Recently in Charities Category

Indian restaurant Moti Mahal is to host a special charity dinner next month, which will bring together six top chefs who will cook together in aid of the Fukushima 100 Mile Charity.

Chefs Anirudh Arora (Moti Mahal), Sriram Aylur (Quilon), Hayashi Daisuke (Sake no Hana), Jun Tanaka (Pearl Restaurant), Martyn Pearn (Peel's Restaurant) and Edd Kimber (Winner of BBC2 Television Series The Great British Bake Off), will host the dinner on 11 August.

The event will be held following Captain Bill Kawai-Calderhead and his sister Maia's attempt to run and cycle 100 miles around London in 24 hours. Starting on 10 August from the Japanese Embassy, the 100 mile route will replicate the Fukushima nuclear reactor exclusion zone and will be completed at 05:46am on 11 August - exactly five months on from the tragedy.

The charity aims to raise ¥10,000,000 (£76,000) for the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal and the dinner will be followed by a charity auction, where prizes will include a holiday to Shanti Maurice Hotel in Mauritius and a jet aircraft simulator experience.

Celebrity chef Gary Rhodes is to host a special dinner at his Michelin-starred restaurant Rhodes 24 in aid of charity Help for Heroes.

Located atop Tower 42 in the City of London, the restaurant will play host to the event on 22 June and offer up to 80 diners the chance to sample Rhodes's award-winning cooking.

Rhodes hopes to raise £15,000 for Help for Heroes, which supports troops who have been wounded in Britain's current conflicts.

The five-course menu, which will be paired with wine, will include dishes such as pan fried halibut with seared English asparagus, casserole of peas, broad beans and white asparagus cream; fillet of beef with oxtail cottage pie and buttered baby leeks; and a Rhodes Twenty Four signature pudding plate.

There will also be a silent charity auction, with prizes including lunch for six prepared by the Rhodes 24 team on the roof of the 600ft Tower 42 overlooking London.

Tickets to the one off event are £185 and bookings can be made at reservations@rhodes24.co.uk or by calling 020 7877 7703.

Michelin-starred chefs Claude Bosi and Rene Redzepi are joining forces for a special dinner to be held at Hibiscus on Saturday 16 April.

The event, which will see the two acclaimed chefs cook alongside each other, has been set up to raise funds for the Save the Children charity.

Tickets for the dinner sold out within 15 minutes. However, two have been reserved and put up for auction on Ebay. The Hibiscus team hope to raise as much money as possible.

All funds will go towards Save the Children's new campaign No Child Born to Die, which aims to dramatically cut the number of children under the age of five dying from simple complications such as pneumonia and diarrhoea. The children's charity says if children were routinely vaccinated, the death toll, which currently sits at 8 million children a year, could be cut by up to a quarter.

Leading London chefs Shane Osborn (pictured), Brett Graham and Bruno Loubet have teamed up to organise a charity dinner in aid of the Red Cross Australia and are calling on fellow chefs to get involved.

The Fire and Floods gala dinner, which will take place at the High Commission Australia House in London on 3 May, is a fundraiser for the relief and recovery effort in wake of the devastating floods and wild fires which gripped Australia last year.

The event will include a three-course dinner cooked by two-Michelin-starred Australian chefs Osborn of Pied à Terre and Graham of the Ledbury, and Loubet of Bistrot Bruno Loubet, who have each volunteered not only their time but also staff to support the event. Australian sparkling wine and a selection of red and white wines will be provided by Treasury Wines Estates to accompany the meal.

There will also be entertainment on the evening as well as a charity auction and all three chefs will auction themselves to cook a private dinner at bidding guests' homes. 

Osborn commented: "We've got Westminster Kingsway College on board but are asking other chefs in London to donate their staff - both front and back of house - to help put on the event."

Tickets for the event are £250 each or £2500 for a table of ten including a £50 raffle ticket for a luxury holiday for two to Australia. For more information and tickets see the Fire and Floods website.

Restaurant charity StreetSmart has raised £455,000 during its 2009 Christmas campaign.

More than 550 restaurants in 18 cities throughout the UK took part in the annual fundraising campaign including those of Michelin-starred chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Giorgio Locatelli, Tom Kitchin and Fergus Henderson.

The highest earners among the restaurants were Selfridges, Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food at Heathrow's T5, Harvey Nichols in Leeds and London and its OXO Tower restaurant, Maze, Joe Allen, Nobu, Smiths of Smithfield and Skylon.

StreetSmart raises money for the homeless by asking diners to add £1 to their bill. Sponsored by Deutsche Bank, which covers all of the charity's administration costs, all proceeds are used for projects supporting people back to employment and sustainable independent living.

Since its inception, StreetSmart has raised more than £4.2m to help the homeless.