Chefs and restaurateurs respond positively to the budget Chefs and restaurateurs have reacted positively to the measures for hospitality businesses laid out in the Chancellor’s budget, although many would still like to see more support given to the sector.
Yesterday (3 March) Rishi Sunak unveiled
a number of measures to help stimulate the economy and aid struggling businesses, including some targeted specifically at the hospitality sector. These include an extension to the business rates holiday through to the end of June, and hospitality and leisure businesses able to receive up to £18,000 in a new Restart Grant being introduced from next month.
London s year as a ghost city – and how our tourist hotspot could emerge from the pandemic
We re heading back to the bad old days of the nineties, suggests one hospitality leader
Piccadilly Circus, usually littered with tourists, stands empty at the start of the latest lockdown
Credit: Getty
Cast your mind back to last March 23, 2020. It was our first day we were told to “stay at home”. The city emptied of office workers. Tourists retreated. Some businesses were forced close. The exodus from London’s streets was stark. Images of an empty Piccadilly Square and deserted Regent Street filled newspaper pages.
Hospitality & Catering News
December 31, 2020
Looking back at how we entered into 2020 the headlines were dominated by plant-based, vegan and vegetarian themes. Consumer reports on eating trends and forecasts were impossible to overlook and seemed to fully justify predicting the plant-based, vegan and vegetarian revolution dominating 2020.
As we entered March Covid-19 was still somewhat in the background thousands of miles away in China but now moving closer as outbreaks around Europe emerged. Most reporting at the time was unaffected and new openings, events and new contracts were still being awarded and announced.
The all too ominous advance of the pandemic was starting to concern many people and on 9 March we published our first prediction of changes to hospitality – Covid-19 the unwanted solution to hospitality’s people and skills shortages. In the same article we referenced UK Hospitality Chief Executive, Kate Nicholls, calling on Government for wide-ranging business s
We will lose £400k : The cost of Tier 3 for the hospitality sector
As the hospitality sector begins to count the cost of the latest Tier 3 lockdown, we spoke to one industry figure who says his company will lose £400,000.
Stuart Procter, COO of Mayfair hotel and restaurant The Stafford, said the latest blow has left his company reeling in a year he’s already had to make 300 redundancies.
“I’m furious. Devastated. I can’t quite believe how this has been handled. You can’t give 48 hours notice for a decision this big, one that will affect this many people. This is people’s lives and livelihoods – at The Stafford and Norma alone we’ll lose £400,000.”
I just feel like crying – chefs react to cruel Tier 3 restrictions
London restaurateurs and chefs reacted with frustration and despair at the “cruel” news London will enter Tier 3, a period of virtual lockdown that will see bars and restaurants closed until the new year.
Unlike the first lockdown, Tier 3 allows non-essential shops to remain open, adding to criticism from the hospitality sector that it has unfairly shouldered the burden of coronavirus restrictions.
Here’s how some of London’s top chefs and restaurateurs reacted in the aftermath of the news.
Des Gunewardena, CEO and cofounder of D&D London: “In the context of the complete lack of evidence that there are significant Covid infections happening in restaurants, to close restaurants and cancel bookings in what is normally the busiest week of the year [feels] like an almost gratuitous kick in the teeth to London restaurants. If the government does want to treat the hospitality industry as