William Murray Communications foodservice industry specialists, organised a fantastic day at the Bel Cheese Academy with Michelin and 5AA Rosette award-winning French Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli. The day was attended by five lucky competition winners, who earlier on in the year submitted recipes using Bel products and four private attendees.
Jean–Christophe Novelli showed how versatile the Bel range of cheeses can be and everyone left brimming with ideas and their stomachs full from delicious food.
I’ve always been a fan of Heston Blumenthal and at the Caterer & Hotelkeeper Chef Conference yesterday he didn’t disappoint. I guess these days, it’s unusual for someone so creative, talented and celebrated to be such a genuine, nice guy – footballers take note. When IT hitches threatened his presentation, he was clearly irritated but managed to smile through without the tantrums associated with other well-known chefs. Heston also proved his appreciation of the talents of others and seemed almost embarrassed by the praise heaped on him by fellow three Michelin star chef, Elena Arzak.
Elena had flown over from San Sebastien for her joint Masterclass with Catey 2009 winner, Angela Hartnett. It was a pleasure to watch the pair, who clearly admired each other’s work and were very natural in front of an audience of chefs. The contrast between Angela’s simplistic style and Elena’s experimental approach was also interesting. Elena’s warmth and passion helped her overcome the linguistic challenge, and fortunately, Angela’s sous chef, Diago was on hand to translate. Both Murano and Arzak are now on my list of must-eat restaurants.
Michael Caines and Martin Burge both created beautiful looking dishes, nicely timed to get the digestive juices flowing prior to lunch. I loved the décor at Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester although sitting with Michelin-starred chefs probably meant that I was more critical than I might have been with lesser culinary mortals. The refreshing, creamed broccoli and olive amuse-bouche was right up my street and the Girl from Ipanema was a delight. I couldn’t have asked for better company either, an Italian chef from Prague, Matthew Tomkinson from the Montague Arms, the ‘endearingly overwrought’ Douglas Blyde and Knorr National Chef of the year, Simon Hulstone – who’s always entertaining.
The Times reported today that an unusual source has stepped forward to help boost Spain’s falling tourism rates – top chef Ferran Adria.
Head chef of El Bulli, a tiny restaurant that draws gastronomes from around the world to an otherwise unassuming corner of the Costa Brava, Adria has met the Spanish prime minister to ask for £12.8 million) to back a project where he will teach tourism bosses to vary their business models and find innovative ways to attract tourists.
Perhaps listening to those with thriving small businesses is a shrewd step forwards in increasing customer numbers on a national level, after all, they must be doing something right!
Currently lagging behind Tesco, Sainsbury’s and M&S with their Express, Local and Simply Food formats, Waitrose has today announced plans to open as many as 300 convenience stores.
The move will help Waitrose get a bigger slice of the convenience market, which is expected to account for a quarter of all store-based food sales by 2012, and will also create thousands of jobs.
We have really excelled ourself here at William Murray with no less than eight Wow nominations!
We’re particularly impressed with Anita and Steve, who turned around 3663′s perception of William Murray as only being a PR agency, and subsequently winning the business for their upcoming branding! This is fantastic news for the WM team, topping off an excellent week of Wows.
A study revealed that pizzas with a low-fat content are actually the tastiest, dispelling the belief that high amounts of salt and fat improve flavour. Pizza Express was voted the favourite by reviewers and its pizzas had the lowest in fat, when compared with six other UK chains.
The study also revealed that a classic margherita can contain a whopping 76% of a women’s daily saturated fat and 3g of salt – half the recommended daily amount of salt for an adult.
The team at William Murray Communications will be picking out their best party frocks and attending the Hospitality Action Sparkle Ball on 14 October. The annual ball – being held at The Royal Lancaster, London – promises to be a must-attend occasion for the hospitality industry with the possibility of one or two surprises for attendees, including a champagne reception to lead onto a delicious four course meal, fundraising activities and the presentation of various awards. The event will be attended by top foodservice and hospitality industry figures so the networking opportunities will be very valuable.
There are a limited number of tickets still on sale – visit the HA website for more information.
The Daily Mail reported today that Tesco is facing a PR disaster amid reports it threatened two students with legal action after they were seen on CCTV squeezing a muffin.
The UK’s largest retailer accused two 17-year-old Italian girls of “contaminating food” after they squeezed muffins to test their freshness, according to the Mail. They were questioned by store security and given a document warning them to contact a lawyer.
A spokeswoman for Tesco said CCTV footage showed the students “damaging” two muffins.
“They were stopped outside the shop, taken back in and told what they had done was wrong,” she said. “Because of language difficulties we contacted [their] teacher and she was invited to come to the store and see the CCTV.”
The Times revealed this morning how Papa John’s, the pizza delivery company, claimed that a taste test done on its behalf found that most people prefer its Pepperoni pizza to Pizza Hut’s Pepperoni Feast, supporting their slogan ‘Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.’ Interestingly, though not completely surprisingly, Domino’s – arguably Britain’s biggest pizza delivery chain – was not included in this taste test.
Every morning we read about how something is good for us, and then the following week read that the same product will cause heart disease. I wonder if we are super critical from working in the industry we do, or whether the general public are also cottoning onto the fact that most of the time these ‘surveys’ or ‘taste tests’ are manipulated in such a way to make a particular product sound great.
P.S. Did you know 100% of people in a survey taken this morning (in our office), found that William Murray was the best food and drink PR agency in the whole of the UK!
British Food Fortnight hosts a range of community events, festivals, tastings and promotions in various shops during the next two weeks (19 September – 4 October). Schools will be participating in the fortnight by teaching children how to cook with British produce and a large number of restaurants and pubs will have an all-British menu to show their support.
