cooking - with the odd flourish -  within a corporate setting. The wine list gets top marks, too, for serving nearly half of the wines by the glass.

And finally, Mitch Tonks is found by Lucas Hollweg of the Sunday Times to be serving beautifully fresh fish at the RockFish Grill and Seafood Market in Bristol. "The service was smiley, knowledgeable and interested too," he enthused.

So it was true after all. Following months of speculation and denial, Mandarin Oriental has finally confirmed that three-Michelin-starred French chef Daniel Boulud will open a restaurant at the luxury hotel.

The announcement follows that of fellow three-Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal opening his first London restaurant at the Knightsbridge hotel next autumn.

Boulud will launch French restaurant Bar Boulud in the space of the former Grill restaurant of the luxury hotel. It will be modelled on the Bar Boulud in New York and will offer a French bistro menu with signature terrines and pâtés made on site under the direction of acclaimed charcutier Gilles Verot.

Located at street level with a separate entrance, the 165-seat restaurant's interiors will be developed by renowned designer Adam Tihany and will feature contemporary references to French wine making culture.

Interiors will include a bar lounge, red leather banquettes and chairs, a bar topped in zinc with a cork panel coating and an open kitchen as the focal point of the main dining space. There will also be a charcuterie bar featuring a glass counter displaying the restaurant's signature terrines and a selection of cheeses.

The BBC's MasterChef is set to make the jump across the pond as US TV channel Fox has commissioned an American version of the programme.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who has gained fame for the channel's US versions of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares, will front the show and be involved as a producer.

Fox has placed an initial order of between 12 and 15 episodes.

It is the first time the format will be adapted for an American audience and follows an Australian version which premiered earlier this year.

The reality TV show will see hobby chefs from around the country audition for the series by creating a dish for three judges.

"This is a huge, nationwide search for the best amateur cook in America," the executive producer, Howard T Owens of Reveille, told Reuters.

"It's about people who are lawyers, construction workers and stay-at-home mums but whose real passion is to make great food. This is their shot to prove they have what it takes."

Tim Payne, head chef at Paradise by Way of Kensal Green, is leaving the west London restaurant to join forces with Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace.

Wallace is setting up a greengrocer-cum-café concept in Putney together with former Elbow Room owner Justin Carter. The duo has bought the old Red's site on Upper Richmond Road and will relaunch it as Wallace & Co before Christmas.

Payne is understood to be joining Wallace & Co as executive chef after three years at Paradise.

He was executive chef for Marco Pierre White's restaurants for seven years and appeared alongside the fiery chef in his two series of ITV's Hell's Kitchen.

Payne also did a stint with Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl and as consultant chef for Oliver Peyton's restaurants.

Wallace & Co will feature a range of branded grocery items as well as fresh fruit and vegetables supplied by Secretts Direct, owned by Wallace and business partner Vernon Mascarenhas.

Paradise is owned by Steven Ball and Riz Shaikh, the team behind other London gastropubs, the Old Queens Head in Islington, Queen Boadicea in Clerkenwell and the Westbury in Kilburn. The duo last month launched restaurant and live music venue the Blues Kitchen in Camden.

Iconic French chef Pierre Koffmann is planning a new restaurant in London.

The former three-Michelin-starred chef patron of the famous La Tante Claire restaurant, has confirmed that he is looking to open a new site in the West End.

"Yes, I am looking to open a new restaurant," he told me earlier today. The move follows Koffmann's successful pop-up restaurant at London department store Selfridges. Initially scheduled to run for six days, the temporary eaterie was extended to run for nearly two months following overwhelming demand for bookings.

In an exclusive interview with Caterer earlier this year, Koffmann hinted that he would like to open a simple brasserie. "It wouldn't be to have Michelin stars or anything like that, just a simple restaurant where I can cook the things I want to eat," he said.

Koffmann has appointed property agents Restaurant Property to assist him in finding a suitable site.

The group's director David Rawlinson said: "Koffmann's triumph as Selfridges is a great foundation on which to build a new restaurant concept. We are currently looking for a suitable site for him in the areas of Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Chelsea and South Kensington."

Koffmann ran La Tante Claire for 25 years, first in the site currently occupied by Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea and then in the Berkeley hotel. His culinary style, a refined version of the French country cooking of his home region of Gascony, not only gained him the top accolade of three Michelin stars but has also inspired the cooking of countless other chefs.

London restaurant Dans Le Noir, where diners eat in the dark served by blind waiters, is the most shameless and expensive gustatory illusion since the Feeding of the 5,000, according to the Independent.

The Observer's Jay Rayner says that while eating at Café Below underneath the St Mary-Le-Bow church in London may not be thrilling, it is exactly the kind of restaurant a hectic city needs. "There is nothing showy going on here, just an attempt to create a quiet space where City workers ... can relax," he says.

The Sunday Times's AA Gill praises celebrity chef Mark Hix's new restaurant, Hix Soho, for being good, relaxed and sophisticated, while the Times's Giles Coren says Soho House's latest venture Pizza East is bang on the money.

The Guardian's Matthew Norman says that as long as you can cope with a room full of smug, City boy prats, L'Anima is a real Italian treat. The Daily Telegraph's Jasper Gerard heartily recommends Shaun Hill's Walnut Tree Inn in Abergavenny, Wales.