The week in pictures

Let’s talk about Gaucho.

This week, in The UK Restaurant Sector is a Dumpster-fire, having filed for administration this week, Argentine steakhouse group Gaucho said it is closing its sister chain Cau, resulting in 540 job losses.

Restaurateurs like Pied à Terre’s David Moore have hit out at what they see as the government “sitting on its hands” while the on-trade suffocates under the weight of mounting debts, rising business rates, rents, a Brexit-induced staff shortage and a drop in consumer spending.

Gaucho, he said, has “been in the red due to soaring cost of business rates and weaker consumer spending following Brexit.”

“To this effect, Pied á Terre is set to lobby the government to take immediate action to help stabilise business rates and help reduce VAT to ultimately help the future of the UK’s high street.”

Coming soon: Hawksmoor NY.

Although not everyone is having a bad time. Relative newcomer Hawksmoor has just announced plans to set up their first stateside restaurant.

Hawksmoor New York will open on Park Avenue South and East 22nd Street, between Madison Square Park and Gramercy Park, in 2019.

The new venture – a 180-seat restaurant at 287 Park Ave South, which will also feature a 50-seat bar – will have a menu staying true to its London sites, which has built its focus on British grass-fed, dry-aged beef and sustainably sourced seafood.

And rubbing just a bit more salt into Gaucho’s wounds, the team behind The Clove Club in Shoreditch has announced plans to open its third restaurant, which will be headed up by former head chef Chase Lovecky.

Called Two Lights, the “neighbourhood” restaurant will be located close to The Clove Club, in Dalston, and will serve modern American cuisine – a departure for The Clove Club, which is known for its modern British cuisine.

Hoping to attract well-heeled travellers to the region, Champagne’s first contemporary luxur’eh hotel – the Royal Champagne Hotel & Spa – opened this week.

Entry-level ‘Champagne’ rooms start at £489.92 per night and feature a king sized bed and private terrace.

The top tier ‘Josephine’ suite meanwhile, will set you back £1,068.71 a night and boasts a sitting room and balcony overlooking vineyards.

Sadly, that’s just £8.71 over the author’s budget…

Back in the UK and over in the world of beer, a coalition of brewers and pubs has launched a new campaign called “Long Live The Local” in a bid to raise awareness of the current tax pressures business owners face in the on-trade.

Thanks to support from AB InBev, Diageo, Carlsberg, Heineken and Molson Coors, campaign group Britain’s Beer Alliance has released a high-production, cinematic advert to get the message to consumers that three pubs close each week in the UK. That’s a lot.

Supporters also include pub companies and major industry organisations as well as the British Beer & Pub Association.

Going out on a Monday is underrated. Ask Olivier Dauga, a.k.a “Le Faiseur de Vin”, who rubbed shoulders with UK wine’s movers and shakers at La Ferme London on Monday night to present new projects with estates Univitis, Château Gros Caillou, Château Pierron, Foncadaure and Vignerons Catalans.

Mike Turner of PleaseBringMeMyWine, Peter Dickens of Pietrovini, and The Wine Show’s own Joe Fattorini all attended to kick the week off in-style.

We might be biased on Monday nights out. This week db dropped into Carousel in Marylebone for a craft cocktail or four (ok, five) with the distilling team at Wiltshire-based Ramsbury Estate. db learns that the gin-maker, which also features its own microbrewery, has just been signed on as the Hurlingham Club’s official spirits partner.

It was an industry affair. Guests included staff and mixologists from the likes of Petersham Nurseries and Hide.

They say Mondays are the new Sundays for bartenders, but they also find it hard to switch off. Ramsbury’s team were in such a rush to mix the drinks that a shaker went flying over the bar, caught a split-second later by a guest who wasn’t even facing the right direction. “Muscle memory,” he shrugged.

Meanwhile in East, Bacardi-owned Bombay Sapphire has taken lodgings in down the road from Shoreditch High Street with pop-up bar-cum art studio Canvas.

15 international artists are helping us transform a blank canvas into a beautiful, living work of art. Last night we celebrated the launch of CANVAS. Stay tuned to see how the space develops. #stircreativity

A post shared by Bombay Sapphire (@bombaysapphire) on Jul 18, 2018 at 9:20am PDT

db spotted bright young things Gemma Chan, Douglas Booth, Erin O’Connor, Pixie Geldof and Lady Mary Charteris customising their own cocktails with flavoured edible paints.

Killing two birds with one stone, Bombay Sapphire invited real artists —  Alex May Hughes, Josh McKenna and Supermundane to name a few — to decorate the bar with their own freehand designs.

Well, when London’s restaurants and bars are struggling under the weight of high business rates and rent, we don’t blame them for not paying for interior designers.

Remember when Eric Lorincz left his post as head of the Savoy’s American Bar and told us he once tried to make a martini but forgot the gin (and vermouth)? The hotel has named his successor — 29-year-old Maxim Schlute.

The German-born millennial mixologist started his career in Hamburg before heading to China to work for the JW Marriott Hotel in Hong Kong.

He’s best-known for cleaning up at the Beefeater MIXLDN cocktail competition with his Stack of Fortune cocktail; Beefeater 24, fresh lime, white Crème de Cacao, homemade bitter orange blossom sherbet, orange bitters and fresh mint.

We wish him the best of luck. Standing out against the Savoy’s many famous bartenders of days gone by is no mean feat.

While we’re still on cocktails, bartenders from the Diageo Global Travel World Class semi-finals have earned a place at the grand final of Diageo World Class Bartender of the Year — dedicated to mixologists in the maritime sector.

Razvan Dorel Cordea from Romania, River Wood from South Africa and Igor Ilioski from Macedonia, represented Norwegian Cruise Lines, Seabourn Cruise Lines and Celebrity Cruises, respectively.