CODE Quarterly | Issue 13 | Winter 2017

Issue 13 Winter 2017

Quarterly

The eyes & ears of the hospitality industry 30 under 30 1 | Trouble brewing? | Mr Chow at 50 | Borough Market after the attacks

Distributed by hand to the best restaurants, hotels, bars and private members’ clubs | codehospitality.co.uk

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Contents 5.

Staff briefing

6.

In season: shopping pages

8.

CODE breaking: restaurant news

Editor Lisa Markwell

10.

30 under 30

18.

Creative Director Alexander Taralezhkov

Ones to watch

19.

At my desk: Jeremy Lee

20.

Tea and coffee in restaurants

24.

Mr Chow at 50

28.

Head to head: are sharing plates a good idea?

30.

What we’re eating this edition

32.

Borough Market, six months on

36.

In conversation with... Simon Hopkinson

42.

New opening: The Square

47.

Old school review: The India Club

48.

The tastiest new books of the season

52.

24 hours in Tel Aviv

54.

The other side of Copenhagen

57.

What’s cooking on Instagram

58.

Staff meal: what they have for supper at Salon

Publisher Adam Hyman

Contributors Dessy Baeva Nicholas Balfe Nick Gibson Loyd Grossman Chloë Hamilton Katie Hammond Hermione Hill Henrietta Lovell Jason Lowe Anna Sulan Masing Harriet Raper Ed Thaw

Head office CODE Hospitality 6th Floor Greener House 66-68 Haymarket London SW1Y 4RF Tel: +44 20 7104 2007 contact@codehospitality. co.uk @CODEhospitality @codehospitality CODE Quarterly (online) ISSN 2398-9726

New destinations on the app include:

DIRECTORY

The Coal Shed Brighton import comes to One Tower Bridge The Hinds Head Heston’s Michelin-starred gastropub in Bray Eve Bar Cocktails in Covent Garden from Adam Handling Patty & Bun No-nonsense burgers in Hackney, Notting Hill and Fitzrovia

For full list of participating restaurants and bars, see page 59 -3-

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

THE CODE APP

WOOD, Manchester Masterchef-winning food from Simon Wood

ShowCave - The Norman Hotel - Israel Š EuroCave - 11/2017 - Photos are not contractually binding. - Raz Rogovsky

With its combination of luxury and high-quality materials, ShowCave has given the wine cabinet a facelift : innovative and modern, it combines cutting-edge technology and bold design.

www.pro.eurocave.co.uk

Staff briefing What’s hot.

And just like that, we’ve reached the end of 2017. It’s been a busy year for us at CODE HQ. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes investing in and developing a new version of the CODE app, which we plan to release early next year. We welcomed Lisa Markwell to the team, who is now editor across of all our media platforms.

Lisa and I have been working on some fun ideas, including consumer-facing products – a first for CODE – that we plan to launch in 2018. Watch this space, as they say.

2017 has been a pivotal year for the consultancy arm of CODE. Headed by Charlie Hall, we’ve invested, fundraised, advised and helped open five new restaurants including first bricks-and-mortar sites for both Sub Cult and Butchies, a new location for Edson and Natalie Diaz-Fuentes’ Santo Remedio, a new sushi hand-roll concept called Inigo and Linda Lee’s Korean deli and lifestyle shop, Mee Market. We continue to work actively with them all and are always on the look out for new opportunities – so feel free to email me (adam@codehospitality.co.uk) or Charlie (charlie@codehospitality.co.uk).

I’m especially proud of how the Quarterly has blossomed over the past two issues.

People still ask me why we do a print version of a magazine. I’m hoping that the front cover, the content and the design answer this question. Like good hospitality, it cannot be properly done digitally and I want it to be a platform for anyone in hospitality to voice their opinions or thoughts on anything they feel is relevant to it. So please drop me or Lisa a note if you’d like to put pen to paper for the next issue.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2018; thank you for all your continued support.

Pasta London can’t get enough of our carby Italian friend. Available at Pastaio, Flour & Grape and Passo. Diets sold separately

Food courts 2.0 THE place to dine. Check out Old Spitalfields Market, Harrods and Bang Bang Oriental Foodhall

Silver servers The rise of the over-50s working front of house. Learned, sensible and know their Burgundy from their Bordeaux. As encouraged

by Corbin & King

Veganism Don’t have beef. It’s here to stay. Plus it’s good for you and the environment

What’s not.

Adam Hyman Founder, CODE @AdamMHyman

Welcome to the Winter edition of CODE Quarterly, and to the annual selection of 30 young stars of the hospitality world (well, 40; we cheated). It’s important not just to celebrate the young London chefs whose names are already known – there’s lots of talent in the other areas that keep our industry going, and it’s more diverse than ever.

Promoting them, in both senses of the word, is vital. Recently I attended an event organised by The TMRW Project, set up by chef Dan Doherty, GM Emma Underwood and writer Anna Sulan Masing to support young people in the hospitality industry. The theme of the event was “Does front of house need a re-brand?” and the panel included Gary Usher, Nick Gibson and Sunaina Sethi. They discussed the two big difficulties facing front-of-house – a recruiting crisis and the negative perception of the role, both from kitchen staff and from diners. There were no easy answers but today, encouraging and protecting staff is one way to minimise problems.

Say what?

Not a fan of calling your restaurant a name that nobody can pronounce.

Rents Debilitating, sky-high central London rents. R.I.P the independent restaurateur.

I’d love to hear from you with comments on 30 Under 30 and any other subject: I’m on lisa@codehospitality.co.uk. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Dress codes So last decade, darling. Out with the jackets and ties, in with the designer sneaks.

Lisa Markwell Editor, CODE @HoldsKnifeLikePen -5-

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Something my years as a restaurant critic taught me were that a restaurant ignores the last 30 minutes of a diner’s visit at their peril. I’ve given low scores because I’ve missed trains when I couldn’t find anyone to take my credit card, and for crap coffee. So I really wanted to look at this issue with two experts – you’ll find the feature on page 20.

Pricey H2O A tenner for a bottle of water.

Do one. Booze is cheaper.

Tap or filtered please.

In season Whether or not you’re are shopping for someone else or (ahem) yourself, at this time of year there are some rather delicious things to buy, and cool designs to use.

From instant sugary gratification to a long-lasting notebook, I’m sure we can tempt you…

Makes scents

Chefs who cart around produce and kit in their cars will know that things can end up a bit, well, smelly.

New brand Roadscents has car airfresheners that are potent, gorgeous and long-lasting. Banish the Magic Tree forever, you know you want to.

From £10, roadscents.com

Sous chew

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

There’s a lot of novelty confectionery around at this time of year but trust the Sous Chef website to have something more intriguing. The Lakrids liquorice is glitzy but very grown-up and delicious – salted caramel gets CODE’s vote. £8.95, souschef.co.uk

Most noteworthy

We’d seen a few chefs praising the Stone notebook and took a closer look. This sturdy water- and grease-proof notebook sits flat, has a magnet to stop it moving on a work station and has perforated pages, plus a loop for a Sharpie. A kitchen essential, we say, and so do Dan Doherty, José Pizarro, Jeremy Lee and many more.

Minimum order 25, personalisation on request, from bookblock.com/stone

WINTER -6-

Box fresh A clear winner

As clear and crisp as we all wish winter would be, this new Negroni Bianco from Bar Termini is a thing of deliciousness. It was created by Tony Conigliaro and designed to be drunk straight up, well chilled. Well, if we must… £36.95, bar-termini.com

Great grains

Scrambling about for something to elevate a humdrum dinner? CODE was impressed with this find from good old Sainbury’s. The L’Aquila brand truffle salt is punchy without being overpowering, and made a celeriac mash quite luscious. £4.20, sainsburys.co.uk

We’re trying not to mention the C word, but since it’s December, here at CODE we must acknowledge that some folk want to know about seasonal goodies. From the array of hampers that are produced, we’ve weeded out the overpriced, underwhelming and just plain random to show you the food gifts worth considering.

Soho stalwart Lina Stores does a great selection of packaged produce for Christmas with their famous striped wrapping. This well-priced La Cucina Cook’s hamper contains (in a Lina Stores tote bag) nduja, anchovies, bottarga and salamino rochetto – a perfect antidote to bland snacks. £40, linastores.co.uk

It’s not quite the same as the cossetting you get in the Piccadilly restaurant, but the Wolseley’s Christmas Hamper comes a close second. A sleek black basket contains very good wines, Christmassy treats and longer lasting items like a silver tea strainer and AA Gill’s terrific book about the restaurant. £350, thewolseley.com

One of London’s most acclaimed restaurants, Quality Chop House, has a gorgeous bumper bag on offer – which reflects the restaurant and shop’s commitment to great produce. We’d be delighted to receive the QCH Christmas essentials, plus well-chosen treats from Rare Tea, Ortiz, Allpress and more. Plus those confit potatoes. £150, shop.qualitychophouse.com

A good catch

Jill Stein is well known for her good taste in the interior design of Rick Stein’s restaurants. Now she’s teamed up with Amanda Barlow of Made for Life Organics to produce a range of rather lovely toiletries named Porthdune inspired, of course, by Cornwall.

From £8.50, rickstein.com

Farmison & Co has been awarded the Online Butcher’s Shop of the Year, and looking at their array of heritage breed meats, it’s no surprise. The Yorkshirebased butchery has longhorn sirloin, cockerels and a stuffed hogget leg available now: bound to be big sellers at this time of year. Full list of cuts and prices at farmison.com

Not at your ski lodge? Us neither, but we can pretend with the La Fromagerie ‘Winter in France’ gift box. As you’d expect there is a choice of exemplary cheeses, plus excellent wines from the regions represented and extras like saussison and biscuits.

It comes with the smart La From canvas bag too. £250, lafromagerie.co.uk -7-

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Chop, chop

Just seeing the peppermint green of a Claridge’s product gets us excited, and for the first time ever, the hotel has created hampers for a very luxe fix. The jam and baked goods are there, of course, and the famous Christmas pudding, but also a chic Fornasetti candle and all manner of other good things. Worth the expense to be the first to tuck in…

From £295, giftshop.claridges.co.uk

CODE breaking

Rosewood

London

The eyes and ears of the industry

What a location… Rosewood has announced it will be the operator when the American Embassay on Grosvenor Square becomes a hotel. It joins the Hong Kong firm’s Holborn site, which was awarded Hotel of the Year at the 2017 Cateys. The Grade-II listed modernist block will become a 137-bedroom hotel with a spa and will maintain its façade. Meanwhile Rosewood is looking to develop the Royal High School in Edinburgh next.

Kettner’s

In January the Soho House Group will unveil a new Kettner’s, after a two-year closure of the fabled 150-yearold French restaurant. Kettner’s Townhouse, on Romilly Street, will launch with two bars, a restaurant and 33 bedrooms. Meanwhile next door, the original Soho House will also reopen in early 2018. The group says the design team are putting the finishing touches to 40 Greek Street which will now have an extended roof terrace.

Pure Filth

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Chef Gizzi Erskine and nutritionist Rosemary Ferguson will open a permanent site in London for their new venture in the new year: at the time of going to press, the location had not been announced. Created to tackle our ongoing over-reliance on meat, whilst in line with London’s fixation with veggie and vegan food concepts, Pure Filth offers ‘healthy food to hedonists’.

The Principal

Set to open in early 2018, The Principal London has announced that chef Brett Redman is to launch new restaurant Neptune within the hotel. Owner of Elliots in Borough, Redman will team up with former stylist Margeret Crow for the project. This will be their second venture together, since launching The Richmond restaurant and oyster bar in London two years ago. The hotel will also feature Fitz’s, which is being described as “a sumptuously hedonistic cocktail bar”.

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Rest of the UK

In addition to our weekly digital Bulletin, here we round up this quarter’s biggest news in the restaurant and hotel scene. By Hermione Hill

Tom Kerridge has just opened his ‘butcher-pub’ in Marlow. He has partnered with Andy Cook, friend and butcher, and Greene King, on the new venture, which combines a butchers and public house into one. Cook has been providing Tom’s two-Michelin-starred pub The Hand and Flowers for nearly 10 years. This is the first of Greene King’s new joint-venture concepts, a new programme in its Pub Partners division.

Gravetye Manor

One of Britain’s first country house hotels, dating back to 1598, will shut from January until May 2018 to allow for refurbishment of the hotel and its restaurant. Most prominent will be a floor-to-ceiling window to showcase the beauty of the famous 35-acre gardens and bring the ‘outside in’, including views of the 1.5 acre Victorian kitchen garden which supplies chef George Blogg.

Having lost its Michelin star in 2008, the Sussex property won it back in 2015 under Blogg and its new owners.

Dockyard Social

Glasgow gets a stellar street-food site with the opening of Dockyard Social. It’s the work of local entrepreneur Kyle Steel, who already runs the Section33 pop-ups – this new large-scale project will not only have a rotating line-up of operators, but will provide training and opportunities for disadvantaged people in the area.

D&D London has managed to recruit star chef Aiden Byrne away from long-time partners Living Ventures for its first Manchester opening. 20 Stories will be at the top of the No.1 Spinningfields building and will feature a restaurant, bar, grill and large rooftop terrace. Byrne and team will launch with a modern British menu in February.

Milk Bar

Christina Tosi – protégée of David Chang and current Masterchef US judge – is expanding her bakery business.

Milk Bar has raised its first round of venture capitalist funding which will be used to drive its growth in e-commerce business, merchandise offerings, and baking classes. Tosi started working with Chang on Momofuku’s desserts before launching the first stand-alone Milk Bar in 2008.

Hotel Fauchon

Luxury French deli and pastry shop Fauchon is to open its first hotel next summer, on Place de la Madeleine, Paris. Renowned hotel specialist Richard Martinet, who is recognized for his work on Hôtel de Crillon and the Peninsula, has been appointed interior designer to convert the classical Haussmann building into a five-star hotel.

Noma

The wait is almost over for those pining for René Redzepi’s restaurant. After its most recent soujorn in Mexico and a temporary location, Noma is now accepting reservations for its re-opening – although the new incarnation will be in a different space and with a different focus this time around. But you might have to wait; the initial FebruaryApril timeframe booked out within a day of launching.

Google

Queues might be about to change... Google has recently introduced a new feature on the Maps function which will help hungry users to find out exactly when a restaurant is likely to be busy and how long they would have to wait for a table. The retail feature presents realtime data on nearly one million restaurants worldwide, building on accumulated and anonymised data which the search engine gathers from its Google Maps users.

It is thought to soon progress to Android, where it will expand to include grocery stores.

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

20 Stories

Rest of the world

The Butcher’s Tap

Krisztian Palinkas, 23 Head chef, Rambla

Born in Denmark, Palinkas’ childhood was spent working in a fishery next to the Baltic sea. It was here his passion for fresh, quality seafood began. In 2014, Palinkas moved to London and has since been working under the guidance of chef and restaurateur Victor Garvey.

Palinkas is currently head chef at Garvey’s newest restaurant, Rambla on Dean Street in Soho.

Dan Graham, 30 Head chef, Pidgin

CODE’s annual roll-call of young talent is bigger and better than ever. This year we looked all around the country and found so many rising stars in the world of hospitality that it was hard to limit ourselves to just 30... which is why we’ve sneaked in some ‘ones to watch’ too

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After training as an architect for seven years, Graham decided to follow his passion for food and become a chef. Following positions at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, L’Autre Pied and Odette’s, he joined James Ramsden and Sam Herlihy’s Pidgin in January 2016. By September he had taken on the role of head chef and Pidgin was recently awarded Best Restaurant at the 2017 Observer Food Monthly Awards.

Fin Spiteri, 27

Tori Slater, 29

Son of industry stalwarts Melanie Arnold and Jon Spiteri, Spiteri worked as club and bar manager at Quo Vadis before playing a vital role as managing partner of the Flat Iron Project in Borough, now a permanent fixture at Flat Iron Square.

Throughout his career, Spiteri has continually supported Rochelle Canteen, co-owned by his mother, and he has just taken up the role of bar and events manager at their second restaurant at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.

After graduating with a degree in International Hospitality Management and a passion for the restaurant and hospitality industry, Slater spent time at Toptable, Soho House Group and D&D London. From there she moved to Tanya LayzellPayne’s PR company Gerber Communications, where she has worked on the launch of Skye Gyngell’s Spring and Ikoyi, among other projects.

Slater has recently been appointed managing director of the business.

Bar manager, Rochelle Canteen at the ICA

Managing director, Gerber Communications

Bonny Porter, 28

Tommy Banks, 28

Owner, Balls & Company

Owner and head chef, The Black Swan

Banks started working at The Black Swan, his family’s pub, with no real intention of becoming a chef. However by 2013, at just 24, he was awarded a Michelin star, making him the youngest chef in Britain at the time to hold that accolade. The Black Swan now has four AA Rosettes. He was a winner on BBC Two’s Great British Menu in both 2016 and 2017. In October, this year, The Black Swan at Oldstead was named the world’s best rated restaurant by TripAdvisor.

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Born and raised in Sydney, Porter started her career as an apprentice chef at Neil Perry’s Rockpool Bar & Grill. In 2012, she appeared on Masterchef: The Professionals in Australia, where she became the youngest-ever finalist at just 23. It was Marco Pierre White who encouraged Porter to move to London, where she joined The Arts Club in Mayfair before opening her first restaurant Balls & Company on Soho’s Greek Street in 2015.

Niall Keating, 26

Aaron Webster, 28

Executive chef, Whatley Manor

Co-owner, Smoke & Salt

After gaining experience at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and The Latymer at Pennyhill Park, Webster became sous chef at The Shed in Notting Hill. It was here that he met his now business partner, Remi Williams.

The duo started Smoke & Salt in 2014 as a supperclub, in which carnation it was named, one of Time Out’s Coolest Supperclubs.

This year it found a permanent site at POP Brixton and is already highly successful.

Keating was just 15 when he started working in hospitality, washing dishes at The Fitzherbert Arms, Swynnerton.

He has since worked in places such as Restaurant Sat Bains, Benu and Kong Hans Kaelder.

In 2016, Keating became executive chef at Whatley Manor. He oversees the main restaurant, The Dining Room, which has just been awarded its first Michelin star.

Ben Marks, 25 Co-owner and head chef, Perilla

Before launching his own restaurant, Perilla, in November 2016, Marks (above right) started his culinary career as a commis chef at Operakallaren in Stockholm. After becoming a chef apprentice at Claridge’s in London, he took the role of chef de partie at Noma in Copenhagen, before returning to London to work at The Square.

Now he and Matt Emmerson have a hit on their hands in Stoke Newington.

Toby Burrowes, 26

Matt Emmerson, 26

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Head chef, Elystan Street

Born in Australia, Burrowes discovered his passion for cooking aged 14, at an Italian restaurant in Corowa. He has since worked at The Pickled Sisters, in the Cofield Winery and The Provinence. In 2013, Burrowes moved to London to join Phil Howard at the two Michelinstarred The Square in Mayfair, where he became sous chef and was then appointed head chef at Howard’s Elystan Street. The restaurant has since received numerous accolades, including its first Michelin star.

Co-owner, Perilla

Emmerson may have got a first in chemistry at Sussex University, but it was being a childhood friend of Ben Marks that has proved more useful to his career.

He returned to London after university to pursue his interest in food, and worked at Polpo Farringdon and Ape & Bird.

After working at the relaunched Polpetto on Berwick Street, he left in September 2015 to set up Perilla with Marks.

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Merlin LabronJohnson, 26

Ollie Templeton, 26

Labron-Johnson is a good example of the energy that is making London’s culinary scene so powerful. At just 24, and within nine months of it opening, he was awarded his first Michelin star for Portland.

In November 2016 he was awarded ‘chef of the year’ at the London Restaurant Festival Awards. Labron-Johnson is originally from Devon and had previously worked at In De Wulf in Belgium.

The Templeton clan has done a brilliant job of making Carousel an always-interesting creative hub for visiting chefs. Ollie Templeton has the role of head chef, working with many internationally acclaimed names in creating their four-course dinner menus. But his own lunch service menu is noteworthy too, with a range of seasonal small plates.

Executive chef, Portland and Clipstone

Co-owner and head chef, Carousel

Will Bowlby, 29 Co-owner and head chef, Kricket

It was a big step up when Kricket moved from Brixton to a smart new location in Soho. But the restaurant is thriving, thanks to its two dynamic creators.

Bowlby spent two years as head chef at Cheval in Mumbai, then returned to London and worked under Vivek Singh at Cinnamon Kitchen. In 2015, Bowlby and Rik Campbell cofounded Kricket; the move to Soho was last January. They have since been shortlisted for various awards including the YBFs, the London Restaurant Awards and Tatler Restaurant Awards.

Jeremy Chan, 30 Co-owner and head chef, Ikoyi

Rik Campbell, 29 Co-owner, Kricket

After graduating from Newcastle University, Campbell (above left) moved to London and worked in corporate finance, at Deloitte in the City, specialising in hospitality. During his time there he also started a boutique events company called A Party With Us. In 2014, he left Deloitte and joined forces with Bowlby to co-found Kricket. The duo are opening a second restaurant in west London in 2018.

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Chan left the world of finance five years ago, to start cooking.

He began at Hibiscus, followed by a brief stage with the Young Turks. He worked under Robert Reid at Balthazar London before heading to Copenhagen to stage at Noma in the test kitchen.

On returning to London, Chan worked for Ashley Palmer-Watts at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal before leaving to start Ikoyi, which opened in St James’s Market earlier this year, already attracting positive reviews.

Tom Adams, 29

Matthew Maynard, 27

It’s the destination that everyone wants to visit: the Cornwall restaurant with rooms where foraged and farm food is shared round the table. The critically acclaimed Coombeshead Farm was started by Adams with business partner April Bloomfield last year and he has just been crowned young chef of the year at the Observer Food Monthly Awards 2017. Adams had co-founded Pitt Cue Co in 2011 aged just 22 – moving from a food truck on the South Bank to a site in Soho and then the City... before he moved to the

Born in north London, Maynard was part of the opening team at Riding House Café, establishing his appetite for the hospitality world. At 22, he became general manager at Plum & Spilt Milk at The Great Northern Hotel.

Maynard then moved on to Fortnum & Mason in Dubai before returning be part of the launch team at the department store’s restaurant, 45 Jermyn St. He’s now head of food and drink at the newly re-opened Trafalgar St. James hotel.

Co-owner, Coombeshead Farm

Erchen Chang, 27

Bastien Ferreri, 28

Co-owner and chef-director, XU and BAO

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Head of food and drink, Trafalgar St. James

Food and beverage manager, Frenchie Covent Garden

Chang is already a wellestablished figure in the London culinary scene. She is chefdirector and co-owner of BAO’s two sites and this year’s new opening XU, which is named after her grandfather. Chang draws inspiration from her home country of Taiwan, as well as her studies at Slade School of Fine Art, a combination which is on show at the stunning interior of XU on Rupert Street.

Sommelier Ferreri has worked his way up at a number of Michelin-starred restaurants throughout France and London, including Le Bistrot d’Eygalières, Chez Bru, Vallon de Valrugues, Marc de Passorio, Maze by Gordon Ramsay, Murano and Hibiscus. He joined Frenchie Covent Garden when it launched, as food and beverage manager, and was part of the team that won best front of house and best opening of 2016 by GQ magazine.

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Francis Roberts, 30

Richie Corrigan, 28

General manager and sommelier, Westerns Laundry

General manager, Corrigan’s Mayfair

This year, veteran restaurateur Richard Corrigan appointed his son Richie as general manager of Corrigan’s Mayfair. This is not nepotism; Corrigan Jr has training from Les Roches International School of Hotel Management in Switzerland, to add to being brought up in the restaurant industry. He has years of experience at his father’s restaurants Bentley’s, Corrigan’s, and Virginia Park Lodge, as well as Rosewood London.

From a Peckham rooftop to an Islington restaurant, Roberts has had an interesting journey. The largely self-taught sommelier came to London for Franks in south London, then managed Anchor & Hope before spending time at Holborn Dining Room, 8 Hoxton Square and Buyers Club in Liverpool, where he created the first natural wine list in the North West. Roberts is now GM and sommelier at Westerns Laundry (and has added a WSET Level 3 qualification to his wine knowledge).

Rob Howell, 25

Sophie Orbaum, 28

Howell was first appointed head chef at the Pony & Trap in Bristol and from there was given the opportunity by its owner Josh Eggleton to open the vegetablefocused Root with business partner Meg Oakley. Howell had previously spent time gaining experience at Ondine, Bristol’s Casamia, Elystan Street, Gordon Ramsay’s Maze and Studio in Copenhagen; now he’s at the forefront of the move away from meat-led restaurants.

Sophie Orbaum is a familiar name in the hospitality communications industry.

Having previously been part of the Gerber Communications team, where she worked on the openings of Gymkhana, Hoppers and Café Murano and others, she joined Harts Group 18 months ago to launch El Pastor, re-launch Quo Vadis after a refurb and develop and maintain the Barrafina brand.

Co-founder and head chef, Root

Head of communications, The Harts Group

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

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Liam Nelson, 30

Luca Missaglia, 29

Nelson began his career in the hospitality industry just over 10 years ago whilst studying at university. Starting at Davys of London in Canary Wharf, he then went up to the Michelinstarred Box Tree Restaurant in Ilkley. Nelson took up his first general manager role at Sam’s Chop House in Leeds and a year later, he joined the team at Barbecoa. He is now restaurant director for Stevie Parle’s restaurants, having worked with Parle over four years and helped the company’s growth from one to six sites.

Missaglia, originally from Vimercate in Italy, began his career in London in 2008 at The O bar, where he won ‘Best Bartender in London’ from ImBibe. He then moved to LAB Bar in Soho before working at Quo Vadis – winning multiple mixology awards before going on to become Club Manager.

Missaglia joined Aqua London in 2014, before moving to Aqua Shard at the end of 2015, where he has developed a distinctive cocktail list.

Restaurant director, Stevie Parle Restaurants

Sebby Holmes, 27

Addyson Pope, 29

Owner, Farang

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Senior bar manager, Aqua Shard

Marketing manager, Caprice Holdings

Holmes started cooking at just 12. Now 27, he recently opened restaurant Farang in Highbury.

Holmes started working at Thai restaurant The Begging Bowl, where he worked his way up to sous chef. From there, he moved on to Smoking Goat, where he spent more than a year as head chef. His first book Cook Thai was published this year. Holmes also works as a consultant for EatGrub, a wholesaler for edible insects.

Pope has been with Caprice Holdings since 2014. Starting as a marketing executive, she quickly moved to group marketing manager. She works across the whole Caprice portfolio, but with a particular focus on the group’s Mayfair restaurants such as Sexy Fish and Scott’s. Pope’s own passion for food and fashion has led to partnerships with brands such as Bobbi Brown, Liberty London and the House of Creed.

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Oscar Holgado, 28

Rose Ashby, 27

Holgado first moved to London to be a part of Angela Hartnett’s opening team at Murano in Mayfair in 2008. He went on to build up experience in kitchens across the capital including Fera at Claridge’s and Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley. In 2016, he was appointed head chef at Pitt Cue in the City, before returning to Murano to resume work with Hartnett and the team, now as head chef.

Born in London and raised in South Africa, Ashby trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine.

The opportunity soon arose to join Michelin-starred restaurant Petersham Nurseries where she thrived under the tutorage of Skye Gyngell and, later, Greg Malouf. In 2014, after working on her own projects, Ashby teamed up with Gyngell once more, and helped open Spring at Somerset House. Starting as senior chef de partie, within two years she became head chef and now runs the 25-strong team.

Head chef, Murano

Greg Almeida, 29

Head bartender, Scarfes bar at Rosewood London

Richard Sharples, 27

Executive chef, Elite Bistros Initially disinterested in cooking as a profession, Sharples was inspired by chef Darren Rowe at The Pendle, who taught him the fundamentals of cooking. After three years, he acted as sous chef for Mary Ellen McTague at Aumbry before pursuing his own pop-ups. In 2016, Sharples joined Gary Usher’s Sticky Walnut, before becoming head chef at his new opening Hispi in Didsbury. He has since taken on an executive chef role for Elite Bistros, helping Usher oversee all his four restaurants.

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With more than 10 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, Almeida has worked amongst popular names such as Montreal’s LAB bar, Mayfair’s Novikov lounge and Michelinstarred Pollen Street Social. He assisted multi-award winning bartender, Monica Berg, before joining her to open Oslo’s Himkok bar, which made the World’s 50 Best Bars list. Almeida was appointed head bartender at Scarfes Bar earlier this year.

Head chef, Spring

Talk about a trial by fire… Heafield began her cooking career down a mine in the Australian outback for six months, cooking for 30 miners a day. The Brit came home and undertook an apprenticeship at the University of West London, where she was awarded with ‘Best Performance of the Year’

by Heston Blumenthal and Lorraine Pascal. Heafield is now head chef at Berber & Q Shawarma Bar on Exmouth Market, sister restaurant to Berber & Q Grill House.

Borer has had a fast rise through the ranks to become head chef (and co-owner) of the new Smoking Goat in east London. At 28, he’s been with the Ben Chapmanheaded restaurants for a year and half, after leaving the Modern Pantry.

Originally from Anglesey, Borer knows and loves working with British produce – from Cornish fish to Dorset-grown Thai spices. His ‘Offal Mondays’ at Smoking Goat were rightly famous.

Let’s see what he does in Shoreditch.

Vicky Heafield

Ali Borer

Head chef, Berber & Q Shawarma Bar, 28

Head chef, Smoking Goat Shoreditch, 28

One of the movers and shakers in the burgeoning Bristol restaurant scene is Bulrush. And a big part of the restaurant’s success is manager Katherine Craughwell, who set it up with co-owner and chef George Livesey – she originally trained as an actress, which might help explain her entertaining, informative hosting style.

Craughwell and Livesey opened in Bristol partly for economic reasons, but it’s paid off: Bulrush went straight in at number 29 in this year’s National Restaurant Awards.

Katherine Craughwell

Manager, Bulrush, 28

Haywood has a degree in hospitality management, from Edinburgh, but this young Scot also has a wealth of experience: at the Caledonian Hotel, 21212 and L’Enclume. At the latter he met thenhead chef Mark Birchall and when Birchall left to establish Moor Hall in Lancashire, he took Haywood with him.

Moor Hall won its first Michelin star this year, and Haywood was promoted to restaurant manager.

On a personal level, he’s been a finalist for the Gold Service Scholarship.

Innes Haywood Restaurant manager, Moor Hall, 26

In the six years that he has been at Gauthier in Soho, Brown has been at the centre of one of the restaurant’s biggest and most successful initiatives – to turn its vegetarian menu fully vegan. Brown studied at Colchester catering college and first worked as a commis at the Intercontinental hotel before joining Alexis Gauthier’s team as a chef de partie.

Now he’s sous chef with special responsibility for the burgeoning (and increasingly fashionable) vegan offer.

Tom Brown Sous chef, Gauthier, 26

ONES TO WATCH IN 2 O 1 8 Sara Lewis

Jonny Mills

The hotel restaurant scene is growing at a staggering pace: one of the year’s most interesting openings has been The Pilgrm in Paddington. Heading its Lounge restaurant is Lewis, who was previously sous chef at Bruno Loubet’s Grain Store, where she worked from 2013 until it closed in August. At The Pilgrm she intends to continue Loubet’s approach to sustainability and low waste.

Mills is chef-director of his own restaurant, The Tame Hare, having worked at countryside sites such as The Cross at Kenilworth (where he went from KP to sous in two years) and The Ebrington Arms. Understanding the demands of such sites has led to The Tame Hare, in Leamington Spa, quickly becoming a favourite with the local community – for its unfussy atmosphere and menu of modern British dishes.

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Head chef, The Pilgrm, 28

Chef-director, The Tame Hare, 28

Harry Brown

General manager, Granary Square Brasserie, 28

At just 18, Brown got a job as waiter and barman at Bodmin Jail restaurant on the edge of the Cornish moor – and after 18 months he was ready to move to London to further his hospitality career.

His stint as a waiter at Gaucho led to becoming group managing partner at 24 years old – while simultaneously studying hospitality management at Westminster College.

He’s now established with Caprice Holdings as GM in the new Granary Square Brasserie.

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Kiloran Buckler Restaurant manager, 27

Buckler was frequently mentioned in glowing reviews for Kitty Fisher’s when it opened, such was her enthusiasm for and expertise in running the front of house for such a busy restaurant smoothly.

Originally from the Black Mountains in south Wales, she dabbled in working as a private chef before joining the Mayfair restaurant. After a spell at the well-reviewed Mash Inn in Buckinghamshire as general manager, she is back in the city to work with ex-Kitty Fisher’s chef Tomos Parry on a new venture.

Julia Oudill

Wine and spirit director, Experimental Group, 28

Oudill’s childhood was spent working with her chef father Didier Oudill, at his Michelin-starred restaurant Villa Ilbarritz in south west France. By 18, she had won numerous awards including Best Student Sommelier of France before moving to Paris to gain experience.

In 2013, Oudill moved to London to work as head sommelier at La Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels. Three years later, Oudill took on a dual role overseeing wine and spirits across Experimental Group’s 20 international hotels, restaurants, wine and cocktail bars.

Tools of the trade

Harriet Raper

In the first of a series, we take a closer look at the workspace of people who inspire us.

This time, the Quo Vadis chef Jeremy Lee

A rose I always like to have a flower on my desk, it’s a very nice thing. This rose was a gift from Billy, who does all the flowers for Quo Vadis. They used to be arranged by me and Eddie [Hart]; imagine two directors spending all day Monday doing flowers while the chefs waited to discuss the week’s menus…!

Luckily this amazing woman Billy came through door saying ‘I love what you do, can I help?’ and she’s been commissioned by us ever since.

I have a huge collection of wooden tasting spoons at home, but I don’t bring them in here – everything that goes into that kitchen gets destroyed … even the chefs!

John Broadley print My screensaver, the film posters downstairs, our menus and my collection of little books that you see around are all the work of our illustrator John Broadley. He was introduced to us by Julian Roberts, who runs Irving & Co designs. After I’d scribbled and doodled a Quo Vadis menu, we worked out that there was space for an illustration and Julian introduced me to John. His work struck such a chord and an amazing friendship is the result. We’ve even won a Catey award for our menu!

Cookbooks I adore looking at cookbooks from abroad, like Tartine and the little Canal House Cooking books.

Particularly from America, which has an extraordinary pantheon of baking titles – although I find the measurements in cups and sticks and so on impenetrable! Luckily I have a baker from Canada who translates for me.

Rolling pin and pudding basin This gorgeous thing is a traditional embossed wooden rolling pin for our biscuits – we get them specially from the Czech Republic. I’ve got this lovely metal pudding basin with a lid, which reminds me that all my puddings are based on my grandmother’s recipes – figgy, ginger, Christmas… all of them.

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Paper and pencils Talking of menus, because we change them every week, there are quite a lot of printed menus to recycle, so I have a stack on my desk which I use for making notes on. And a jar of pencils, too, I love writing with pencils.

Garlic/truck/coaster Sometimes I am given the most wonderful gifts. This crystal garlic bulb was from a grateful client, and I adore the ceramic version of the Quo Vadis coaster, by Billy Lloyd. Very close to my heart is the long red truck, a present from Priscilla Carluccio many years ago. We were renovating the restaurant and the exterior was painted a gull-egg blue. We wanted a line of red and clever Priscilla found exactly the right shade.

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Up, up and up some more into the eaves of the legendary Quo Vadis building on Dean Street – this is where we find Jeremy Lee in the few precious moments when he’s not marshalling the troops in the kitchen or greeting guests in the QV club with kisses and cheery waves.

Lee is something of a legend himself. He first worked with Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum, then Alastair Little, before becoming head chef at Sir Terence Conran’s Blueprint Café. He has been at Quo Vadis since the Hart brothers took it over in 2012, winning legions of fans for his robust, imaginative British cooking.

Up in his tiny eyrie, Lee – in his trademark Labour and Wait apron and a pair of trusty Blundstone boots – regales CODE with anecdotes and advice in his Scottish burr, while pulling down books from his extensive collection and rummaging through bags containing new oils, pans and other ephemera. “I’m constantly looking for stuff when I travel,” he says. “As advised by Darina Allen, ‘always arrive a good few hours early so you can scour the shops, dear’.”

Does he ever get rid of anything?

“Oh no, I just give it all a flick with a feather duster, or it can get a bit cobwebby and Miss Havisham up here.”

Is there trouble...

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Many restaurants neglect the part of the meal that lingers in the diner’s mind. Henrietta Lovell examines why not taking tea seriously is a mistake...

“We don’t sell tea.”

When I started Rare Tea Co. in 2004 restaurant managers in some of the best UK restaurants would laugh at me, or at best look confused. Way back then you might find a dusty box of teabags desiccated on top of the coffee machine. No one ordered tea because the tea was terrible.

I often felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall. I tried to explain, if they served instant coffee granules they probably wouldn’t serve much coffee either. Some nods, more shrugs.

Since then a revolution has happened. Good tea can be found across the country and the world. But not universally.

“Ooh, la, la, Enriette, at the end of the service my waiters will be tired. I can’t ask them to take care of tea. Pfff.”

This from the restaurant manager of a three-Michelin-star place in Paris, where the amuse-bouche was a masterpiece of tweezers and finesse.

But when it comes to the last thing people taste before the bill- who gives a shit? Just bung some tea in a pot and fill it up with water. It’s okay. It’s what they’re used to. Most people will drink fresh mint anyway.

There is a reason for that. Fresh mint is safer. Less fuck-up-able. It’s no rare excitement – but it is OK. And bad tea isn’t ever OK. Let’s not pretend.

I was sitting at restaurant with a pretention to perfection in Heathrow the other day, waiting for a flight, drinking coffee. I order coffee when I can’t be sure of the tea. It’s just less painful. The lady beside me was braver. She got a huge pot with one English Breakfast teabag dangling inside. There was enough water for three or four cups. Her tea was thin and weak. I watched her pour milk in it and the cup turned a sickening grey.

She winced as she drank it. She waited and waited for colour. It came at last, but by then the tea was bitter and cold.

I asked her if it was as horrible as it looked. She said it was worse. The waiter came to give her the bill,

- Was everything alright?

- Yes, thank you.

When he was gone she turned to me, - It’s how it is. I thought it might be better here, but it wasn’t.

The whole point of going to a restaurant is to have delicious things cooked and prepared for us by people with a skill that exceeds our own. We want to try new things, new realms of deliciousness. And we want to be looked after by people who care.

When it comes to a coffee we expect freshly ground beans and an expertly made cup. When it comes to tea we need beautiful crafted leaves prepared with that same level of expertise. It doesn’t need expensive equipment, just control of three elements: leaf to water ratio/ temperature/infusion time. With good leaf and a little precision those realms of deliciousness are easily achievable. As in baking, we can’t just add some eggs, bake for some time at some temperature and expect to get a decent cake or any degree of consistency. Ingredients matter too, of course – butter over margarine.

There are simple and ergonomic tricks I can, and do, teach large, busy restaurants, little cafés and Michelinstarred places to get it right for their set-ups. I’ve never found a restaurant where it wasn’t possible to make tea beautifully. No more effort has to be put in than is already shown to the coffee, but crucially, as much. It can be done. It is done by many, many places now, with fierce pride. Places from the excellent Kaffeine coffee shops in London to Noma in Copenhagen.

Before I first started working with Noma they were only serving about three cups a week. We put in some truly beautiful tea, including a bespoke blend of herbs, and things changed dramatically. They committed to infusing it perfectly, with just the same dedication they take over everything. People get the whole Noma experience from (continued on page 22)

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brewing? ...while poor coffee is an unnecessary letdown in hospitality too. Here, Anna Sulan Masing finds out why paying attention to the right beans makes all the difference

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and understanding that environment.

The coffee quest began simply enough, asking opinions and working their way around Melbourne coffee shops. This lead them to café and coffee roasters Proud Mary, a small team of Australians who work directly with farmers. Proud Mary helped The Fat Duck team set up their coffee offering, including supplying them with a barista who became an integral part of the front of house team in Melbourne.

This first step into this for the way Bellos set up the framework for how the whole team was to approach coffee. Coffee was a way to develop a conversation between staff, other coffee makers, farmers, and guests. It has become a collaborative exercise of learning and developing. Since Australia, The Fat Duck have been working with a number of people in the UK (Cast Iron, Workshop, Assembly Square Mile and Extract), and roast their beans with James Patch at Coopers in Marlow.

The first point was to look at coffee through the lens of their restaurant, which was to approach as an ingredient. In January 2016 Bellos was lucky enough to accompany Nolan Hirte, founder of Proud Mary, on his trip through Central America as he visited the farms they source coffee from. Bellos was very aware he was “a white guy with a camera” and that it isn’t about being a social crusader, but is rather being passionate about the fact that we must become “closer to the food” - to understand the people behind it, the journey it takes. This helps in appreciating and enjoying the product. This level of education and 360° approach to an understanding coffee was brought back to his staff, for all levels and back and front of house; which in turn can be passed on the guest.

Although the coffee comes through exporters, having a relationship directly with farmers (such as The Fat Duck have and other UK speciality coffee roasters do) ensures fair prices can be agreed. This means incomes can be guaranteed, the farmers are able to take risks, invest in their farm and (continued on page 23)

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Coffee culture is a growing trend, it has sunk its teeth into this island and created obsessives out of even the mildest of Brits. But we’ve all been guilty of not thinking of it in detail – from how to make a good coffee, to understanding the roasting process, to the people who grow the bean.

The British Coffee Association states that we are in a café culture boom, with 80 per cent of people who visit coffee shops doing so at least once a week. This year, Mintel research valued the UK coffee market at £2.2 billion, a growth of 37 per cent over the last five years, with a forecast of almost doubling that over the next five years. People are beginning to take their coffee drinking very seriously.

The complexity of coffee can mean that it is easy to brush aside. This is helped by the dominance of companies such as Nespresso, George Clooney and fancy, slick machines make for an easy way out. After an evening spent focused on the glorious plates of food in front of you, such as at The Fat Duck, you can understand how a kick of caffeine can be an afterthought to a meal.

That restaurant is not the only one to have offered only Nespresso – the lack of knowledge, space for a coffee machine and the cost of one, help towards making speciality coffee seem a daunting and unnecessary step. But the way the coffee industry is developing in the UK means that people want to work together, to find solutions that are accessible to all spaces and people – filter coffee is not what it used to be…

At The Fat Duck, general manager Dimitri Bellos talks about coffee as ‘before Australia’ and ‘after Australia’, and shudders to think about ‘before’.

For him and his team the subject of coffee has been a steep learning curve.

In 2015, The Fat Duck popped up in Melbourne for six months as the original Bray restaurant was being refurbished. Bellos and head chef Jonny Lake knew that they would have to develop a different coffee offering than in the UK as the Australian coffee culture was in a very different place. The impetus was about meeting expectations, it was about placing The Fat Duck within a new surrounding

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the moment they are greeted at the door to the last sip of tea that sets them up for their departure into the cold darkness outside. They leave as delighted as they arrive. Tea now stands shoulder to shoulder with the coffee, sometimes nudging ahead.

It’s truly wonderful to see the change that has taken place in restaurants. It makes so much sense.

Not only are guests getting a better experience with good tea, there are good margins to be made. There are still those that complain about the price. Tea is no different to wine, or cheese: it can be bought for less or more depending on the quality; how it is crafted; how expensive it is to produce. Restaurants rarely choose their cheese or wine supplier purely on the basis that they have the cheapest product, regardless of the taste.

What I can guarantee you is that there is truly delicious, directly traded, loose-leaf tea out there that will afford any café, restaurant or hotel an 80 per cent gross profit margin. Probably a 90 per cent margin. If they want to up the stakes and chose the rarer, more expensive teas, guests are more than happy to pay a few pence more for something exceptional. Tea is an affordable luxury. What a restaurant won’t get with good tea is the 98 per cent margin achievable from a cheap, industrial brew. If it’s cheap there is a reason - low skill, high

mechanisation and low flavour. No different from a flabby piece of processed cheese wrapped in plastic.

Then there is the impact on the producer. For tea to be dirt cheap, someone is getting it in the neck. Life expectancy is in the 40s in parts of Assam and East Africa where most of our “normal” tea is made. It’s a cruelly exploitative business run by giant agri-business and middle-men brokers. If we bought and served tea like wine - with care, for flavour and quality over price, then those same farms might thrive like vineyards.

Massive hubris, I know, but we might change the world together, comrades, in small way, but for the better.

If they don’t care about the teawhat does it say about a restaurant?

When your tea is left in a large pot to get cold and bitter, or a “silken” plastic pyramid on a bleached string, dangling menstrually, do you think – How kind. What a treat.

How delicious?

Henrietta Lovell is the founder of The Rare Tea Company

“Tea is no different to wine, or cheese.

But restaurants rarely choose their cheese or wine supplier purely on the basis that they have the cheapest product, regardless of taste”

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grow better coffee. Those coffee producers are then trading off the “C-price”. This is a trading system that is based on worldwide supply and demand and not reflective of actual costs (labour, produce etc), which makes farmers vulnerable to sudden changes in commodity value.

Currently, The Fat Duck purchase their dried green coffee beans from producers they know, or from ‘green buyers’, suppliers that have a direct relationship with farms.

The Fat Duck beans are roasted every Monday by staff.

It is a voluntary basis as it’s their day off, but a lot of the team have participated, and a small group have taken the coffee roasting on as their speciality.

The coffee offering is wonderful for the guest experience, but a real drive behind continuing with the initiative revolves around giving staff another feather to their bow, the opportunity to learn about something new - to develop. It has become a growing focus within the industry, staff want to feel invested in.

For most people coffee begins the day. It’s a warm pick-me-up, and everyone has a favourite way of

drinking that first caffeine fix. It is also the 3pm afternoon break, the time to clear your head before dinner service and, it is the last thing at the end of a long meal. Coffee can be the pillars of our day, therefore it is worth the investment from both a consumer and server perspective.

The art of coffee is not just the final flourish of serving, but like any other highly specialised ingredient it should be respected. Because of its travel across the world and the many people it involves, it has a multiplicity in its narrative and so the coffee bean has a lot for our industry to learn from and collaborate around.

Anna Sulan Masing is a writer and co-founder of The TMRW Project

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

“The complexity of coffee can mean that it’s easy to brush aside... But it’s not just the final flourish of service but, like any other highly specialised ingredient, it should be respected”

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Mr Chow at 5O High fashion, cult art and fine food intersect in the world of Michael Chow, one of the world’s best connected and most respected restaurateurs. Lisa Markwell hears about his half-century of success

What was your plan, your intention, when launching the original Mr Chow in Knightsbridge back in February 1968?

M: When the original location opened, I think there was a feeling of both wanting to show the western world of the beauty of Chinese culture, and also to create an environment that was fun and sexy.

Back then London was going through very exciting – almost revolutionary – times so there was a nexus of energy between showing Chinese history through food and being contemporary and provocative. In a lot of ways the plan was to show the world something they’d never seen before.

Some artwork has been shifted out, but I think you’d be hard pressed to point out any differences. There is a lovely patina to the Knightsbridge location; even as the neighbourhood has changed, Mr Chow has remained, almost like a time capsule.

Is the London restaurant exactly the same in appearance as when it opened? The decor is so ‘on trend’ right now?!

M: There have been one or two kitchen fires over our 50-year history, but the dining rooms have remained the same.

under different names and concepts.

But at the heart of it, Mr Chow was opened with such a clear sense of purpose that it was the one that remained. I’m not sure if anyone thinks of having something that would be around for 50 years...

Did you imagine then that you that you would still have the restaurant (and have other branches) 50 years on?

M: Fifty years went by quick! It’s a miracle though. It was mostly hard work and from time to time, the magic happened. It made it all worthwhile.

Max: Mr Chow started on its own but quickly there were other London restaurants, which my father opened

Top: Andy Warhol. Right: self-portrait

One hesitates to use the word iconic about anyone, but Michael Chow is as close as we might get.

For instance, when asked for a photograph, an Andy Warhol portrait arrives. His art knowledge and collection of works by the 20th century’s leading artists is astonishing.

He has seen pretty much every major celebrity of the recent times in his restaurants – and been married to the fashion legends Grace Coddington and Tina Chow. And while London’s landscape changes constantly and irrevocably, the Mr Chow restaurant in Knightsbridge has remained the same for 50 years.

It is on the occasion of Mr Chow’s anniversary that I asked both Michael and his son Maximillian about the

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enduring success of the restaurant (which is also in eight locations in the US and Mexico). Michael – known as M – is now 78 and spends his time painting at his 57,000 sqft studio and Max runs the business day-to-day.

They both live in in Los Angeles.

Would you say that food has changed immeasurably in that time, both what is available globally and the diners’ knowledge of ingredients and techniques?

Max (pictureed left): In 50 years, food and dining has changed and also very much remained the same. People didn’t eat out as much back then, it was considered a novelty.

Now, it’s the opposite. The information available at our fingertips has turned us all into experts. We think convenience and health have come to the forefront, but those were always important.

You can get quality anything almost anywhere, at any time of year, but we’re also seeing the importance of locality. It’s interesting as food culture progresses, so much of what is new is old styles of food preparation that were long forgotten, and we’re learning that in many cases, these heritage processes are the most beneficial ways to eat. However, our expectations have changed – we need to be blown away in every bite.

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And could you tell me why the Mr Chow menu has remained almost (or is it entirely) the same since it started?

Max: There have been many changes to the menu, but they’re almost imperceptible due to the fact that they’ve happened over the course of 50 years. Certain items, which Mr Chow pioneered and were once considered exotic, have since become commonplace and are no longer on the menu. However, the core of the Mr Chow menu is based on classic Beijing cuisine, which is centuries older than our restaurant. All those dishes have focus and purpose, which we are constantly trying to define and perfect.

Mr Chow is beloved by a great number of celebrities and has a very loyal fanbase of customers – what do you believe is the secret of your unprecedented success?

Max: Mr Chow was always meant to be theatrical. A party where everyone was part of the performance.

The most important part of that is making sure everyone felt like they belonged. Connecting on personal level with every person that comes through the door.

We constantly remind our staff of that and rehearse service like it was a play. There is an element of theatre to being involved at Mr Chow.

Every night is a performance that won’t be repeated.

Mr Chow’s good taste in design and art is well documented.

There seems to be an eternal argument whether food can be considered art – where do you stand on this?

Max: Art usually doesn’t serve a function beyond being art. That is the difference between art and craft.

Craft is functional and repeatable, art is not. Can you do that with food?

Many articles about the restaurant talk about the expense of the food – and Mr Chow has responded in interviews that it’s important to be expensive. Could you expand on that?

Max: If something is small, expensive and heavy, it’s usually good. Value is an important aspect of society. You could get the same advice for free from a random person on the tube or pay someone to shout it at you in a three-day seminar. You’re going to listen far more intently to the person you paid. When Mr Chow first opened, Chinese people and Chinese food in the west were considered the lowest of the low. In order to gain any modicum of respect, Mr Chow had to be more expensive.

Where do you go out to eat? Are there restaurants/chefs/cities that you are inspired by?

Max: I think it operates in cycles and it’s ever-evolving. I’m constantly on the lookout for new places and ideas but also drawn to the familiar. More and more, I find comfort in simplicity.

There is a trend right now with open fire and fermentation, which are really the oldest forms of cooking. In New York, a friend of mine, Negro Piattoni, has a restaurant called Metta that is doing exciting things with fire and fermentation.

In Los Angeles, there is a restaurant called Baroo, which is simple yet inspired using lots of fermentation. Another restaurant in my neighbourhood is called Felix Trattoria, which is getting a lot of attention right now, and has great pasta. I am also just as content eating a good taco off a food truck.

Do you think there is still a place for professional food critics nowadays? Or has their job been replaced by social media posts and customer reviews?

Max: Tough question, depends on what we determine the purpose of a food critic was in the first place.

There is always a place for good writing and someone who has refined a certain expertise and skill.

With restaurants, it’s tough to say because we are all experts and all amateurs. We all have different tastes, backgrounds and experiences.

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Mr Chow has spoken in the past about loving Chinese people and culture. Do either of you go back to China much? If so, how has the food culture changed there?

Max: We all spent time recently in Shanghai and Beijing and it felt as if something, which was missing, had been brought back in. China has changed by leaps and bound in recent years, primarily because of the money. With that came a plethora of consumer growth, but also of national pride. It has been very much reflected in the food. Chinese cuisine is more diverse than any other in the world. It is very exciting to see the respect and curiosity it is receiving within China and around the world.

Some big brands – the Ivy comes to mind – do a “roll out” to multiple sites to maximise profits, almost like diffusion lines in fashion. Mr Chow has never done that, seeming to have a few, well-chosen locations instead with organic growth.

Was that a deliberate decision?

Max: So much of Mr Chow’s success has been around the feeling of the locations and cities we’ve been fortunate enough to inhabit. It hasn’t been deliberate to stay on the smaller side, but the way we are run and the ethos with which we operate require something a bit more hands-on. I think we’ve also felt our brand and history are something to be protected, so we are very deliberate in how and when we choose to expand.

What is the future plan for the Mr Chow restaurants?

Max: Mr Chow is in an interesting place. Fifty years of history yet also still filled with enormous potential for growth. I think one of the great things about Mr Chow is that it always nurtured creativity. Whether it’s expanding on the tried and true blueprint or new concepts, the mindset of Mr Chow will continue to be the same.

Although you are the legendary face of the Mr Chow brand, it’s now a family business. How does the working relationship work?

M: In short, it’s a relationship made in heaven.

Max: And...I do the typing.

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Head to head In each edition we ask two industry figures to face off on a subject exercising the food world. This season we turn the spotlight on whether sharing plates or traditional menus are better for the diner...

“GROUP DINING CAN BE STRESSFUL, AWKWARD AND TOO DAMN QUICK”

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Nick Gibson, owner, The Drapers Arms Settle down into your seat, lift the satisfyingly heavy cutlery off the thick, linen napkin onto the pristine white tablecloth and pop your napkin on your lap. Right, now the table is cleared for action and ready for lunch… no phones to be seen.

No not because they wouldn’t be safe, we aren’t in Hackney, just their distraction and use isn’t going to be required because we are having a proper lunch with its satisfying stages of three, preferably four, courses and accompanying wines; white then red.

Properly paced, eating what we want and with the legs to last into late afternoon.

Quite apart from the sheer perfection of a meal that starts light and steps up in richness and weight with the conversation, winey fug and rising intimacy, the state of your appetite and the developing needs for texture, richness, acidity, flavour there isn’t much more satisfying and self-indulgent than actually putting yourself first for a change and ordering exactly what you want.

Yes, I am very happy for you to try mine, although probably best if I let you help yourself, and yes there is a nice little bond in ordering the same thing and grunting appreciatively in each other’s general direction as you wade through a solid steak and kidney pudding… but for the perfect lunch shouldn’t we just have what we want?

Antipasti, primi (pasta of course) and grouse for me… two pasta’s for you you say… why ever not? Ordering done, conflict avoided, anticipation building… satisfaction guaranteed.

In contrast group dining with small plates can be stressful,

uncomfortable, awkward and too damn quick and competitive. Things that have gone wrong for me with small-plates lunches in just the last couple of weeks: • ‘The First Strike’: barely sat down “right let’s have the first four and last four from the special blackboard” when I wanted the middle three and some things from the main menu • ‘The Unhappy Vegetarian’: ordering for a group of seven, some vegetarians, some vegetarians who might turn out to be fish eaters and a ‘vegetarian’ who piled into the meat dishes; being berated for the temerity of ordering a rose veal dish for the members of the group who fancied a little meat • ‘The Unsharable Portion’: no explanation needed.

Then of course there is the twitching, trying not to look greedy, looking out of the corner of your eye at the state of play, monitoring what everyone else has had, hoping that no one has spotted that you have had slightly more than your fair share of your favourite thing that came in a tiny portion but are still determined to have your fair share of everything else, competitive, unrelaxed, nervous rush that is

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intrinsic to a group trying to share a small plates meal.

Trying to order a satisfying meal for a group from a sharing plates menu is, ultimately, too reminiscent of picking a video to watch from an old-school video shop; I wanted a drama, you wanted a comedy and I came home with Even Cowgirls Get the Blues… not a happy state of affairs.

Notwithstanding that… I often find myself looking at the starters list at The Drapers and wishing I had a dining companion so we could share them all, so do pop over, join me for lunch and make me eat my words.

“SHARING FOOD IS IMPORTANT IN THESE INCREASINGLY SELFISH TIMES” Ed Thaw, owner, Ellory There’s this parable where heaven and hell are identical places with tables crammed with food and overly long chopsticks.

In heaven everyone is happy and in hell everyone is miserable. The (clunky) pay-off is that in heaven everyone has learned to feed each other.

I’m reminded of this every time someone lays into ‘the sharing plate format’ which has become ‘increasingly fashionable’ these days. Critics, bloggers, Instagrammers all want to have a pop. So here’s my defence of this ‘trend’.

The vast majority of food on the planet is shared, and has always been shared, so really eating in a 1/2/3 format is anomalous, rather than the other way

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chefs in the kitchen. We would handle a similar level of business with three chefs.

That makes a huge difference over the course of a year.

There’s also a bigger point about the importance of sharing in these increasingly selfish times of Trump and Brexit. There is enough thinking out there that says ’this is just for me’ and restaurants, as much as ever, are a place for different people to come together and share food. Most of our customers don’t seem to have a problem with eating in this way and we pay particular attention to make sure the meal flows by keeping the kitchen and floor to be in constant sync.

We’ve held a Michelin star for two years now while serving food in this format and Barrafina have done it for even longer, so clearly it is possible to do it well. To some it might seem like a trend but I’d argue its anything but. It’s how we’ve always eaten.

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around. How many times do you end up having a bite of someone else’s food when you eat out? Pretty much every time. The same people who love Indian/Chinese/ Thai etc are suddenly unable to cope when the food is European. I don’t get it. I lived in Madrid and loved the social experience of eating. You can share a few plates with friends and try plenty of amazing food without breaking the bank.

I can see the frustrations. In London, in particular, it has become a way for some to charge you more for less and it can be really egregious to receive food in the wrong order. Personally with rising rents something has to give – portion size/ quality of ingredients/sale price of dish.

Why have we done it? We think it’s good for our customers. It’s still a luxury for many people to eat out. Keeping prices reasonable keep customers coming back. You can try more food and have a more varied meal and not spend too much because you share. I should say that we are not small plates. These are (barring the inevitable online comment) proper (not gastropub) portions. Mare Street is not Shoreditch and it’s definitely not Mayfair.

Sharing plates helps us keep costs down without compromising the quality of our ingredients. Staffing costs are as much of an issue as rent or cost of ingredients nowadays. On a recent visit to another Michelin-starred restaurant there were seven

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Each season, publisher Adam Hyman and editor Lisa Markwell make it their business to check out new restaurants and old favourites. These are the places that fuelled this edition of CODE Quarterly

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Borough Market, six months later It was a terrorist attack that shocked the world – but after attention moves on, how does the community recover?

Chloë Hamilton talks to hospitality figures in Borough on the repercussions for their business and their staff On the evening of 3 June Sean Cannon of British charcuterie company Cannon & Cannon arrives home from his honeymoon in Portugal. The children have been put to bed and there’s time to settle down in front of the TV. News flashes up about an incident at London Bridge.

Cannon’s initial reaction is concern but not immediate panic, “it’s probably just something…” he trails off.

James Walters, owner of Arabica is also at home, watching a film with his baby asleep upstairs. He receives a call from his sous chef, who is standing outside the restaurant and can see something unfolding

before. His phone is switched off and, oblivious to the unfolding panic, he won’t be reachable until morning.

A sleepless night follows as restaurant owners and managers desperately try to account for their staff – all the more difficult given mobile networks are blocked and phones have stopped working.

Cannon recalls staying up, hearing the death toll rise, not knowing if his property was safe or who exactly had been affected: “It’s a tight community here. Everyone knows everyone, we work in each other’s pockets, eat in each other’s restaurants. We buy from each other’s stalls; we drink in the same pubs.”

on the food scene in the UK, the seedling that kick-started everything.”

The days that followed the attack were fraught with uncertainty.

Although Darren Henaghan, managing director of Borough Market, spent at least one whole night there and was communicating twice a day with the businesses involved, it was difficult to get firm facts or know what to plan for. The ongoing investigation meant limits as to what police could disclose and there was a reluctance to indicate when businesses might regain access in case it was pushed back. At local bakery Bread Ahead there had been 14 staff on shift that

“Everything had been abandoned: doors were left wide open. Tills were still full of the night’s takings. Valuable stock was turning to waste, at the mercy of vermin” Cannon remembers the chaos that Sunday brought as people started to take in the previous night’s events.

But it wasn’t until Monday that he went down to the market with his team to find he was essentially locked out. The police cordon ran a mile round the perimeter of the scene.

Other traders and business owners stood with them at the edge of the cordon. “No-one really knew what to do or say,” he remembers.

There have been traders at Borough Market for hundreds of years; it is one of London’s landmarks. And in its current form – a mix of street stalls, shops, restaurants, bars and an event space – there are 153 businesses. It has been a stalwart destination for food lovers for generations. It was, as Walters comments: “embryonic in its impact -33-

night and everything had been left out, abandoned mid-production.

Elsewhere, doors were left wide open.

Tills were still full of the night’s takings. Those trading fresh produce were faced with the knowledge their valuable stock was turning to waste as the days dragged on, at the mercy of vermin.

Walters managed to get back in to Arabica four days after the attacks to do an initial clean up. Reluctant to let other staff see the mess the restaurant was in, he took only his executive chef. Whilst he was out front dealing with the glassware, Walters remembers hearing bags being thrown into bins and the sounds of vomiting as his colleague cleared out the fish fridge. “It was a total mess,” he remembers. Thankfully, the restaurant itself was largely

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down the street. It might be a fight, he reports down the line, sounding shaken, but something weird is going on. Walters switches to the news, checks Twitter but there’s nothing. Then the information starts to trickle in.

Matt Jones of Bread Ahead bakery is at La Scala theatre in Milan. At the interval he checks his phone and pieces of a horrific picture are coming together: terrorists have driven over London Bridge, mowing down pedestrians, jumping down onto the parasols at Boro Bistro and attacking indiscriminately, wreaking destruction through a market that’s brimming with merry Saturday-night trade. Both of Jones’s sons work at the market and one has narrowly escaped the attack, finishing his shift and heading home to bed 30 minutes

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“The government didn’t have a coordinated response and insurance companies didn’t know what to do, so they backed away”

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the terrorists.” It was when Cannon showed his insurers correspondence with the press and Margot James that they decided to pay out. James Walter’s experience echoes this: it wasn’t until he leveraged press coverage and threatened to escalate it further that they got anywhere. “The insurance brokers were insensitive.

We had to go to war for it,” he says.

As well as fighting tooth and nail with insurers, one of the biggest priorities in the aftermath was looking after the staff. James Walters remembers watching Arabica’s CCTV footage to piece together the night’s events. He saw the panic spread through the restaurant, staff jump into crisis mode, locking the doors and hiding customers. “They were incredible,” he says. The staff were paid throughout the market’s closure and on the Tuesday Walters gathered everyone together, hired a bar and laid on some food; “there were some emotional, motivational speeches and everyone just got smashed”.

On the Thursday (leaving a day for hangovers) he spent 30 minutes with every staff member, one-on-one.

He let them know counselling was available through Hospitality Action, where individuals register interest and are then contacted directly by a counsellor, rather than make the leap to actively ask for help. “Only four signed up,” says Walters, “and none of them followed through with it. The consensus was we just want to get back open. Be back in the building. That will help normalise things.”

Despite the desire to move on, some staff moved on from Borough itself. Matt Jones confirms that Florin Morariu, the Bread Ahead baker who took matters into his own hands that night, has since left London and returned to Romania. And four Italians who met through Arabica left the company – and the country – two months after the attacks. Walter himself acknowledges a meltdown that came once the restaurant was back up and running smoothly.

He also says his interest in going into central London has waned. “I find myself steering clear of bigger crowds,” he says.

And there are occasions when reminders of June’s events crop up.

“We’ve been doing Halloween every year for the past few years and the team all love getting involved,” says Walters. “This year they all went to town and there were a few characters with fake blood all over their faces. I had a moment when I thought, ‘oh fuck I should’ve sense checked that’.

But actually that’s me over-thinking it. All the guests loved it and they had a great night.”

When the market reopened on 14 June it was seen as a day of celebration – and there was a real sense of the industry rallying around. “Scott Collins [owner of

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MEATLiquor] was outside our place at four o’clock spending hundreds of pounds and doing a bar crawl around the market,” says Walters.

“That evening was pumping, absolutely heaving.” And Sean Cannon remembers how News UK [publishers of The Sun and The Times, whose offices overlook Borough] put on lunches from Borough Market every day for a month and the Financial Times, also based nearby, gave vouchers to their staff and organised a charity walk to raise money for the community.

Six months on, Jones says the incident is like a distant memory. “I don’t want to dignify the terrorists by dwelling on it,” he says. “Business is full of problems, living in London is full of problems, insurance is full of problems. We’ve got to be bigger than that.” In fact, the very same day the market reopened to the public, London woke up to the fresh horror of Grenfell Tower burning. “Grenfell was disastrous,” says Jones, “It’s all disastrous. June was a very dark month for London. But that really kicked us up the arse. It put things into perspective”.

For Cannon, the impact on trading is still tangible, particularly with the Saturday tourist crowds, but he hopes Christmas will be a turning point. “It’s such a happy time at Borough and our community is in a really good place because everyone’s selling lots of produce. Christmas Eve is just joyous here. Mulled wine, beautiful decorations, rosy cheeked traders counting their winnings from the Christmas trade, about to go back and spend some time with their families.”

Darren Henaghan, managing director of Borough Market, echoes this. “Borough Market is in the heart of a strong, diverse and creative community, one that supports each other and has pulled together to show solidarity in the face of events that took place on 3 June. Whilst what happened will never be forgotten, our traders are now focused on the busy Christmas period ahead and we thank our community for their ongoing support.”

Despite feeling the legacy has been a challenge in business terms, Sean Cannon believes the attacks have re-established Borough Market as a whole more than the sum of its parts. “If you love somewhere and you want it to be there and want it to be sustainable,” he says, “then come to Borough”.

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unscathed. Only crimson stains on the table tops hinted at red wine left in haste. “I didn’t want the wine marks left there as a reminder,” says Walters, “so we re-sanded all of the tables to get rid of them and took the opportunity to do a few touch ups”.

Whilst around 50 per cent of Cannon & Cannon’s trade is retail, they also have a wholesale business that ground to a halt whilst the police cordon kept them out. Unable to supply restaurants and other clients, Cannon turned to social media for help and received an overwhelming response. “When we tweeted and asked for help, for somewhere to be and some fridges, we had nearly a thousand retweets. There were so many offers of support that we actually found it hard to reply to everyone.” It found them some temporary office space at House of Vans and their slicer company Bizerber sent them a new machine.

But this generosity from the public and fellow businesses, Cannon feels, was not matched by the government and insurance companies. A crowdfunding campaign set up by Borough Market Trust, United St Saviour’s and Better Bankside gave each affected business a much needed payment of £700; but as staff wages, stock loss and rent payments pushed losses up into the tens of thousands for some, Cannon notes the deafening silence from those who could help the most. “The government didn’t have a coordinated response. And the insurance companies didn’t know what to do, so they backed away”.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that most small businesses aren’t explicitly covered for terrorism damages because the policies on offer are costly and largely irrelevant: In the wake of the IRA bombings in the early 1990s a governmentbacked scheme, Pool Re, was set up (an insurer to insurance companies) to protect those with cover against business interruption from property damage following an attack. But in the age of low-tech terrorism, where it’s about injuries and panic not buildings, Pool Re is often a redundant resource. Speaking to the Financial Times, Pool Re’s chief executive Julian Enoizi confirmed plans to extend cover to include business interruption beyond physical damage. But these changes come too late for the businesses of Borough Market that faced a huge grey area when most in need of help.

Cannon’s plan of action was to write to business secretary Margot James to secure a meeting. He got his face on the television; BBC news, ITV news, Channel 4 news, an article in the London Evening Standard. “I was really angry about the lack of a coordinated response. You know, the quicker it’s cleaned up, business are sorted out and helped and we move on, the smaller the victory for

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Jason Lowe

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Alamy

In conversation with...

Simon Hopkinson One of the nation’s most loved and trusted chefs hasn’t been in a kitchen for 23 years, but his influence is undimmed. Over lunch, ‘Hoppy’ shares his stories with Lisa Markwell

Simon Hopkinson is a most unusual man. His book Roast Chicken and Other Stories has been voted Britain’s most useful cookbook of all time, but he says he can’t remember all the recipes he’s written. He’s revered by chefs everywhere, but calls himself a cook.

And he doesn’t go out for dinner (although he’s a prolific luncher).

From his first restaurant in rural Wales to running Bibendum in the nineties, Hopkinson has a formidable track record and has now written eight cookbooks and presented two cookery television series. Although he hasn’t cooked professionally since 1994, if he

knowledge of restaurants, chefs, books and ingredients. Talking to him each week about what the subject would be – whether he was inspired by a forgotten food figure or the arrival of rhubarb into the greengrocers – was a pleasure. And of course he’s only got more knowledge and more stories as the years have passed.

Having lunch with Hoppy is both entertaining (one puts aside at least four hours, ideally) and informative (in my part-time job as a private chef, his is the advice I most yearn for).

CODE’s founder Adam Hyman and I spent a delightful afternoon with him at a restaurant near where he lives in west London.

Television has had a huge effect on people’s perception of chefs…

Do you watch?

I watch them all, every programme.

Always on catch-up, because my television has been broken for years!

One of the funniest things I remember was an early 80s show called Take Six Cooks. Prue [Leith] was on it, Nico [Ladenis] was on it… It shows how long ago it was because Prue’s dish was avocado with a strawberry vinaigrette.

Anyway, host Kay Avila was looking at this gorgeous mushroom consommé, which was clear as a bell, and Nico said ‘look Kay, it’s like a lovely pearl”…

“I slightly regret giving up my newspaper column; I thought I’d got nothing left to say, but it turns out that I do!”

Where do you stand on cook versus chef ?

Well, for instance, you’d have to call the chef at Grosvenor House a chef because he’s running a huge team. At those big establishments there has to be someone in charge. People outside don’t realise that it’s the word – chef is chief; it’s actually a very simple thing, it’s very obvious. Now I call myself a cook because I’ve left the professional kitchen.

But now it’s everywhere. I mean Delia is referred to as a chef, it’s stupid! I mean, she’s a cook, she’s a brilliant cook.

I do cook like a professional, but that’s because I’ve been doing it for a long time! Fay [Maschler] always thought I was a better cook than chef. I sort of know what she was saying but at the same time, I did send out some good boys from the kitchen – Henry Harris and Jeremy Lee, for example.

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And what is the main characteristic of a pearl? That it’s OPAQUE! We all laughed in the kitchen.

These days I shout at the screen, when they do things like close the oven door with two hands. I shout “you’re doing that wrong!” Recently I was slightly disturbed to see a recipe very similar to one of mine being shown with no reference. It was… curiously close to mine. And oysters and sea urchins being rated against each other… I mean! I sound rather curmudgeonly, don’t I? Oh dear. Do you watch any of the US ones, like Chef ’s Table or The Mind of a Chef?

No, I don’t have Netflix. Perhaps I should get it. Rick Stein’s are always pretty good and nice to look at. I don’t mind that they’re quite like travelogues.

Keith Floyd, you look at the dishes now

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does collaborate with a current chef or restaurateur (such as his recent Fête du Beaujolais lunch and dinner at Noble Rot), social media goes into paroxysms of delight.

One of the most pleasureable experiences I had as during my time as a newspaper editor was to be in charge of Simon Hopkinson’s recipe column when it appeared in The Independent Magazine. He had started writing it in 1995 – OFM’s Allan Jenkins had looked after it before me – and turned in elegant, friendly and authoritative recipes every week until he gave up in 2003. I was distraught, and so were his legions of fans. Luckily many of the recipes from that time are collected in one of his many books – Week In, Week Out. One of the hallmarks of Hoppy’s columns was his encyclopaedic

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and they are really, really awful – his cooking was so sloppy. Matt Tebbutt recently asked me to go on Saturday Kitchen but I said I couldn’t. I can’t do live stuff like that. And I can’t go on as a guest, that’s a cop-out!

Might you ever do another TV series yourself ?

Goodness no. It’s all too complicated now, I’m just concerned with the cooking [laughs]. I would love to do a programme where it’s all cooking but that doesn’t happen any more; I suppose that’s why Delia isn’t around.

But I’m very pleased to be one of the inspirations for the very funny Damien Trench character on In and Out of the Kitchen – it was on the radio and now it’s been turned into a book. [Creator] Miles Jupp is so clever.

We’re at Six Portland Road, one of your favourite restaurants, I believe.

I don’t really go anywhere else. It’s a family restaurant with a husband and wife running it and it’s my local really, I almost am at the end of the road! I love going back to the same place time and again – and I love set lunches. Here it’s very good value, I mean £16.50 for two courses… And doesn’t it look good – absolutely delicious brill on the bone.

This terrine looks nice, a proper thing of beauty. Not many people make them any more – the worst ones are those ones they cook in layers, so you get that hard cooked layer of mallard breast. A terrine should be mixed together, like this – a proper farce and little bits of fat.

Old-school, that’s the term.

The other day I went to a memorial for a great old-school pastry man called Victor Ceserani, who had co-written that wonderful book Practical Cookery.

He died aged 98, and the Roux’s did a service and a hooley for him, and there was me, Richard Shepherd, Brian Turner and Ricky Stein, at a table, sitting around. Also sitting with us was this really old-fashioned chap named Michael Nadell – a pastryman from the 70s. Actually, he was on Take Six Cooks too. Everyone was on such good form, it was a lovely day.

Hearing you talk about food makes me long to be your editor again, as I was at The Independent when you had your column.

I slightly regret giving that up. I just felt I’d got to the stage where I didn’t have anything left to say. It turned out I did, as I’ve written a lot more since then.

But would I want a regular column again? I don’t know… well I do have Country Life one week a month. I would like to do more… but it really is a lot of work, though. I really like that Felicity Cloake column – the perfect one of things, like lasagne.

Talking of which, I’m about to cater a dinner for which they want beef wellington, so I shall use your recipe.

Oh god, the most frightening dish.

The fillet can be different sizes, and you can’t see what’s going on. You MUST do some testing. Get Dorset pastry if you’re using puff. The first ones I watched being made, they cut the length of the fillet and stuffed it with black truffles and foie gras (from a tin in those days), then wrapped and cooked it. You always have to pre-cook it – sear it with loads of butter, take to room temperature and then wrap it.

You must have pre-heated trays in the oven. I am not envious of you… I do love that sort of old-fashioned thing, though, like the whole salmon with aspic cucumber ‘scales’.

How often do you cook?

I cook every day! For my neighbours too, often. They’re from up north like me and the chap said once, oh we used to have this thing called ‘fatherless’. And it was boiled potatoes, and white sauce, and that was it. So

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I make it for him – using the boiled onion water (you must boil onions until they’re really soft), with potatoes steamed, or cooked in the onion water.

So you have layers of boiled onion, soft potatoes and white pepper, and then you pour over the white sauce and bake it until the surface blisters.

I do add a little cream. It is just delicious – the most comforting thing.

A bit of a parsimonious dauphinoise, just so good. It would be a good accompaniment, but he likes it just on its own.

Simple pleasures. Have you been to Claude Bosi at Bibendum?

No, I haven’t been but I wish him well.

I will go in a while but not yet. One never goes back, but maybe in a year or so. A good transfer really. It would be wonderful if he got three stars, and it would be a lovely swansong for Terence [Conran]. They play music there now?

NO! They must switch it off when Terence comes, surely.

Would you ever open another restaurant?

God no! People forget, but it was 23 years ago that I was at a kitchen stove.

I couldn’t bear it any more. People say ‘do you miss the kitchen?’ and I say, “why would I have left if I thought I’d miss it?” When I eat out people say, “would you like to see the kitchen?” and I say no, why would I want to see the kitchen? I hate going into restaurant kitchens now…

Lunch continues with Simon regaling us with stories about and opinions of many of the world’s most famous chefs.

There’s the one about ‘chef xerox’; the chef who ‘must carry a gun around in his pocket, so often does he shoot himself in the foot’ and the horrible personality said to have burnt a waiter with a cigar. None of them is printable.

But we hear he is writing his memoir, slowly but surely. We can’t wait.

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What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in cooking?

I fear that it’s all too rich. For instance, nobody now can cook a steak and kidney pudding without frying off the

meat, cooking it all before and then putting it in the suet. It upsets me so much. The whole point of it is five hours from raw ingredients, so all the kidney juices, the steak juices, the onion juices – and that is the trio – they all soak into the suet. Five hours and everything is done, it’s a perfect crossover of ingredients. They look at it now and say ‘oh that’s grey’ but that’s how the original Fray Bentos puddings were – now it’s all dark brown. It looks nicer but not a good taste. I used to eat a lot of those Fray Bentos puddings; I don’t any more. When they were good they were brilliant. It wasn’t a guilty pleasure, it was just a pleasure.

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Hiring now A London landmark is looking for a full team of chefs, bartenders, waiters, receptionists and housekeepers Kettner’s Townhouse is a French restaurant and two bars with 33 bedrooms, opening in January 2018.

A big presence on the London dining scene since 1867, it has been restored and expanded by Soho House & Co (which is reopening the original Soho House and Cafe Boheme in the same building).

A full team will be needed for the reopening, so we found out more from the people who are hiring.

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THE GM

Kettner founded the restaurant in the 19th century, but we’re going to give it a modern touch.

CONOR SHEEHAN What’s your history with Soho House?

I started as a waiter at 40 Greek Street where I worked for a year when I was 18. I moved to High Road House as a floor manager, and worked on the Dean Street Townhouse opening. It’s great to be coming back as general manager of the next Townhouse.

You’ve worked with the GM before, haven’t you?

Conor and I went to school together in Liverpool so we’ve known each other since we were young. We moved down to London together – he was working at Soho House and I was working at Fifteen, Jamie Oliver’s place. We ended up at the Ace Hotel running Hoi Polloi, and from there we went on to Bistrotheque before setting up a moveable restaurant, Xiringuito.

What makes Kettner’s Townhouse a special project?

There’s so much history there and there are high expectations from the people who have loved it in all its different forms over the years. We need a really strong team to do it justice.

What are the main roles you’re hiring for?

It’ll be a team of 25; we’re mainly looking for chefs de partie and a pastry chef. There will be a big pastry section, so that one’s important.

What are the key roles you’re looking to hire?

Strong waiters who really care about giving guests a brilliant experience. They should have great personality and an interest in London’s dining scene. Soho House is a great company to progress with (I started as a waiter!) so I’m hoping to find people to commit and grow over the next couple of years.

What qualities do you want to see?

Someone who’s interested, passionate and keen to work in this style of cooking. That’s all you can really ask for.

THE HOUSEKEEPING MANAGER

What’s your first interview question?

I ask what they enjoy about working in a restaurant – that’s the best starting place to find out where people fit in. They need to be interested in food, service and restaurants more generally.

EMELIE PERSSON What is special about working for Kettner’s Townhouse?

It’s a site with a fascinating history. There are 33 bedrooms and one suite and they’ve all been individually designed. That means that we are setting up the rooms from scratch, and it will be a beautiful space to look after.

THE AGM FRANCESCO DEL PRETE

What are the main roles you’re hiring for?

A housekeeping supervisor, room attendants, minibar porters and linen porters.

What is it like working for Soho House & Co? I’ve worked in several Soho Houses, as well as Dean Street Townhouse, and it’s a great company to work for. We want people to have fun at work.

Who should apply?

People with a yes, yes, yes attitude, who are eager to be part of a new opening. They should be willing to work hard, but able to have fun at work at the same time.

What will Kettner’s Townhouse be like?

People will go there because of the food, that’s a big focus but as with Dean Street Townhouse, they will also stay for a drink, have a great time, stay the night.

THE GLOBAL BARS MANAGER

What roles are you hiring for now?

Front of house: waiters, bartenders, receptionists and hosts.

TOM KERR What will the drinks be like at Kettner’s Townhouse?

The cocktails will be classics but with a few different flavours and a lot of attention to detail. In the champagne bar we’ll be doing a short list of quality champagnes by the glass.

Who would be your ideal hire?

We need people with one or two years’ experience, depending on where they have worked. Beyond that, it’s people who love customer service and aspire to a career in hospitality. If you’re looking for a fun place to work, Kettner’s Townhouse is for you.

Tell us more about the champagne bar.

It has such a history within Soho, that bringing back and updating it a little bit will be exciting. It’s going to have a great atmosphere.

Why should people apply?

It’s a great opportunity – the restaurant has been there for more than 150 years, and it will be one of the year’s biggest openings.

THE HEAD CHEF JACKSON BERG

Any tricky interview questions they can prepare for?

I often ask what their favourite drink is and why. Where they drink, their favourite restaurant… It helps me to understand if they’re into food and beverage, and what type of person they are.

What is the style of food at Kettner’s Townhouse?

The brief was to keep it quite traditional – French but with a current feel. We’ve been inspired by menus from when Auguste

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Who are you looking for?

Bartenders and head bartenders. We’ll have a team of six for the champagne bar and 14 for the piano bar, serving from breakfast until late night. They need to be very creative with great personalities.

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Circling The Square How do you reinvent a Mayfair mainstay that’s in need of modernisation, but still wants to be a serious Michelin contender? Adam Hyman looks around The Square to find out

Restaurants are a funny old game.

I’ll never forget what one well-known London restaurateur said when it comes to restaurants – “never try and please everyone, it’s a fatal error.”

Advice I often find myself telling clients time and time again. And this can of course be applied to all aspects of the offering – from the food, to service, the decor and even the music.

Restaurants come and go, tastes change and customers wants and desires evolve. Over the past decade we’ve witnessed such a dramatic change in the London hospitality industry. It pleases me no end that we no longer have to be terribly British and apologise to our friends in Paris or New York for the state of the food being served in London. In fact, I

think London can now teach the aforementioned a thing or two.

Thanks to our booming industry this has opened the door to so many different skills being required for restaurants. Interior design is just one of those. As those of us in the industry know, restaurants don’t just appear as if by magic – as well as the food and service, there’s a huge amount of time, energy, detail and money that goes into making a restaurant look the part. Like our taste in fashion and home decor, we like different things, but now a restaurant can be judged just as much as to how it looks compared to its menu.

There’s been the rise of the squirrel cage lightbulb (I’m sure Polpo’s Russell Norman wishes he

had taken a slice of the business producing them in the UK), the handy hook under the dining counter and the now on-trend terrazzo tile popping up across new restaurants in town.

But what is good design? Perhaps this is for another article but it still amazes me how seemingly so many restaurateurs never actually sit down at a table. The table maybe bespoke and the chair ergonomically designed but do the two work together and have they been tested? You can tell immediately when a restaurateur has not sat at a table and dined in their own restaurant. Has anyone checked the chair-to-table height ratio, had a look to see if that stray spotlight is blinding a diner or whether, in fact, you want to break bread there?

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

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Virgile + Partners, with whom he has previously worked before on his two-Michelin starred restaurant The Greenhouse and his private members’ club Morton’s, both in Mayfair.

Abela’s vision for his newest restaurant was clear in the sense that it must reflect his attitude towards top-quality food but at the same time was a real opportunity to redefine and update the concept of fine dining – one that has become far less on-trend over the past half a decade. Abela and Virgile + Partners wanted The Square to feel urban, contemporary yet timeless. They took inspiration from contemporary art galleries that focus on a very architectural environment but at the same time incorporating design elements that will make it warm and inviting for diners.

The room is almost unrecognisable from its past ownership – far more airy and light

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– and is a nod towards the way the food is going under new head chef, Clément Leroy. Previously in charge of the kitchen at Guy Savoy in Paris, Leroy will have a menu that relies far less on the butter and cream that many of the old-school Michelin restaurants are known for.

Abela wants the Square to return to two Michelin stars by next year.

The design of the space can certainly stand on its own two feet, we’ll have to wait and see what the red book thinks of the food. No pressure, chef.

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

The Square in Mayfair was a bastion of old-school fine dining.

Heavy tablecloths, chunky leatherbound wine lists and the endless pieces of silver tableware required to eat your way through a tasting menu.

Twenty years and two Michelin stars later, Phil Howard and Nigel Platts Martin decided to sell up. I had the site earmarked for another swanky Asian eatery to join the Novikovs, Sexy Fishes and Hakkasans of W1.

Chopsticks, DJs and carb-free dining for the international jet set who want to eat in the same restaurants wherever their G6 lands on a weekend.

But no, Marlon Abela, the wealthy restaurateur behind Umu and The Greenhouse snapped up the Bruton Street site. And he’s all about Michelin and fine dining. So what on earth was he going to do with the jaded restaurant opposite Stella McCartney’s boutique. Abela instructed architects and design firm

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A classic revisited In an industry in thrall to the new, sometimes our most old-school restaurants get neglected.

Loyd Grossman returns to the fabled India Club Commission and the India Club.

Forty years later the India Club is relatively unchanged. Founded in 1947 by Krishna Menon, Indian nationalist and erstwhile High Commissioner to the U K, as a London hangout for Indian students and their friends, The India Club retains a pleasantly dated and slightly seedy air poised on the threshold of post-colonialism. The instantcustard-coloured yellow walls are hung with portraits of Menon, Nehru and Ghandi, the table tops

crockery. My masala dhosa- for those who don’t know, it’s an Indian crepewas huge, crispy, generously stuffed with paneer and potatoes, and served with coconut chutney. Spinach dhal was confidently, but not aggressively spiced.

The India Club is still popular with academics from the LSE and King’s College: phrases like ‘sustainable development’ hang in the air with the pungency of last night’s curry. It is cheap and good and atmospheric in a way that

London’s Mario and Franco’ chain of Italian trattorias, for example, were an intrinsic part of the city’s Beatles/ Stones/Kinks swinging era and not a single one remains.

Now, London’s second most historic Indian restaurant, The India Club, is threatened with eviction as developers wish to turn the building it lives in into a fancy boutique hotel.

The building in question is now The Strand Intercontinental Hotel, which in spite of its Park Lane-ish, cosmopolitan-sounding name could best be described as a budget hotel.

When I was a student at the LSE in the mid 70s our twin refuges from the horrors of college catering were the staff canteen of the Indian High

are wood-look plastic laminate, the cutlery utilitarian. As in all properly old school restaurants, the staff wear white tunics and are not recent art school graduates.

There is also the requisite number of arcane customs. Beer is served in the restaurant, but wine and spirits need to be purchased from the bar below and brought upstairs: at lunchtime the hotel receptionist doubles as bartender. When I presented a credit card, my waiter paused for a nano-second before asking ‘No cash?’.

For such eccentricities you get very decent food, presented in the nononsense style of small metal dishes to be decanted on to plain white

intended roll-outs or Michelin-star aspirants cannot be. And it is a part of London’s social, political and gastronomic history that should be cherished.

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Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

In 2017, new restaurants opened in London at a dizzying, NewYorkworthy pace. As a result old warhorses were headed for the knacker’s yard unable to survive the twin assaults of an increasingly novelty-hungry audience and steeply rising costs principally caused by London’s inflationary real estate market.

Sadly, our restaurant history is being erased. Unlike Paris say, we just aren’t very good at preserving our most historic feeding stations.

On the shelf Just in time for Christmas wishlists come all sorts of fascinating food books. Lisa Markwell selects the best

All royalties from this ace book go to a charity that creates and sustains community kitchens round the world, the cause that’s so close to author and super-chef Massimo Bottura’s heart.

His first refettorio “soup kitchen” had stellar guest chefs and this paperback, scrapbooky book is their recipes for elevating waste and ordinary ingredients into extraordinary meals.

Bread is Gold, by Massimo Bottura & Friends, £29.95, Phaidon

Binged on Chef ’s Table and hungry for more? Fed up of glossy slo-mo shots of food and want to get your teeth into the real stories? Alice Waters’ memoir should be on your list. The founder of the fabled California restaurant Chez Panisse tells her story (up to the opening, but interspersed with more recent reflections) with fascinating candour..

Coming to my Senses, by Alice Waters, £16.99, Hardie Grant

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Utterly addictive, this latest title by food geek Hayward details the history and uses of all the objects we use in the kitchen. Everything from the wooden bread board to the silicone spatula is given his detailed analysis, but this is a very readable reference book and with elegant, spare photography.

The Modern Kitchen, by Tim Hayward, £20, Quadrille

Yes there are online restaurant guides, but nothing beats personal recommendations and this is, if not quite that, the next best thing. In its third edition, the EatLondon book divides the capital into areas and lists not just restaurants but great delis, cafes and even a few recipes, with tips from top chefs and food experts.

EatLondon3: All about food, by Peter Prescott and Terence Conran, £25, Conran Octopus -48-

Who doesn’t like settling down with snacks and a movie? Now you can combine them, with this clever little book of recipes inspired by food that’s integral to some of our favourite film plots. From Pulp Fiction’s Hawaiian burger to the choux concoction in The Grand Budapest Hotel, and – of course – the legendary Big Night timpano.

Eat What You Watch by Andrew Rea, £14.99, HarperCollins

Whether you’re after an elegant, restrained clarified bloody mary or something more exotic featuring a rotary evaporator controller, this first book by Rich Woods (aka The Cocktail Guy) of Duck & Waffle and Sushisamba has got it covered. Packed with advice and ideas that will elevate a drinks party significantly.

The Cocktail Guy, Rich Woods, £16.99, Pavilion

As at home on the bedside table as in the kitchen, this second book from the Hawksmoor founders is a great read as well as packed with recipes (way, way beyond steaks). The eleven-year journey is on the page, plus a bit on the future …. in New York.

And proceeds go to Action Against Hunger, so just buy it!

Hawksmoor: Restaurants & Recipes,

by Huw Gott and Will Beckett, £30, Preface The San Francisco restaurant that’s on many a must-visit list now has its own cookbook. It’s a chatty amble through owners’ Stuart and Nicole’s story, with recipes for quail (the state bird itself) and its adornments, of course, but much more – from pickles to aiolis to ice cream sandwiches. Inspiring.

State Bird Provisions: A Cookbook, by Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski, £32, Ten Speed Press

Do you really, really obsess over bread? This is for you. Of course, Myhrvold’s epic Modernist Cuisine really set a high bar for forensic investigation – and photography of – ingredients. This new set of five volumes delves deep into the chemistry of all things gluten, flour, proving and beyond, and then there are the recipes.

Modernist Bread, by Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, £425, The Cooking Lab

This is a classic cookbook for a classic subject and I defy you not to feel hunger pangs on even the quickest flick through the pages.

Roux has a recipe for pretty much every cheese on the planet, but also suggests alternatives in each case, which is helpful.

Make mine a Roquefort ‘pizza’ with pear, honey and almonds, just for starters.

Cheese, by Michel Roux, £20, Quadrille

“It’s late”, says chef Wylie Dufresne of his cookbook.

He’s not kidding – his fabled, eponymous New York restaurant closed three years ago… But the late, lamented WD~50 lives on with a beautiful book of recipes and memories, including some of the (for its time) astonishing plating. Deep-fried mayonnaise anyone? WD~50: The Cookbook by Wylie Dufresne, £50, Harper Collins -49-

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

One of our favourite food writers, Diana Henry, rates Paola Gavin, which is high praise.

Gavin’s extensive expertise is vegetarian cooking and now restaurant culture has caught up with her. This latest of her veggie titles focuses on Jewish cooking and is clear and thorough, ranging across many countries’ recipes, plus interesting asides.

Hazana, by Paola Gavin, £25, Hardie Grant

Collaborate & listen Photography: ©Dave Burt 2017 / ©Bianca Tuckwell 2017

How do you build a community of like-minded and inspired people? In a partner-content feature, Lizzie Gurr, chief operating officer of Ozone Coffee, reflects

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

ozonecoffee.co.uk | @ozonecoffeeuk | 11 Leonard St, London, EC2A 4AQ | M-F 7am-10pm | S-S 8.30am - 5.30pm

“As a coffee roasting company, we get to work with a huge variety of interesting and talented people who are embarking on new adventures every day. ”

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ambitions with our baristas. Others have just parted with their life savings to fulfil their dream of opening a restaurant and some are working their butts off hundreds of miles away on a coffee farm with a view to improving quality of life. We get to connect these people and it is such a humbling and inspiring privilege.

We love getting involved in an idea from the beginning and enjoying the excitement, challenges and (hopefully) contributing something valuable to the process by sharing our experience and resources. There is this beautiful, nervous energy ahead of presenting your idea to the world – sharing your philosophies, vision, and beliefs... its’ a deeply personal thing and it gets us all tingly.

So in 2015 we came up with the idea to create a journal and share some of these stories. Our purpose was to simply tell stories from our community, provide some insightful learnings and share inspiring ideas.

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We never anticipated it would also become such a motivational project for our crew.

Over years, opportunities to grow our community have come to us in endless ways and often from the most unexpected places. As entrepreneurs, we often say YES! But we are also learning when to say NO. We don’t always get it right but, if we’ve figured out one thing – it’s to trust our gut and be instinctive.

Every day, we meet people who have an idea – often it’s only a tiny seedling, but always, it is full of potential and ready to be nurtured.

Love your idea, discover it, share it, critique it. Then make that shit happen!”

in collaboration with CODE Hospitality

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

“The beauty of an independent start-up project is really just how un-beautiful it is. Un-perfect. Unglamorous, Our journey, launching a small, provincial, New Zealand coffee company onto a London-size stage, has been no different. Brutal and exhilarating. We have tried to enjoy the special moments and embrace the challenging ones, but mostly, we have tried really hard to keep getting better.

Today, we supply hospitality businesses all over the UK, Europe and New Zealand, run a 7 day/ week all-day-everyday restaurant, roast tonnes of coffee every week from our two roasteries and employ over 80 totally amazing people.

As a coffee roasting company, we get to work with a huge variety of interesting and talented people who are embarking on new adventures every day. Many of them are drinking their first coffee of the day in our café. Sharing their hopes and

24 hours in... Tel Aviv

12am

Rothschild Boulevard

The Norman Hotel

1pm

A walk along Rothschild Boulevard is a must. The best of the coffee houses is located by Kikar Habima – the Orchestra Square Garden – at the start of Ben Tsion Boulevard. It’s the place to grab a coffee and rugelach – a Jewish pastry that looks a little like a croissant.

Located in the White City just off Rothschild Boulevard, The Norman is one of the top places to stay in Tel Aviv. The five-star hotel is housed in two stunning Bauhaus buildings. As well as the prized rooftop pool – for when you want a break from the beach – the hotel has two restaurants including an outpost of Japanese restaurant Dinings. Be sure to borrow the hotel’s bikes to pedal around town too.

23-25 Nachmani Street thenorman.com

Manta Ray

This cosy restaurant overlooking the sea is a firm favourite with locals and is consistently voted as one of the most popular restaurants in the city. Seafood is the thing to order at Manta Ray, along with a selection of mezzes. Try and grab a table on the outdoor terrace overlooking the beach.

Promenade 7 Koifman St mantaray.co.il

7am

3pm

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Benedict

Breakfast in Tel Aviv is a big deal and not just on the weekends. Locals flock to the various outposts of Benedict for their 24/7 breakfast offering. The freshly baked hot rolls smothered in chocolate spread is a favourite but of course, their eggs Benedict are must too.

Rotschild 29 benedict.co.il

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Café Noir

Right opposite the Norman hotel, Café Noir is quite an unassuming place perched on the corner of the street. However, this restaurant serves the best schnitzel in town. Order the café schnitzel or the chicken schnitzel with potatoes and a green salad. Try and bag an al fresco table on the terrace and watch the world go by. It’s a perfect spot to grab a bite to eat before heading to the airport to head home.

43 Ahad Ha’am Cafenoir.co.il

DAY

10am

Its food scene has been influential on the UK for a while now, so Adam Hyman went to Israel’s most happening city to discover its essential stopping-off points

I’ve never understood why Tel Aviv hasn’t been higher up people’s list of places to visit. Less than five hours from London, the city has a vibrant mix of restaurants, shopping, clubs and a vast golden beach stretching the length of the city. If you’re after some winter sun, modern Jewish food and bars open all night, this is a city worth visiting.

5pm 9pm Anita – La Mamma del Gelato

Santa Katarina

7pm

11pm

Port Said

Hotel Montefiore

Tucked a few doors down from Port Said, Santa Katarina blends into the background and you could be forgiven for thinking it was just a café. However this gem is serving some of the best food in Tel Aviv. Either sit outside on terrace or, if you want to be at the heart of the action, sit at the kitchen counter overlooking the clay oven. Don’t leave before trying the Jerusalem bagel.

2 Har Sinai Street

One of the coolest local spots, Port Said is located just opposite the largest synagogue in the city.

Young Israelis gather outside sipping cocktails and tucking into the food by Israeli chef Eyal Shani.

Expect a long wait but order a cold beer and perch somewhere for some of the best people-watching in the city. Be sure to also check out the large vinyl collection.

5 Har Sinai Street

Housed in a 1920’s building on Montefiore Street close to The Norman hotel, this 12-bed hotel in the “Lev Hair” district is a swanky spot for a post-dinner cocktail.

The art-deco bar and hotel lobby could be a film set from a Poirot film. Perch at the bar, sip a cocktail and watch the glamorous locals drift in and out.

36 Montefiore Street hotelmontefiore.co.il -53-

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

NIGHT

Located in the funky area of Neve Tzedek, Anita does same of the best gelato in Tel Aviv. They have more than 150 flavours of their handmade ice cream. They’re also extremely proud of the fact that they only use natural ingredients. Even more reason to treat yourself to a few scoops on the way back from the beach or after dinner.

25 Shabazi Street anita-gelato.com

No Dane, no gain

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Just outside Copenhagen is a hotel where workouts, rest and play are all part of the experience. Adam Hyman checks in

Think of Copenhagen and you’ll no doubt conjure up images of Noma and René Redzepi, good looking Danes pedalling around the city and of course, hygge. There’s no denying the influence Redzepi has had over the global restaurant world for the past decade, as well as putting Copenhagen firmly on the gastromap. From Los Angeles to London, chefs and restaurateurs have been making the pilgrimage to the Danish capital to check out the food scene.

I’m embarrassed to admit that this was my first time to Denmark. As well as trips to noted restaurants Fiskebar and 108, the main reason for my journey to this Scandi capital was to visit a hotel about 20 minutes outside of the city centre, which specialises in food and fitness. The rise in the prominence of health and wellbeing over the past few years is starting to be noticed on the menus across our restaurants.

Diners are far more knowledgeable and demanding as to the provenance of their food, and it’s not just the most adventurous restaurant goers who are open to vegetarian and vegan dishes.

It’s not necessarily the case that this form of cooking can’t be fun and full of flavour. ByChloe in New York, that is soon to open an outpost in London, and Gizzi Erskine and Rosemary Ferguson’s pop-up-topermanent Pure Filth, are good examples of this.

The Kurhotel Skodsburg maintains a particular focus on promoting a healthy approach to life. The spa hotel was founded in 1898 and was highly acclaimed for its physiotherapy. Its founder Dr Carl Ottosen had six simple principles for a healthy life; light, air, water, nutrition, exercise and rest. Fast forward more than 100 years and the hotel, now run by Mai Kappenberger, still revolves around Dr Ottosen’s founding principles.

Right on the coast, the main building is classically elegant Danish architecture, with manicured grounds to stroll around. Attached is a more modern wing to the side,

complete with a rooftop terrace – all dazzling white.

The spa at Skodsborg draws in both locals and tourists, thanks to its 16 different cooling and warming fitness experiences – with the highlight being the ‘SaunaGus’.

The aromatherapy sauna sees the slightly intimidating ‘Gusmester’ Tina Anderson take you through a 45-minute session. The air in the sauna is infused with pure essential oils and, along with some aggressive flicks of a towel that circulate the air,

result in blasts of hot air raging over your face and body.

Despite Tina’s matron-esque warnings that this is going to be tough, the first three minutes in the sauna seem to last forever and a cool-off in a walk-through grotto shower is a welcome respite. After another three minutes in the sauna with different scented oils, we’re then led outside and down to the jetty to jump into the Baltic sea. Daunting but deeply invigorating.

It’s then back into the sauna for a final blast before being submerged into a large tub of water even colder -54-

than the sea. Your skin is left with a bizarre sensation – tingling but with a sensational glow. If the Danes did hangover cures…

Despite its focus on wellbeing, the Skodsborg isn’t like certain other hotels that restrict guests to boring, faddy meals. They have three restaurants to choose from, including ‘The Restaurant by Kroun’, which is the hotel’s most formal dining experience. Chef Eric Kroun’s healthy interpretation of haute cuisine has a strong emphasis on seasonal and local produce.

The cosy restaurant has a glass wine cellar at one end and is decorated with antler chandeliers. Standout dishes included Norwegian scallops with yellow beets, pine and kaffir lime, and Danish lobster with pumpkin, lovage and muesli sauce.

The brasserie, on the top floor of the hotel, is more casual and serves dishes such as beef tartar, fish soup with mussels and monkfish, and a pan-fried duck breast. On a two-night mini-break, it’s possible to try both restaurants and also have lunch in the cosy lobby space. Velvet sofas and a selection of design books to flick through make this a place to linger.

If you’re after something a little different from a visit to Copenhagen, or a break from the city centre, the Kurhotel Skodsburg is a fine spot to spend a couple of nights away from the fray: exercising, relaxing and eating well. I left feeling refreshed and recharged.

For me, Copenhagen was more new-man than Noma.

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

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CODE careers

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The dedicated place to both advertise and search for senior roles within the hospitality industry.

Contact careers@codehospitality.co.uk to find out more codehospitality.co.uk

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Instagrab With a new opening or a menu change comes the inevitable flurry of social media snaps. So what’s feeding the news feed this season? Grasshoppers at Santo Remedio, Ella Canta and Favela, the curried mutton pie at Holborn Dining Room and patterned plates all over the place are in the frame

Staff meal What do you eat when you get home after service? For this issue, Nicholas Balfe of Salon suggests a satisfying sandwich

Hake tempura sandwich with fermented tomato salsa

Issue 13 | Winter 2017 | codehospitality.co.uk

Ingredients For the hake tempura, per person: 100g hake fillet, cut into

finger-sized strips 100g self-raising flour 100g cornflour Pinch paprika Pinch chilli Pinch ras al hanout Pinch salt 200ml sparkling water For the fermented tomato salsa: 1kg tomatoes 40g salt 4 cloves garlic 4 shallots 4 red chillies 80g sugar 100g cider vinegar To serve: Focaccia Watercress Aioli

Method This dish is terrific with the salsa (but it also works well with a shop-bought condiment).

If you want to make it, you need to make the tomato salsa ahead of time so it has time to ferment. In a food processor, blend 200g tomatoes with all the other ingredients. Dice the remaining 800g of tomatoes, and mix with the other ingredients. Transfer to a sterilised Kilner jar and leave to ferment at room temperature for four days, stirring every day. After four days, or when the salsa has developed the desired amount of complexity, store in the fridge, which stops the fermentation.

Now make the tempura batter. Mix all the dry ingredients, then whisk in the soda water until the mixture reaches the consistency of double cream.

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Heat some vegetable oil in a large frying pan or deep fryer to 180℃. Dip the fish into the tempura batter and deep fry for 2-3 minutes, depending on the size. Drain on a paper towel and season with salt.

Assemble the sandwich with watercress and plenty of aioli. Serve with the salsa on the side.

Nicholas Balfe is founder and head chef at Salon, 18 Market Row, Brixton, London SW9

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