Friday five: the week's top restaurant stories
- Thomas Straker is set to open a second London site a stone’s throw away from his eponymous Straker’s restaurant in Notting Hill. As revealed in an interview with Tatler, Straker has taken on the corner site at 60 Golborne Road for an as-yet-unnamed café-style concept that’s described as a ‘breakfast-lunch kind of deli scenario’. The menu will include acai bowls, granola, and eggs with ground beef.
- The Government has revealed it plans to introduce ‘further measures on tipping’ beyond the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act. Statutory instruments (SIs) for the new tipping law, which is designed to ensure hospitality staff receive all money left to them in tips by customers and received Royal Assent back in May last year, were laid this week. The SIs confirm that the code of practice and other measures in the Tipping Act come into force in October 2024. Alongside the implementation of the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023, Minister for Employment Rights Justin Madders revealed that the Government will bring in further measures related to tipping in due course. “Britain’s outdated employment laws require an urgent update. This Government will ensure they are fit for the modern economy and deliver on our plan to Make Work Pay,” he said.
- Husband and wife team John and Desiree Chantarasak have finally found a permanent site for their debut restaurant AngloThai. The couple will open their first bricks and mortar site on Seymour Place in Marylebone this autumn in partnership with MJMK Restaurants following a number of pop ups and residencies, including at Outcrop at London’s 180 The Strand last year. The 50-cover AngloThai will serve John’s take on Thai-British cuisine that marries Thai flavours with seasonal ingredients sourced within the British Isles and will draw inspiration from both his Thai and British heritage and his time working in restaurants including Som Saa in London and Nahm in Bangkok. The food will be accompanied by a European-focused wine list created by Desiree that will have a focus on biodynamic producers.
- Turtle Bay has launched a new initiative that allows salaried restaurant staff to reduce their work week from five days to four without any reduction in pay. The Caribbean-inspired group revealed in its latest accounts that uptake of its ‘4 days at the Bay’ scheme has been ‘phenomenal’ since it launched at the beginning of the year, with 90% of team members reporting that their well-being had either improved or stayed constant as a result. Writing in the group’s latest accounts, Turtle Bay CEO Nick Crossley said: “It’s widely known that hospitality is one of the hardest working sectors and its down to us as owners and leaders to challenge this.”
- Cornwall-based butcher Philip Warren has launched a burger restaurant at the site that originally housed its shop in Launceston. Led by head of operations Luke Taylor, Native Burger serves a menu of nine burgers alongside a selection of fries and sides. The 20-cover burger shop showcases exclusively Philip Warren meats in options that include a plain burger; Twisted Fire Starter - a beef patty, pepper jack cheese, lettuce, jalapeño, onion and sriracha mayo; The Workout - a double beef patty with pulled beef brisket, bacon crumb, lettuce, BBQ sauce and mayo; Tequila Slammer - barbacoa pulled beef, beef patty, lettuce, pickled red onion, Cornish slaw, and chipotle and tequila mayo; and a bacon double cheeseburger.
For more of this week's headlines, click here.
