Kitchen Rat visits a room of two halves and is fed up with MPW
The King Solomon guide to room design
The rat saw a few eyebrows raised when Shoreditch hotel the Curtain announced Katy Perry's outlandish stylist Johnny Wujek and minimalist fashion blogger Kaitlyn Ham had joined forces to design a bedroom. Each wrought their will onto one half of the room of the So Extra So Chic suite (pictured), with the line of demarcation set right down the centre of the bed – presumably in a bid to spark quarrels between lovers over who would be better suited to the duller side.
However, interior design disaster or not, it's certainly a striking marketing initative – and the suite is selling at a remarkable pace. Could it be that there is consumer demand for rooms designed by both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Maybe, but at £250 per night, it probably has more to do with it being on offer for as much as £850 cheaper than a suite of the same size elsewhere in the building.
Marco Pierre Might-want-to-remember-it's-2019
Marco Pierre White's path from enfant terrible to just frankly terrible continues apace with his assertion in the Irish Independent that women make worse chefs than men because they are more emotional and cannot carry heavy pans. The view led fellow chef Neil Rankin to retort that the main difference between men and women was that "men don't have to put up with this nauseating, baseless, antiquated bullshit every day".
Whether it was a bid for attention and headlines or not, the rat believes it is a shame to see a man who was once one of the UK's great visionary chefs, regarded as ahead of his time, fall so far behind the standards of the present. If there is a silver lining to his comments, it is the ferocity of the response from an industry looking to reform, and of a new guard willing to call out such views.
The revolution will not be appetised
Eco-anarchists – the sort who shout "shame!" at supermarket meat aisles and occupy trains in the name of the planet – are, ironically, a lot like climate change. They both may seem a distant and bizarre threat, but it's almost certain they'll arrive to cause damage to your business at some point.
This week, it was the turn of restaurants on Manchester's Deansgate to face the indirect effects of Extinction Rebellion, who blocked off the road in the city's centre for a number of days last week. Sites in the area have complained of thousands of pounds of losses as locals head elsewhere for dinner, according to the Manchester Evening News – but it may not be the only way in which the group are deterring would-be customers. The ER handbook lays out a range of items vital for the blocking of roads, including "cakes for pissed-off drivers" – ensuring they're a little less angry and, unfortunately for restaurants, a little less hungry.
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