Back to Business: Jack and Charlie Stein on coming together as a family amid the corona crisis August 8, 2020 We talk to top chefs and restaurateurs about how they are dealing with the strange ‘new normal’. Rick Stein restaurants’ Jack and Charlie Stein talk about the relief of seeing cutsomers again and why the industry needs to go back to basics. Who are you and what do you do? Jack Stein: I’m chef director [...]
Reopened restaurants in London: The latest news about your favourite places to eat August 8, 2020 Coronavirus may have shuttered the food industry since lockdown was announced, but the restaurant business is bouncing back, with more of our favourite places to eat reopening every day. In this regular column, we’ll bring you the latest news from the front-line of the food business, complete with all the details you need to book [...]
Cider subscription service Pommelier Club injects a little fine wine luxe into the boozy apple market August 8, 2020 The subscription model was already booming before lockdown, with millennials and gen Z-ers getting everything from coffee beans to feline flea treatments delivered directly to their front doors. A report published by Zoura estimates that subscription revenues have grown by 350 per cent in the last seven years, and continued to rise almost 10 per [...]
Mark Hix on starting afresh with a fish van… And his new role at 1 Lombard Street August 8, 2020 Just as the coronavirus shit hit the fan, I was told by my business partner that the company was going into administration. All the restaurants would go, and the 130 staff were left high and dry with no furlough and no redundancy. I was devastated. It was a surreal moment, realising that all these people [...]
Back to Business: Masha Rener on keeping her restaurants afloat online August 1, 2020 We talk to London’s top chefs about how they are dealing with the strange ‘new normal’. Lina Stores head chef Masha Rener talks about how home-cooking with top ingredients is here to stay. Who are you and what do you do? I’m Masha Rener, head chef at Lina Stores in Soho and King’s Cross How [...]
The future of post-covid drinking, from the mega beer garden to drone deliveries August 1, 2020 With the baking summer heat threatening to melt my laptop, the idea of al fresco eating and drinking seems like a no-brainer. But Britain, with its unpredictable climate, traffic-clogged streets and plethora of excellent, dingy pubs, has proven resistant to the kind of outdoor cafe culture beloved of our European neighbours. Until covid, that is. [...]
Eat Out to Help Out – the best restaurants taking part in the government hospitality scheme August 1, 2020 There was a time when dropping most of your disposable income on avocado on toast made you an idiot who will never be able to afford a house. Now it makes you a hero who will save the economy. It’s so vital that you start eating at restaurants again that, as of Monday, the government [...]
Boris Johnson’s calorie labelling plan is well-intentioned but economically inept July 27, 2020 Let me start with a concession to the Prime Minister: not all the policies in his anti-obesity drive are outright objectionable. Banning food advertising and telling shopkeepers where they can and can’t stock their products are obvious and unacceptable intrusions, whatever their intended goal. But as a liberal economist, I am prepared to consider some [...]
Mark Hix returns with a recipe for delicious home made pea soup July 25, 2020 Those of you who read this column regularly know that I love nothing more than growing my own veg, cooking it, and then banging on about the results in the pages of City A.M. Pretty soon I’ll be lusting over peas. Ideally I put them in a soup, but to be honest they’re so delicious [...]
Six by Nico: “The chippie” goes high-end as London’s newest destination opens July 25, 2020 The struggles of the hospitality industry have been well-documented. So Nico Simeone would have been entitled to be more nervous than usual opening his new London restaurant just as lockdown lifted. Not so, though, he tells City A.M. “There are always a bit of nerves when opening in a new city but we have a [...]