Friday five: the week's biggest hospitality stories
- The industry gave a gloomy reaction to Chancellor Rachel Reeves' maiden Budget following Labour’s landslide election victory in the summer earlier today (30 October), during which she announced £40bn of tax rises. Hospitality businesses face a double whammy of tax rises with employers facing a rise in National Insurance contributions (NICs) and a cut in business rates support.
- Martin Williams has stepped down from his role as CEO of Gaucho and M and its holding company Rare Restaurants. Williams has left the company to embark on his next ‘personal chapter’ with a new CEO to be appointed in early 2025. The actor turned restaurateur has spent a total of 15 years at steakhouse group Gaucho and a decade at M Restaurants, which he founded in 2014. He was previously managing director at Gaucho, having joined the company in 2005, and returned to the business in 2018, four-and-a-half years after his departure.
- April Lily Partridge has left her role as sous chef at The Ledbury in London’s Notting Hill, describing the restaurant as a ‘huge chapter’ in her life and career. Partridge confirmed in an Instagram post that she had departed the three Michelin star restaurant, which she originally joined in late 2018. Her CV includes stints at The Clove Club in London and Blue Hills Stone Barns restaurant in New York.
- French restaurateurs Ugo and Antoine Lecorché will make their UK debut early next year when the take over the vacant restaurant space at London’s The Berkeley hotel that was once home to Marcus Wareing's flagship restaurant. Their restaurant, the 250-cover La Môme London, will also occupy the space at the hotel that was all-day dining restaurant The Collins Room, and promises to ‘bring the glamour of the French Riviera, past and present’ to the London hotel.
- Time Out Group looks set to open its first London food hall nearly four years after jettisoning plans to launch in the capital. The media and hospitality group is reportedly in talks with the Crown Estate to open at 10 Piccadilly and 55 Regent Street, W1, which fronts onto Piccadilly Circus. In a statement, Time Out said it had not entered any legally binding arrangements in relation to a London Market, and there is ‘no certainty’ that the current negotiations will result in a subsequent opening
