Friday Five: the week's top news
- Ministers are looking into adding hospitality to the UK's shortage occupation list, which would make it easier for businesses to recruit from overseas. As reported by both The Times and The Guardian, ministers have asked the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) for advice on whether the hospitality, construction and retail industries should be on the list of sectors where there is a shortage of workers. One source suggested that chefs and restaurant and hotel managers were roles that would probably be added. Chefs were previously included, but were taken off in April 2021. It is believed the review could add more roles to the shortage occupation list within weeks.
- The Restaurant Group (TRG) is to offload a further 35 sites from its leisure estate and has posted widening losses as it looks to face down pressure from activist investors. In the group’s full year 2022 results, TRG reports that sales growth across its leisure estate, which encompasses the Frankie & Benny's and Chiquito brands, remained flat and was 5% behind the market. However, it has also hailed 'robust trading' across its Wagamama, pubs and concessions arms, which all saw like-for-like sales out-perform their respective market benchmarks. Total sales across the business rose to £883.0m in 2022, up from £636.6m in 2021. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) was £83.0m (2021: £81.2m), while adjusted profit before tax was £20.3m on a pre IFRS 16 basis (2021: £16.6m). In total, the company posted a statutory loss before tax of £86.8m (2021: loss of £35.2m), which it has blamed on an exceptional pre-tax charge of £117.5m relating to the reduced forecast earnings within its leisure division and the subsequent planned restructuring.
- Big Mamma has announced the opening of another restaurant in the capital, this time in Marylebone. The Italian restaurant group will open Carlotta in Marylebone Village in May, its fifth London venue. Described as its ‘most intimate trattoria yet’, the 'plush' venue will feature a long skylit dining room with leather furnishings, golden drapes and a soft suede ceiling as well as a Venetian marble cocktail bar and a ruby red terrace. The basement will be home to an 80’s style drinking den in midnight blue that will also house an open kitchen. It will serve dishes inspired by famiglia-style Neapolitan and Sicilian classics ‘with a retro Italian-American twist’.
- Ellis and Liam Barrie have closed their Liverpool restaurant Lerpwl with immediate effect three years after its launch. In an open letter posted on the restaurant’s website the brothers blamed the current tough trading conditions for the closure although it is also understood that a demand from the landlord for pandemic rent debt was a factor. “Opening with Covid and facing the challenges of the Post Covid trading environment has been unprecedented. The resulting administrative burden has overshadowed our attempts to re-emerge and establish the foundations for the business as hoped,” they say. “Unfortunately, the slow recovery has been shattered by the cost of living crisis, rising costs and the lower than expected footfall at the Royal Albert Dock.”
- Former Bonhams head chef Tom Kemble is to oversee the stoves at Chalk Restaurant and Wiston Estate. As executive chef, Kemble will be working alongside Chalk head chef Bradley Adams, who has been a part of the kitchen team since the restaurant opened in December 2021. Chalk is described as a continuation of the work that the Goring family – Wiston Estate’s owners – have done to champion a sustainable approach to farming and food on the estate. The restaurant occupies a renovated 18th century threshing barn, holds 122 covers, and draws its name from the soft white limestone that the vineyard sits on. Kemble, whose CV also includes stints at Mikael Jonsson's Hedone and Swedish destination restaurant Fäviken, will oversee Chalk's regularly-changing menu, which puts an emphasis on seasonal and 'hyperlocal' produce, with the majority of ingredients sourced from the Wiston Estate and nearby farms.
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