Friday five: the week's top news stories
- Jason Atherton is opening a restaurant within luxury department store Harrods. Called Harrods Social by Jason Atherton, the large 114-seat restaurant (60 under current Covid restrictions) will be located on the lower ground floor of the department store and will serve British cuisine in a ‘relaxed yet elegant setting’. Atherton says he has designed the menu to reflect Harrods’ retail food offering by ‘showcasing the finest of British produce and seasonal ingredients’.
- Byron owner Famously Proper has made a play into the fried chicken category with the purchase of Mother Clucker with founders Ross Curnow and Brittney Bean leaving the business. Mother Clucker began trading out of a converted US Army ambulance in 2013 and now operate sites in Clerkenwell and Stanstead Airport alongside numerous street food pitches in the capital.
- Chef Chet Sharma will open debut restaurant Bibi in Mayfair this summer. Backed by group JKS Restaurants, the 35-cover restaurant takes it name from the Urdu ‘lady of the house’, a term used as a term of endearment for grandmothers across the Indian subcontinent and will serve a menu influenced by India’s street carts and roadside cafés. Sharma has experience in some of the UK’s top kitchens, including Moor Hall and L’Enclume.
- The High Court has ruled in favour of the government in the case brought by Sacha Lord and Hugh Osmond. The pair had argued that there was no justification or scientific basis for indoor hospitality to remain closed while other businesses such as non-essential retail have been permitted to resume trading. However, the court said the necessary hearing would unlikely take place before 17 May, the date by which indoor hospitality is scheduled to reopen.
- Dominic Jacobs of The Running Horse Mayfair is relaunching Chelsea pub The Cadogan Arms with Kitchen Table chef James Knappett and executive chef Alex Harper, formerly of The Ledbury and The Harwood Arms, in charge of the food. The project is backed by a number of private investors including the founders of JKS Restaurants.
