Carry on Heckfield
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 … Read more
Carnage at Coworth
News has landed at chefhermes.com that there are about to be several large departures from the troubled countryside outpost of the Dorchester Collection. Opened in late September 2010 Coworth Park has seen relatively little stability. The departure of former 2Michelin star chef John Campbell in April 2011, along with many of his loyal ex-Vineyard staff … Read more
Andrew Turner placed on gardening leave…..
Yesterday I received an email completely out of the blue concerning Mr Andrew Turner, now formerly of Wiltons. The email was probably one of the last messages he sent from his work email address, it was quite loose on details & when I tried to reply, the Wiltons IT team had shut his account down. … Read more
A New Challenge for Chris Staines
The chef at the heart of this post is probably one of the most written about on chefhermes.com . The initial post which featured him in September 2010, was about him taking a secondment to The Feversham Arms, written prior to any website knowing about it. Subsequently Mr Staines got in touch and agreed to … Read more
Pub landlord, Marco Pierre White
The legendary former 3Michelin starred chef Marco Pierre White is never normally too far from the news. Whether it’s his parting from The Yew Tree earlier this year to ill advised television appearances, the Daily Mail just love to beat him. So when news arrived that MPW had bought the pub less than 5 miles … Read more
Von Essen, lets hope the end is nearly in sight….
At the time of writing this The Times had just pipped me to the post on naming that the owners of Chewton Glen had purchased not one, but both the jewels in the crown of the crumbling Von Essen empire. Catey Hotelier of the year Andrew Stembridge will, as Managing Director for the exclusive Hampshire … Read more
Is the end in sight for the sorry tale of von Essen?
For what seems like an eternity, the story of Andrew Davis & von Essen hotels has been rumbling on. Whether it’s a character assassination in the case of the Daily Mail or more sturdy reporting in the case of The Times on June 16th by Dominic Walsh . The closing date for sealed bids was … Read more
Surprise Appointment at Coworth Park
This lunch time ‘The Chef Hermes blog’ received some surprise news. After the post not so long a go about the restructuring in the kitchens of The Dorchester Collection’s latest country outpost, it all seemed a done deal. John Campbell would move to a 3 day a week consultancy role to oversee the eponymous restaurant … Read more
The Von Essen House of Cards.
As many of you will be aware in the last couple of weeks saw the demise of the von Essen Holding Company. The company had been set up by Andrew Davis fell in administration with debts rumoured to be in the region of £220 – £250 million. Ordinarily I wouldn’t really bothered doing a post … Read more
John Campbell & Coworth Park.
Earlier on in the month The Chef Hermes blog received news that former two Michelin star chef John Campbell had parted company with Coworth Park. Now after sitting on this story for 3 weeks the blog is going to do it’s best to set the record straight. Mr Campbell, as of April 1st, is now … Read more
