Chef turnover is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry, generating massive annual costs, recruitment expert David McHattie suggests ways to tackle the £95m question When you last recruited a chef, the chances are it took you a while .
The spiel: ;Freshly prepared and flavoursome cheap Mexican food served at a fast-food pace and price but in a relaxed dining environment.; Which means? The customer chooses the fillings for their burrito from a counter of hot and cold ...
Long before the mantra of local, seasonal and organic was fashionable the recipient of this year's Lifetime Achievement Award was fighting the good fight. Restaurant paid her a visit… There's a chef I've heard about that's got ..
The first contact a potential guest makes with a restaurant is what will keep them coming back A casual enquiry about the price of the set lunch; a request for a copy of the menu; a reservation for two on a Saturday night. From surprisingly small ...
Moving house is stressful – especially if you're a goldfish heading out of the bowl and into the fryer Since reports of this Japanese-built contraption appeared so close to April 1, we had to make sure we could authenticate its existence ...
At one Barcelona restaurant they have come up with a high-tech solution to the age old problem of announcing the daily specials Nestled under the same roof as one of Barcelona's epic food markets and a stone's throw from the magnificent ...
Forty years after his father and uncle opened Le Gavroche, Chef/Patron Michel Roux Jr shares his feelings about the London stalwart You could set your clock by Le Gavroche celebrations. While other restaurants come and go as regularly as ever, you ...
Who is he? Co-owner of the Cantaloupe Group, which includes Cargo (Shoreditch), Market Place (W1) and The Big Chill brand. He is also co-owner of new Spanish restaurant and bar Camino, which will open in Kings Cross in May. How did he get into the ...
Another pub in Haworth and Bancroft's stable looks sure to stand out and deliver While much noise has been made about Gordon Ramsay's new pub opening in East London, across the country another pub serving decent food that doesn't want to...
A rise in expendable income means diners are likely to eat out more, but this is no time to sit back and relax It's never been more important for restaurateurs to get really good at marketing. Customers are more choosy about where they spend ...
The spiel? ;Healthy eating based on salads made from the freshest, unadulterated ingredients.; Which means? Starting at the base price of £5, customers can create their own salads out of about 80 different seasonal ingredients from ...
When a customer's big night out finally comes around, it's vital that service meets expectations You've been planning this meal for a long time, the reservations were made months ago. The food is excellent, the building is beautiful, but...
Restaurateurs are advised to pay attention to the latest amendments to the Work and Families Act With the introduction of the new Work and Families Act at the beginning of April, restaurateurs need to ensure they're up to speed with the changes ...
Waiting on tables is all about serving the customer, not a management brief, writes Fay Maschler The brief encounter that is the relationship between a waiter and a customer in a restaurant is fraught with the same difficulties that attended Celia ...
Silver service or pub grub? We ask those behind some of the most successful gastropubs how they strike the balance It's a familiar scenario. You knock back a couple of halves in the downstairs bar, ascend the rickety staircase to the dining room...
Crab Crème Brûlée ;The only thing that has been on the menu for the entire ten years we've been open is the Crab Crème Brulee. It's an adaptation of something I saw in a magazine ten years ago which called it ...
DANNY MEYER IS NEW YORK'S RESTAURATEUR EXTRAORDINAIRE AND THE US BUSINESS COMMUNITY IS CLAMOURING FOR HIS WORDS OF WISDOM. STILL HE FOUND TIME FOR RESTAURANT'S UNIQUE BRAND OF HOSPITALITY Five minutes into my first meeting with Danny Meyer I...
Who is he? Owner of the Meredith Group which runs gastropubs The House in Islington, The Bull in Highgate and is about to refurbish The Running Footman in Mayfair, which it will reopen in August. How did he get into the industry? He went to Swiss ...
After a High Court case making employers liable for staff harassment, there's a very real risk that robbery could hit you twice over if you don't take precautions Restaurateurs risk claims of negligence if they fail to protect their staff ...
Heat by Bill Buford Jonathan Cape £17.99 Review by Kayleigh Donahue Five years ago, Bill Buford, former Fiction Editor of The New Yorker, set out to write a profile on Mario Batali, famous in the US as much for his restaurant empire and ...
Who are you? An amateur chef who loves food and has just had the doors flung wide open for him. Ah yes, you won MasterChef, congratulations! You've been hard to get hold of – has fame gone to your head already? No, no. I've been in lots .
Bar dining is the height of fashion, with many restaurants catching on. It’s a good look, but only if you get it right Trendwatchers, particularly those who visit New York with any regularity, will be well aware of the trend for bar dining. ...
Breakfast is the perfect time to put distance between yourself and the competition The nature of a successful breakfast service is speed and numbers, getting as many customers in and out as quickly as you can. Employing staff with the right attitude,...
Tuna Tataki Kobe Jones Style This is one of our top-selling signature dishes. It is seared with fresh cracked black pepper and sliced as we do sashimi. Instead of a soy-based sauce, I accompany it with a creamy dressing that consists of mayonnaise, ...
Who is he? Managing Director and co-founder of the Fat Cat Group, with Simon Patterson, which has 12 café/bars nationwide. They started the Bluu concept in 1999 and sold it to Marston's Pub Company last year. They used to own the Red House .
Who are you? I'm a middle-aged writer who got lucky and was given the gig as restaurant critic of The Observer, which means people now pay attention to what I do – they didn't when I used to chase criminals. So there was a time when you .
All aboard!Restaurant magazine's College Restaurant of the Year Awards for 2007 went with a splash on the Thames It was a night to remember – 100 catering college students celebrating their success on board The Symphony cruising the River ...
Fernando Stovell, Head Chef at the Cuckoo Club in the West End of London, lays out his armoury of essential tools for the kitchen Fernando Stovell worked for four years in the Wellington Club in London before moving to the Cuckoo Club in 2006. ...
As team Arbutus gears up for a summer sequel, Anthony Demetre and Will Smith explain why they're keeping it simple Anthony Demetre and Will Smith have a spring in their step. Little wonder, though; they've just had a bumper year at their Soho...
A new High Court ruling has made the employer liable for any sexual harassment, be it boisterous, discontented or amorous, of their staff at the hands of the public A new law has been passed in which the High Court ruled conclusively that employers ...
How to keep your restaurant and staff in line with the new H&S regulations Three out of five restaurants in the UK admitted putting false information in their health and safety, food safety and fire safety books in order to pass inspections, ...
A successful ‘no reservations' policy means you'll need to learn line management When the L'Atelier concept came to London, it opened with a ‘no bookings' policy normal to chains. That changed only a few weeks after ...
Slow Roast Belly Pork with a Rosti Potato and Brambly Apple Sauce. This dish is very popular. We came up with it four years ago but it's quite a classic because the flavours go so well. Belly pork is quite a trendy meat at the moment, people ...
René Redzepi can reel off the names that were once thrown at Noma by ‘friends and colleagues' with a smile. This is partly because Danish chef humour is, it seems, as sharp as our own native variety – a relatively thick skin ...
Fay Maschler ponders the apparent evolution of restaurant PR and finds many a missing link My late, much-missed pal Alan Crompton-Batt was often credited with having invented the profession of restaurant PR. It was in the early 1980s, after he got ...
As new laws make employers liable for employing illegal workers, the Home Office offers some guidance The Home Office has launched a new toolkit to help restaurateurs who hire migrant workers to stay on the right side of the law. This follows the ...
Alex Renton wrestles with the notion of a truly green restaurant and empathises with Pizza Express workers My new restaurant idea is the Carbonara Neutral: at this serious-minded neighbourhood ‘organo-bistro', electricity will be generated ..
Exuding risotto dishes to make you weep The Spiel: ;Slow food, cooked fast.; Which means? Risotto is cooked with a red wine, pancetta, fi sh stock or vegetable base and a choice of fi sh, meat and vegetables. Large batches are cooked up and ...
After the Black Pig and St Ervan, the Cornish Michelin star returns to the stove with a signature restaurant in Fowey With this, the third Cornish restaurant to showcase his talent in under four years, you could be forgiven for thinking Nathan Outlaw...
It's all about you – but remember, when it comes to effective CVs and applications, it's what potential employers want to see that counts When a busy manager receives hundreds of applications for a single position on their staff, very ...
Tragus, owned by Blackstone, has bought Ma Potters restaurant company, which includes the Ma Potters Bar Restaurant and Chargrill brands, for £14.15m. The 16 UK sites are predominantly in shopping centres and have an average of 100 covers per ...
Who is he? Co-owner, with Caroline Jones of fi ve pubs serving food under the Jobo Developments company. Their fi rst, The Birdcage, opened in Stoke Newington in 2001 and they have opened nearly one a year since, most recently The Three Crowns, also ..
Why the Boisdale has decided to bottle its very own series of limited edition single malts I felt like I had finally made it. To my right was sitting a beautiful columnist from Wallpaper, to my left was the editor of Whisky Magazine. Other guests ...
What is it? The longest-standing French restaurant in London, dating back to the early 40s when Charles de Gaulle came here during the war. Who owns it? Tricolor-flying, moustache-twizzling, 65-year-old Alain Lhermitte . The dashing Frenchman arrived...
Vernes Restaurant and Tea Rooms on the riverside of the Cotswold's Bourton-on-the- Water has been sold for an undisclosed sum after offers in the region of £89,950 were sought for the new lease. The stone property includes a 60-cover ...
Meanwhile, property agents Colliers Robert Barry orchestrated the sale of The Daffodil restaurant in Cheltenham. The brasserie-style venue, which used to be an Art Deco cinema, has been bought by Mark Stephens who was responsible for the site's ...
What is it? A Leeds-institution, this Italian has seen three new looks and homes since 1974. Who owns it? Oliver Teodorani set up the original Bibis in Mill Hill in partnership with Dino Aristotelous. He opened a second Bibis in York in 1979 (sold in...
The highs and lows of energy costs vs energy savings, and some balancing incentives With energy prices at an all-time high, it is becoming increasingly important for restaurants to take a closer look at their energy-saving methods and technologies. ...
While most restaurants feverishly run to stand still, some travel at a more sedate pace and keep well ahead of the field Oversized pepper mills, napkins folded like sail boats, dessert trolleys and lacy doilies… welcome to the retro world of ...
How one restaurant has set the record straight A libel verdict in the Northern Ireland High Court earlier this month may help to give reviewers pause for thought and affronted restaurateurs greater confidence in setting the record straight. In August...