North Road is a Scandinavian joy July 2, 2012 RESTAURANT NORTH ROAD 69-73 St John St, EC1M 4AN Tel: 020 3217 0033 FOOD **** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £75 Scandinavia is having quite a moment. We watch its TV shows, we wear its jumpers, we buy its furniture (while hoping people won’t notice it came flat-packed in a cardboard [...]
OLYMPIC MEDIA BUZZ LONDON 2012 PARTNERS July 1, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games partners, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 20 June to Wednesday 27 June. The big media story of the week for sponsors [...]
The delights of Gstaad in summer July 1, 2012 GSTAAD, in the German-speaking canton of Berne, is about as ritzy a resort as you can get. It’s got the prices and celebrity factor of Verbier, but it’s smaller. Much smaller. And therefore, much classier – like a rare tiny diamond instead of a bling-tastic shop window. Not that there aren’t bling-tastic shop windows in [...]
Pubbers in need of an everyday treat boost Greene King June 28, 2012 GREENE King’s full year results suggest that the pub industry, if anything, is recession resilient. The pub operator and brewer posted record pre-tax profits of £152m, up 8.6 per cent on the year before, as revenues jumped 9.4 per cent to £1.14bn. Chief executive Rooney Anand told City A.M., “After reaching the £1bn turnover landmark [...]
DO YOU STILL GO OUT TO EAT IN PUBS AND RESTAURANTS? June 28, 2012 MARTIN JACKS SKANSEN INTERIORS “I still go to restaurants and pubs as much as I used to, in fact probably more, as I want to take my mind off everything that is going on economically. People are more picky about where they go and pubs are considered cheaper.” STEPHEN ALLEN RFC AMBRIAN “Of course I [...]
FOCUS ON: GUILDFORD June 28, 2012 ALBURY HEIGHTS Price: £4.95m Albury Heights is a substantial family home recently built in the Georgian style. It includes six bedrooms and six en suite bath/shower rooms, reception hall, drawing room, dining room, family room and office. Contact Savills on 01483 796 820 or go to savills.com. ENNISMORE AVENUE Price: £1.85m A five bedroom double-fronted [...]
First dip in net mortgage lending since counting began, say banks June 27, 2012 NET MORTGAGE lending fell in May for the first time since the British Banking Association (BBA) began measuring the figure in 1997, the financial sector industry group said yesterday. With capital repayments outpacing stable gross lending, net mortgage lending dipped by £73m from April. And mortgage approvals fell 3.4 per cent in the year to [...]
Restaurant Giraffe looks east after Johnson leads growth June 25, 2012 RESTAURANT group Giraffe is set to open a branch in Dubai as its turnaround continues under serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson. The firm, backed by 3i and Johnson’s Risk Capital Partners, posted an operating profit of £1.1m for the year to 25 March, after recording a £2.5m loss for the same period the previous year, when [...]
Touch-down in Shanghai: getting ready for business June 24, 2012 MAKING my way across Shanghai following a 12 hour flight from London and a six hour flight from Boston left me urgently desirous of a tranquil bedroom, soft bed and a deep bath. As I was heading to the Four Seasons, I figured the only obstacle to achieving these would be traffic – an elegantly [...]
Costa Coffee owner Whitbread boosts sales by 13.9 per cent June 19, 2012 Sales at hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, the owner of Costa Coffee, were up 13.9 per cent in the last quarter. Excluding new openings, like-for-like sales were up 4.5 per cent in the 13 weeks to 31 May 2012, the group said this morning. Most of the growth came from the firm’s flagship coffee chain, [...]