Make your meeting a gastronomic event

A good spot to meet up for business and pleasure: Le Pont de la Tour, in the lively Shad Thames area, with views of Tower Bridge and over the river to the City.

 

Just visited for lunch and to meet up with head chef  Lee Bennett – a Yorkshire lad with a stellar CV, which includes lengthly stints in Paris and at Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants in London and Dubai.

 

The food was memorable and delicious – more of that later. First the business: meetings can be hosted in the atmospheric brick-vaulted wine cellar – private in the evenings when it’s not serving as the wine shop; and the Salon Prive, which can hold up to 22 and features a laptop-compatible wide plasma screen. They can arrange menus from simpler table d’hote lunches to multi-course tasting menu feasts.

 

We sampled a mouth-watering range from the a la carte: we started with a quirky seafood platter − frothy lobster bisque with a hint of Pernod served in an espresso cup, fresh raw scallop briefly marinated in tangy citrus juice, a three-layer chilli prawn cocktail topped with watercress mousse, oyster en gelee, native potted crab with dill butter…

 

Then a mid-course of John Dory in a rich saffron squid broth, followed by some meltingly tender lamb shoulder with haricot beans in a rich jus, creamy risotto topped with oxtail… there were two of us sharing this by the way − before accusations of ‘fat bastard’ start flying…

 

Well OK, there was pudding as well: forced rhubarb with bavarois cream topped with strawberry ‘cloud’ and fragrant Rosemary shortbread,  an aromatic basil and mint ice cream… Yes we were pretty stuffed.

 

The restaurant has had a clean, crisp revamp and shed some of its pompous old-school Parisienne image, with less eye-watering prices – though as it’s still an iconic London venue and couldn’t be described as cheap.  

 

Definitely worth considering as a distinctive place to do business, just a river crossing away from the tumult of the City.

02 Greenwich: from white elephant to regeneration hub

The 02, formerly known, loved and hated as the Millenium Dome: it was a Tory white elephant inherited by Labour who waded in with similar hubris and incompetence to get it sorted by December 31, 1999.  Nine years later and it seems to be the epicentre and symbol of regeneration and development in south-east London.

By the way this is just an excuse to feature the rather appalling video below, which is an experiment: I am reviewing a Flip Ultra camcorder for ttgbusiness, and wanted to see how easy it is to shoot something, upload it and  add it to my blog.

Anway, it worked pretty well, although I don’t think Danny Boyle will be losing any sleep.

The Dome was born on a toxic wasteland next to the southside of the Blackwall Tunnel, and grew up to be the first billion-pound tent, a monstrous joke at the taxpayers’ expense (though actually it was mainly Lottery money). One of New Labour’s first major embarassements, who can forget a boot-faced Queen enduring a ghastly new year’s eve, dragooned into singing Auld Lang Syne with Tony Blair?

Since being removed from the clutches of blundering politicians, it’s become a highly credible major entertainment venue.

There’s been some headline-grabbing shows here, from the Rolling Stones to Prince, as well as art exhibitions such as Tutenkhamun, and it’s one of the main Olympics venues. It should also be high on the radar for the MICE industry.

And there’s so much construction going on around the 02 it could soon be blocked from the east London skyline.

Heathrow expansion: Tories throw spanner in the works

Heathrow: First it was celebrities buying plots of land on the third runway site (see below).

But  the Tories are throwing a bigger spanner in the works: they vow to pull the plug on the project if they get into government – this was said categorically by shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Surely this must be a bigger threat than the likes of Emma Thomson and Zac Goldsmith buying parcels of land in fields near the Sipson – the village earmarked for bulldozing to make way for the runway.

I expect most political pundits would say all bets are off at the moment as to who would win the next election and when that will be. But they’d probably say the Tories have a fair chance of winning.

This raises a whole bunch of interesting questions for the project. What will happen to the massive amount of commercial contracts signed off by then if the projects already underway?

Participating companies would presumably already invested millions. Is this going to put firms off bidding?

What if compulsory purchase orders for the site have already been completed?

And does this mean they will give stronger support to a new estuary airport? – as proposed by London Mayor Boris Johnson

Answers below please. UK Plc needs to know!

MPI gets into the Christmas spirit at the Mermaid

Just attended the MPI (Meeting Professionals International) Christmas dinner at the Mermaid conference centre overlooking the Thames.

From there I could see our offices (Ludgate House) on the southside of the river, bathed in winter sunlight – which was nice for me because I could almost see colleagues slaving away at their desks while we enjoyed Prosecco, psychic magicians and wonderful Indian food (a great alternative to turkey and trimmings).

Sponsored by Reval Hotels and Downs Racecourse, it was a gathering of M&E buyers, planners and suppliers from around the world.

If this sounds serious – it wasn’t! Good food, crap jokes (mainly from the crackers), ESPA goodies and lots of laughs. The party is still going strong as I totter over Blackfriars bridge to write this…

Pictures and more to follow, watch this space…