Every now and then we like to portion out our news into bite-size chunks so you can squeeze in your reading in between the manic round of parties, hangovers and inevitable Christmas work lunches. We’ve got more spice than a Szechuan salt-and-pepper squid hotpot:
Fred Sirieux, patron saint of all things hospitality and Manager of Galvin at Windows, is keen to introduce the first National Waiters’ Day on June 23 2013. He wants us to celebrate the hard-working staff in the industry and inspire young people to enter the profession. We say Go Fred, but then can we have a National Customers’ Day where we get to be treated nicely too?
On the face of it, it all sounds terribly exciting. Saffran, the Icelandic chain (no not the frozen one) is coming to Manchester’s Trafford Centre soon. Oooh, we thought: hunks of slow-roast reindeer, glittering shots of aquavit, maybe one of those nice hot pools to sit in amongst fake/real icebergs... um, no. Not so much. Apparently they have an ‘international’ menu and their USP is that they’re healthy – no deep-frying, no white flour, no white sugar and there seems to be an awful lot of brown rice. Good luck with that up North, guys.
Jamie’s doing a sorta reverse Marco Polo and trying to take pasta back to Russia, it seems. We’re not sure which Russian Mafia mob J’s trying to get on the right side of so the Jamie’s Italian restaurants can actually open, but we hope he’s sending easily expendable minions to sort this one out – he’s going to be kinda busy sorting out how to make 7 ½ Minute Meals... and God knows we need that like a dish of fermented shark.
The march of the burger continues apace with the much-anticipated opening of Shake Shack. With venues across NYC, this celebrated burger joint with bells on is set to open – to everyone’s surprise (not) – in Covent Garden. (in fact founder Danny Meyer very sweetly made it sound as if they had scoured London top to bottom – Catford to Muswell Hill – rather than an advisor flunkey going ‘Well, there’s Covent Garden or Sloane Street, Danny boy; you know damn well tourists won’t travel.’)
La fois has passed for le foie, it seems at Brasserie Blanc. They have been banned from/have decided no longer to sell lamb’s liver to those thrill-seeking customers after two recently got food poisoning from allegedly undercooked liver. The health inspector apparently made it quite clear, Mr White, that they would not have this and apparently visited his kitchens just to stick a meat thermometer into a piece of liver to check it held the ‘correct’ 70C for two minutes in order to ensure it was ‘safe’ for customers to eat. The surely-quaking liver failed, M Blanc said ‘foutrez-vous’ and continued cooking his liver pink...with the same result. So now they have removed it from the menu (with much shoulder-shrugging and sighing) as clearly the lily-livered customers can’t take it.
And finally, something for the ladeez... or really not. STK on The Strand has opened, serving steak (as your simple female minds will grasp) has been specifically designed with a ‘female-friendly mindset.’ To help the girls choose their piece of meat, they’ve handily labelled them small, medium and large (weights being something quite clearly beyond their ken) and they also serve fish for those too daunted by dead cow. More disturbingly, the tagline is ‘Not your daddy’s steakhouse.’ Gack.
