Speaking on BigHospiality’s daily United We Stand podcast, the chef restaurateur behind the Michelin-starred Murano and the Café Murano group of restaurants singled out Jonathan Downey and Hospitality Action CEO Mark Lewis.
“What’s come out of this is how amazing people in the hospitality industry are. Look at what Jonathan Downey has done with the group he’s set up and writing to the powers that be to get the furlough in place and rent free periods,” she says.
“And what Mark Lewis has done with Hospitality Action. Times of crisis show what an incredible industry we are.”
Hartnett - who closed her London restaurants just ahead of the Government mandated shutdown - predicts a long and slow recovery for the sector.
“People aren’t going to want to sit in big groups when we’re out of lockdown. It will easily be another six months before we see the restaurant industry back to where it was, maybe longer,” she says.
“We’re thinking about all the measures we might need to put in place. In Hong Kong they carried on through all of it. They haven’t closed restaurants."
"But what they have done is tell restaurants to take tables out. The hours are restricted. A lot of that might come into play here and you need to have that in place before you open back up.”
UnitedWeStand has been created by William Reed hospitality titles BigHospitality, Restaurant magazine and Morning Advertiser and is supported by Britvic, CocaCola European Partners and Unilever Food Solutions.
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