Friday five: the week's top news stories
- Renowned Kew restaurant The Glasshouse will close next month after almost 25 years in business. The restaurant, which is owned by Nigel Platts-Martin and Bruce Poole, team behind London restaurants Chez Bruce and La Trompette, will run its last service on 17 September. The Glasshouse opened in 1999 and won a Michelin star three years later in 2002, an accolade that it has held ever since.
- Around three quarters of pubs and bar face extinction unless the Government intervenes in the current energy crisis. A survey, conducted by BigHospitality's sister title The Morning Advertiser, found that 70% of operators do not expect to make it through the winter without Government intervention. More than 65% of respondents said they’d seen their utility costs increase by over 100%. Meanwhile, 30% reported a jump of 200% and 8% reported increases of more than 500%. Nearly 80% of operators said they could not afford the increase in energy costs.
- Former The Crown at Burchetts Green chef-patron Simon Bonwick is replacing Ruth Hansom as head chef at Noble Inns Group-owned gastropub The Princess of Shoreditch. Bonwick, who ran Michelin-starred Berkshire pub The Crown with his family for almost a decade, will join Noble Inns from the end of this month. He will take over the kitchen from the much-lauded and influential chef Ruth Hansom who, along with the team, has helped it win 3 AA rosettes and be named the ‘Newcomer of the Year’ award in the 2022 Estrella Damm Top 50 Gastropubs.
- Barrio Familia will open its largest bar to date in London’s Covent Garden. The Nightcap-owned bar brand has taken on the former Tropicana Beach Club site on Parker Street and will reopen it in November as a 600-cover venue.The 10,500sq ft, two-storey venue will house one of the world’s largest tequila-focused bars, according to Nightcap, which also owns The Cocktail Club and Adventure Bar Group.
- A general manager at London-based restaurant group Temper has started a petition calling for EU nationals to be permitted to come to the UK to work in hospitality. Thiago Luz Togni is asking the Government to create a special visa for people from the EU countries to come to the UK to work in the hospitality industry for a period of up to two years to help the industry cope with the severe staff shortage.
