Fame and fortune, different things

Gordon Ramsay and one or two other high-profile chefs may be struggling, but not all upmarket restaurants are feeling the pinch quite as badly. Marlon Abela, owner of The Greenhouse and Umu, the London eateries, reckons that trading has recovered to “normal levels” and he is pressing ahead with expansion plans. These include the reopening this month of Mortons, the private members’ club at Berkeley Square in Mayfair, after a multimillion-pound revamp. He has also just opened his second outlet in Manhattan, will shortly open a Bistro du Midi in Boston and has secured a site for a Bistro du Midi in London, in the Brompton Road. It probably helps that Abela is a proper restaurateur rather than a celebrity chef.

The coffee emperor’s new clothes

All eyes will be on the Starbucks store in Conduit Street, in Mayfair, on Friday as the coffee giant unveils “a new look Starbucks”. The group isn’t giving too much away on the format, although it has already started to reinvent itself back in the States. The idea appears to be to get away from the one-size-fits-all corporate image that, to judge by its performance, is clearly turning away punters, and instead to imbue stores with a more individual, neighbourhood coffee-house feel. A source tells me it will “very high-end, with Welsh oak etc”.

Great menu, but it’s just not cricket

The rather unprepossessing second restaurant at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Blackfriars in Central London is being relaunched as an upmarket Chinese eaterie called the Chinese Cricket Club. With Brendan Speed, formerly of Zuma Istanbul, at the stove, it promises to be a more suitable stablemate to Refettorio, the hotel’s excellent Italian joint. I like the sound of dishes such as orange rib of beef and fried perch with garlic chives. Not sure about the title, though. The hotel says it has been named “in honour of the newly formed Chinese national cricket team”; to me it sounds like a new take on the long-established Bombay Bicycle Club.

Loubet checks into the Zetter

I hear that Bruno Loubet is about to launch a new restaurant at the ultra-trendy Zetter Hotel, in Clerkenwell. Loubet, whose cooking at the Four Seasons Hotel on Park Lane in the early 1990s earned him a Michelin star, decamped to Australia in 2002. He returned a few months ago, ostensibly to set up his own gastropub, although he is to be found at present lending a hand to Pierre Koffmann at his pop-up restaurant on the rooftop of Selfridges. The dining room at the Zetter, which is owned by Mark Sainsbury, a scion of the supermarket family, looks set to open as Bistrot Bruno.

Back on the holiday trail

The duo who sold holidaywatchdog.com to TripAdvisor in 2007 have launched a new website aimed at the family holiday market. Chris Clarkson and Chris Brown, who also run sunshine.co.uk, say that familyholidays.co.uk will help families to find “the perfect holiday at the best price”. A bold claim.

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