Table Talk
Poltergeists are moving the fittings
There have been spooky goings-on in the Marco Pierre White stable of late.
After his former Wheeler's restaurant in London's Mayfair shut suddenly in February, some of the branded tableware mysteriously cropped up 50 miles away at a Berkshire gastropub called the Highwayman. Maybe not so peculiar, when you realise the owner of the upmarket country boozer is MPW himself.
Are times a bit tight for Marco? His former PCO 130 company (no relation to the Star Wars android) went bust last month with debts of £3.6m. Either way, we hope the country crowd are now enjoying a bit of Mayfair in their lives.
Wood you believe it?
And while one restaurateur proves the art of recycling is not dead, another does little to boost his green credentials. Nigel Platts-Martin's the Square restaurant in London reopened at the end of April after a swanky new makeover - but at what cost?
Apparently, the owners decided against recycling and, instead of giving thousands of pounds-worth of teak flooring and furniture to a worthy cause, they ditched the lot. Have they not heard of eBay?
Try reporting this waitress to the boss It's nice to see that some company bosses are not averse to getting their hands dirty now and then. Smollensky's new chief executive, Sandra Thomson, is a case in point. At the recent opening of its Sutton site, Thomson mucked in and waited on tables, serving burgers and chips to the ravenous locals.
And the multi-tasking doesn't stop there. Apparently, the fence in the outdoor courtyard was painted by the HR director. Who draws up the job plans at Smollensky's?
A little jolt in the coffee Staff at Aramark UK clearly made the most of the May Day bank holiday weekend. But maybe some of them partied a little too hard.
When quizzed on Tuesday morning about the move by US big boss Joseph Neubauer to take the group private, announced to the world the previous day, they seemed to have had other things on their mind. "I don't know what you're talking about," said one when contacted by Caterer. Oh dear, strong cups of coffee all round.
