Friday Five: the week's top news
- Merseyside's only Michelin-starred restaurant has closed its doors ahead of plans to relocate. Fraiche has been run by chef Mark Wilkinson since 2004, and held a Michelin star for 11 years. It shut its Oxton site on Friday, but Wilkinson is planning to take the name and concept with him to a new location.
- Fera at Claridge's has confirmed that its last service will be on New Year's Eve, ending the restaurant's four-and-a-half year run at the iconic London hotel. Fera, which launched in 2014 under the stewardship of chef Simon Rogan, will close after its dinner service on 31 December. A replacement for the restaurant is yet to be announced, though a number of sources have told BigHospitality it will be taken by the team behind New York's Eleven Madison Park.
- In other hotel restaurant news Nathan Outlaw is to open a brasserie-style seafood restaurant at The Goring in Belgravia next spring. The largely Cornwall-based chef will end his partnership with The Capital in Knightsbridge in March. It comes after his eponymous restaurant there lost its Michelin star in the 2019 edition of the guide.
- Chef Mark Jarvis has stepped away from Neo Bistro, the restaurant he launched with former Harwood Arms head chef Alex Harper last year. A statement says the management team will continue to run the Mayfair restaurant 'until further notice'. Harwood also left the restaurant earlier this year.
- The co-founder of French bistro brand Champagne + Fromage says he is no longer looking to open restaurants in London as the costs in the capital are too high. Stefano Frigerio says the group is focusing on regional sites, and has launched a new French tapas-style concept, Comptoir + Cuisine in Bath. He adds the group is 'very concerned' what a 'hard' Brexit could mean for its produce, all of which is imported from France.
For more of this week's news, click here.
