Carry on Heckfield

Posted by chefhermes on May 18, 2012 · 1 Comment

For those of you who read chefhermes.com and follow the blog on Twitter, you will have noticed that I did one of my legendary ‘Latest Rumour’ tweets. So for those of you that missed it here it is:

*LATEST RUMOUR | ChefHermes: After the departure earlier this year of @ChrisStaines1 to Bath,Heckfeild to announce Peter Quinion as new Exec

Back in February this year ChefHermes.com broke the news that chef Chris Staines would be leaving the Heckfield project and moving on to pastures new. This left the floundering Hampshire hotel without the shining culinary star that it had prized from London. No matter, the new appointed General Manager Charles Oakes was in bullish mood. With all his contacts in London he was sure that he wouldn’t need any specialist recruitment agencies.

Now I have mixed feelings over recruitment agencies, find a good one and their advice is worth its weight in gold. However there are a large number of bad ones: ones which tout commis chefs to hotels; the ones which send out a compressed zip folder of CVs for 1 vacancy without asking the candidates; the list goes on.

However the very cream of recruitment agencies are extremely well connected people, and so for a position like Heckfield they should have been the first port of call, after Mr Staines’s departure. But no, Mr Oakes thought he could go it alone. What he has ended up with is promoting his Head Chef from within.

Whilst Peter Quinion has held 3 rosettes in his own right, but it was an awfully long time ago, in fact it was over 12years ago. Other establishments that appear on his CV are Grace Bay (Caribbean), City Inn (Bristol), Cliveden (Berkshire) & London House (Wiltshire).

Not wanting to put too much of a downer on Mr Oakes appointment, I’ll wish them all the best for the future and look forward to the opening of Heckfield place, when ever that is.