Kitchen Rat: Corrigan gets Galvinised; a fly in the soup; caught on camera

Corrigan gets Galvinised

What’s the secret to menu development? Some chefs might spend hours in the development kitchen carefully crafting the balance of dishes and flow of the menu, but Kitchen Rat regular Richard Corrigan took a slightly different tack upon receiving a late-night memo that chef royalty Chris Galvin was in for lunch at Daffodil Mulligan the next day.

Despite receiving rave reviews since opening last month, Corrigan pulled out all the stops to deliver an experience his VIP visitor wouldn’t forget: a few cheeky extra shaves of Périgord truffle here, a few Lindsay House classics on the specials menu there, and a rib of beef for two that would have defeated Desperate Dan. Plus some tableside chat over an Irish coffee that this rat shan’t be repeating for fear of upsetting our younger readers!

A fly in the soup

Hilton London Bankside general manager James Clarke had the unenviable task of hosting 450 of the UK’s top hoteliers last week at the Master Innholders’ annual conference. Having spent a year preparing for the event, Clarke and his team left no stone unturned to deliver the finest hospitality for their guests.

But what to serve when feeding a who’s who of the hotel world? Clarke and his executive chef Ollie Couillaud took a slightly unusual approach by tapping into the growing trend for sustainable ingredients – with a few unusual twists. These included a cricket perched atop a lobster croquette, a mealworm salad and honey made on the hotel’s roof. While some guests visibly squirmed at the dishes, others – including this rat – rather enjoyed the crunch of the aforementioned insects.

Caught on camera

We’ve all got friends whose lives are carefully chronicled on Instagram, from golden beaches to rooftop martinis and elaborate feasts – as The Caterer columnist Neil Rankin says, it’s forgettable, overly filtered white noise.

To combat this, Hampton by Hilton invited documentary photographer Ian Weldon to spend three days in its Edinburgh hotel and gave him the title ‘realist in residence’, with the task of capturing the real British holiday. His photo reel shows football fans, hen dos and morris dancers… It seems all he missed was this rat dashing across the lobby in a ‘kiss me quick’ hat.