Celebrity chefs’ empires under pressure as diners turn off fancy, expensive food after lockdown
They had all the right ingredients for successful, top-end restaurants. Then COVID-19 hit. Now the mighty empires of Heston Blumenthal, Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay face collapse.
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The celebrity chef restaurant business model is dead, as diners ditch overpriced fancy meals.
The once mighty empires of Heston Blumenthal, Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay are at risk of joining Jamie Oliver, whose Italian restaurant chain officially went broke this month.
Michelin-star food was already falling out of favour before lockdowns across the world blew up the restaurant balance sheets across the globe.
Tim Hayward, food critic at the London business paper the Financial Times, said: “We can’t go back to what we had, whether we want to or not.”
He blamed sky high rents, and corporate ownerships for the “toxic” restaurant industry.
“What is going to die is the high end dining which was funded by some faceless bastard in the City because it was the latest thing,” Mr Hayward said.
“Fifteen years ago people got into food because they loved it, now it turned into something that was horrible right across the board.”
Mr Hayward said it has been more than a year since he reviewed a Michelin-star restaurant.
“I spoke with some mates who are also critics and they said it had been about six months since they had done a Michelin star restaurant review,” he said.
“You get more kudos for writing about a place in Hackney (in London’s East end) where they are making their own beans.”
Oliver, 45, has been the highest profile celebrity chef to collapse, with his UK restaurants falling over in May last year, with more than 1000 people losing their jobs.
His Italian restaurant chain was officially buried this month, with debts of $161 million.
Oliver did put in $44 million of his own money into the failed business trying to turn it around, but many suppliers were still owed money.
Some celebrity chefs have been adapting to COVID-19 restrictions in the UK, with British TV chef Rick Stein putting his outlet in Barnes, south west London, on Deliveroo.
He’s charging $80 for home delivered lobster thermidor, or $53 for roast troncon of turbot, a fish, with hollandaise sauce and new potatoes.
Stein, who runs his businesses from Sydney, thanked his staff in an Instagram post in March.
But he was criticised for failing to pay them in April when his restaurants were closed, making them wait until the UK’s version of JobKeeper payments were available.
Australian chef Brett Graham announced this month he would close his two Michelin star London restaurant The Ledbury permanently because of COVID-19, with 44 staff losing their jobs.
Mr Graham, originally from Newcastle, had been at the helm for the past 15 years, but told The Australian the business would not survive under social distancing rules.
Blumenthal, whose namesake restaurant Dinner By Heston Blumenthal collapsed in December last year, still had plans to open in Dubai.
A report this week in Dubai’s respected and influential What’s On magazine said that Dinner by Heston would open in the Royal Atlantis Resort this year.
The gastronomic chef’s media team declined to comment this week about the Dubai chain, or anything to do with COVID-19.
It comes as customers have also complained they prepaid $1100 for a meal at The Fat Duck in Bray, but were struggling to get refunds.
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Ramsay had pivoted his restaurant chain, which operates 15 outlets in London, among
35 restaurants across the world, from fine dining to fish and chips.
He reported almost $1 million profits in the latest financial reports available for 2018, after losing almost $7 million the year before.
Ramsay, 53, will be supplementing his income from the return of his show Hell’s Kitchen to Britain’s ITV next year.
James Hansen, of food bible Eater London, said celebrity chefs would remain on reality TV, not in real kitchens.
“They become ambassadors rather than chefs in their own restaurants,” he said.
“Gordon Ramsay rose in popularity as a celebrity chef, to a high proportion of people they wouldn’t know his history as a chef who opened restaurants that earned three Michelin stars, it’s not even relevant to them.”