Diary returns with all the latest scurrilous rumours and gossip, including the possibility of some clarity over senior changes at Gordon Ramsay Group; news of a high-profile chef eyeing up the UK as well as couple of twits looking to enter the restaurant trade.
The long goodbye
Near the end of last month, speculation picked up that Stuart Gillies was set to leave Gordon Ramsay Holdings after more than 15 years with the high-profile chef’s company. Gillies had been appointed chief executive in 2016 having held the position of managing director since 2011. It was suggested that his expected departure would see current managing director Andy Wenlock promoted into his role. However, three weeks on and Gordon Ramsay Holdings have been very quiet on the subject, neither moving to dismiss the claim or confirm it. However, Diary understands that news from the company on changes at the top are afoot, and could be announced over the weekend or early next week. There may also be an update on wider plans for the business, with Ramsay still thought to be keen to expand his Bread Street Kitchen concept into more cities in the UK.
May not such a tall tale
Restaurant concepts come in all shapes and sizes and our inspired by numerous things, but what about a venture inspired by the imagination of Roald Dahl. Two years ago, to mark the author’s 100th birthday, Bompas and Parr joined up with Les Enfants Terribles for a special interactive dinner in the Waterloo vaults, based on Dahl’s book The Twits. News now reached Diary that Roald Dahl Story Company Limited, which manages the copyrights of the “world’s number one storyteller”, is also looking to enter the restaurant space and has been seeking an appropriate site for said venture in central London. One site that was thought to have been under consideration for the restaurant, which is understood to have the working title of Wonka & Co, was the former Les Deux Salons site in Covent Garden, which is currently closed.
In the market for more
Earlier this week, we wrote that there are 16 food hall proposals currently pending in the capital alone. The coming tranche of opening is being led by Market Halls, the project from Xscape founder Andy Lewis-Pratt and Pit Cue investor Simon Anderson, which has plans for sites in Victoria, Fulham and a flagship Oxford Street site. Diary hears that one further entrant could be from chef Todd English, who currently operates his eponymous food hall in The Plaza Hotel in New York City. English is being linked with taking space at 1 New Oxford Street, the mixed-use development on the corner of New Oxford Street and High Holborn in St Giles.
A tale of whoa
Barely a weekend goes by, it seems, without another article in a national newspaper about the woes of the restaurant trade. Diary would concede that times aren’t the easiest for casual dining chains in particular but it does seem like this spate of coverage has more to do with unimaginative editors and the fact restaurants lend themselves to easy puns, than anything genuinely new about the state of the market.
The team at Hawksmoor have pointed to the update from Santo Remedio, the Mexican ‘cantina’ concept, to their crowdfunders as a real insight in to the highs and low of opening a restaurant in the current climate.
The update points to the difficulties in recruiting and the intense cost pressures, including the costs of chillies, herbs and other Mexican ingredients rising 50%. The group even had its grasshoppers held up at customs.
The update goes on: “There have also been some rather wobbly and at times chaotic services, with fire alarms that wouldn’t stop ringing in a packed restaurant, tills crashing and staff walking out mid services among the “highlights!”
“The sheer energy, effort and time running the restaurant takes means we have felt - pretty much most of the time - like there are simply not enough hours in the day to do everything we need to get done.”
