Hotel Operations

🍴 The National Chef of the Year 2024 finalists include senior chefs from restaurants like Frog by Adam Handling and Northcote. Top 40 chefs crafted an amuse-bouche or pre-dessert themed ‘a taste of summer.’ The finals are on October 8, with chefs refining their original menus. Past winners include Gordon Ramsay. Finalists: Adam Fisher, Cleverson Cordeiro, Craig Edgell, Danny Young, Jethro Lawrence, Lee Tyler, Matt Ramsdale, Nick Edgar, Orry Shand, Paul Gamble, with reserves Murray Cooper and Sergio Cinotti.

🍕 Curry Leaf Cafe, an Indian restaurant in Brighton's The Lanes since 2014, offers Indian street food and craft beer. Founder Euan Sey cites the cost of living crisis and rising business costs for the closure. Sey, a former journalist, launched the restaurant with chef Kanthi Thamma, who left to co-found Palmito. Despite expansion, including pub kitchens and a kiosk, only the original Ship Street location remains. Sey reflects on the brand’s future while thanking the team and local suppliers.

🍝 Corn-flavored desserts in corn cob molds are trending at Ceiba in Conrad Orlando. Tuna tartare with Persian flavors is featured at Joon in Vienna, VA by chefs Najmieh Batmanglij and Chris Morgan. Nick's Quorum Bar in Omaha, NE, serves pan-seared trout with spinach, green apple, and pumpkin seeds, while Verde at Perez Art Museum Miami offers shrimp poached in clarified butter by chef Loris Navone. Le Bilboquet’s Denver celebrates the upcoming Paris Olympics with a French gin cocktail.

🍫 Chamoy, a Mexican condiment, is gaining traction in the U.S. among consumers who enjoy Mexican cuisine. Made from pickled fruit, chiles, and lime juice, it can be liquid or paste-like, combining salty, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors. Market research by Datassential shows that 38% of U.S. consumers recognize chamoy, and 17% have tried it, often with fruits, vegetables, or in drinks like the popular mangonada.

🍷 Levan and Bar Levan focus on low intervention wines; half of Levan's wine list is devoted to the Jura region, France. Bar Levan offers a dynamic 'by the glass' list, changing weekly with 12-bottle purchases, a cellar list, and an extensive mezcal selection. Notable wine list recommendations include Brawn in East London, Bokman’s in Bristol, and Planque in East London. Raphael Rodriguez is respected for his wine industry knowledge. The best value wine at Levan is from Stajerska Kollective in Slovenia at £7.50 a glass. A memorable pairing involved a dessert with Westwell's sparkling cuvée Pelegrim, limited to 90 bottles. Andi Mann from Rheinhessen, Germany, is currently favored for producing quality, accessible wines. Alsace, France, is considered an underrated wine region.

🍴 Yannick Alléno, a French chef at Pavyllon in London's Four Seasons Hotel, admires Auguste Escoffier for modernizing cuisine with his brigade system and emphasis on sauces. A transformative moment in Alléno's career was a critique by François Simon in Le Monde, prompting a personal culinary reflection. Alléno's advice to aspiring chefs includes hard work, perseverance, and self-belief. His kitchen essential is a Mauviel frying pan from the M'ELITE collection. He prefers à la carte dining, enjoys chips as a fast-food choice, and would ban eggplant from his hypothetical restaurant dictatorship. Instagram is his social media platform of choice, and his ideal food and drink pairing is a marble-aged wine with wood-fired roasted venison served at his three-star restaurant, Alléno Paris at Pavillon Ledoyen.

🍴 Home restaurant in Leeds, launched August 2017 and relocated to Brewery Wharf in November 2021, is closing due to soaring costs and low consumer confidence. Chef and restaurateur Elizabeth Cottam cited a "perfect storm" for her business with energy bills rising from £2,000 to £10,000 a month and no fixed energy contracts available. The tasting menu started at £65, peaking at £145. Home was shortlisted for National Restaurants Awards Opening of the Year in 2022. Cottam plans to keep her team for future projects, exploring simpler, community-based concepts. Her other restaurant, The Owl, remains open.

💻 Martin Soler, a fractional CMO and co-founder of 10minutes.news, Europe's most-read hotel newsletter, discusses hotel tech priorities from a C-level perspective, underlining the need for cloud-based systems to enhance guest experiences. He notes that non-cloud PMS solutions hinder tech evolution in guest services. Soler also addresses the potential of using travel influencers to boost off-season hotel demand, the growing need for flexible workspaces in hotels, and the importance of creativity in hotel marketing. Additionally, he suggests that buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) models, successful in e-commerce, could benefit the hotel industry. Soler emphasizes the tech battle between Airbnb and hotels, advising hotels to invest in digital transformations and become as convenient as Airbnb to avoid losing customers. He proposes the creation of a new role, Guest Experience Designers, to integrate technology into enhancing guest experiences without losing the human touch.

🎰 Palms Casino Resort utilizes Crestron technology for automation, enhancing guests' experiences with flexible digital content distribution in restaurants and precise environmental controls in suites and villas. The resort features over 40 table games, 1,300 digital games, and diverse dining options with atmosphere settings adjustable by any staff member. Casino lighting shifts with the time of day, while audio is managed through touch screens controlling individual speaker zones. Raul Daniels, VP of Event Sales & Catering, acknowledges Crestron's role in streamlining operations for a consistent guest experience.

🍴 The Texas Restaurant Association Show ended on a Monday in San Antonio, followed by the announcement of Texas receiving its own Michelin Guide covering Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and Houston. Texas becomes the 11th North American location with a Michelin Guide, joining others such as California, New York City, and Washington, D.C. A 2019 Ernst & Young study revealed that 42% of consumers use the guide internationally, and 61% domestically for dining decisions. Michelin has rated restaurants in over 40 countries since its first guide in 1900. The Texas guide will evaluate restaurants on quality, flavor harmony, cooking techniques, chef's personality, and consistency.