Restaurant ‘dumbing down'claims new victim

Clive Dixon has become the latest departing head chef to complain that his restaurant's owners are dumbing down the menu.

Dixon, who held a Michelin star in the past and was tipped for one in this year's guide, was made redundant from Merchants restaurant in Nottingham last week and leaves on 16 February.

He blamed the owners' decision to convert the restaurant into a brasserie to serve the residential and conference guests of their new hotel for moves to deskill the kitchen brigade, buy in more prepared food, and downgrade the menu to the "usual, naff" Mediterranean/Pacific Rim style found in "fast-and-furious eateries in town centres".

Joint owner John Whitehead said Dixon was a "fantastic" chef but that his style demanded extensive preparation that was no longer suited to the business. The opening of the 29-bedroom Lace Market hotel above the restaurant last autumn demanded a simpler, less formal and wider menu with a much quicker turnaround, he said.

Whitehead disputed that the menu had been dumbed down, and said he was confident the restaurant would retain the Bib Gourmand award it won last year.

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 13 - 19 January 2000