It occurred to me the other morning that not only are we heading to the end of another year but also the end of the decade. The “noughties” for me seem to have passed pretty damn quickly and it seems to me rather like the next decade is going to go just as quick. The end of this decade also signifies a 10 year milestone of my work on the restaurant scene, including nearly eight years at Quintessentially.
Looking back over the decade, the restaurant scene has evolved in a fascinating way. When I started, Jamie Oliver was a little known trainee, and Gordon Ramsay, the ex-head chef of Aubergine, was just beginning to make waves on the restaurant scene. Fast forward ten years and Jamie Oliver has become a huge success and gathered a reputation as a crusader for food education. His series Jamie’s School Dinners caught the attention of the Government and creating a huge amount of publicity at the time.
And Gordon Ramsay is, well, Gordon Ramsay. Although his star has slightly faded in the past year, there’s no doubt that he remains a highly astute businessman, a genuinely iconic public figure and a hugely talented chef. Expect 2010 to see a resurgence. We should also expect to see his one-time protege Marcus Wareing, another incredibly able chef, become as much of a household name as his mentor; his restaurant at The Berkeley is often described as the best in London, most notably by Harden’s Guide.
We’ve also seen Marco Pierre White reduce his empire quite drastically, along with John Burton Race. Pierre Koffman also retired, taking La Tante Claire along with his delicious signature dish of pig’s trotters and morel mushrooms with him, although he has returned briefly for his hugely successful pop up at Selfridges. Reassuringly, the current rumours are that that he will return to the scene very soon.
We’ve seen the rise of the Asian food scene with Alan Yau’s huge successes with Hakkasan and Yauatcha, Zuma and Nobu have rocked the scene for fine Japanese cuisine and A-list hang outs, and more recently the huge success of Nobu Berkeley, a mere 500 yards from its older sister, has proved that a winning idea can be replicated without over-saturation. With the arrival next year of Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental alongside Daniel Boulud, the London restaurant scene looks only to be getting even better – so all I can say is “roll on 2010!”
