So will Heston Blumenthal fix little chef?

That olympic breakfast looked amazing!

how fxxking huge and stupid was that menu!!!

How dare he. If I want a dangerously fatty, greasy breakfast with stewed tea or oil-like coffee, then I’ll bl**dy have one, and I’ll go to where I know they do them i.e. a Little Chef. I don’t want some poncey, celebrity-chef “designed” tat.

Having eaten at the Popham one (Where he’s done his thing), I have to say that he can.

Truly marvellous, while still in keeping with the original.

(The Fat Duck was overblown poncy tosh, though)

you should wander a few hundred yards down the road to his pub, the Hinds Head, its bloody wonderful! (try the quaking pudding!)

MrN, that’s my preference if I’m that way. The Duck is just tosh.

what a T*t that managing director is! Like how he swans into the Little Chef surrounded by his yes men/women. I say let the brand die IMO. If I want to go for a heart stopper breakfast I would go to a decent cafe where the food is cooked fresh to order, the coffee is good(a lot of the traditional cafes in London are run by Italians) and generally cheaper.

Heston? I thought it was Chipps in a chef’s hat?

the Hinds Head is also a bit poncey, IMHO, shuffled in an out of a dining room and a menu where you have to order the sides and the chips is not what a pub lunch should be about.

Same goes for Gordon Ramseys efforts at the “gastro pub”

The CEO is a cock.

But, wrong man for the job in HB (obviously)

I ate in the bar the last time I was there, just walked in after dropping the wife at the airport and found it totally unpretentious?!?

but fxxk me Little Chef deserves to die.

Crikey. How many idiots can work for one company?

This is brilliant TV! That little spat between the two fat duck chefs and Michael was excellent.

Just needs to “think outside of the box” with some “blue sky thinking”… What a frickin idiot.

That CEO looks like a complete knobber – who does he remind me of?

Last time we went to a Little Thief the “food” was just sh1te!
We’ll take some convincing to go back.

Little Thief? I wouldnt go in again either, too expensive, poor service and even worse food, rather grab a bacon and egg bap from a greasy spoon.

Is Hestons food any good? Looks a bit poncy to me all show and no go! I mean snail porridge ffs!

Wow … £250 per head for 16 course meal at the Fat Duck. World best restaurant? LOL!

Now give me some good fish & chips and I will be happy.

😆

I am really very tight, but I would pay for the £125 taster menu at HB’s restaurant.

The MD of Little Chef did indeed come across as a Grade A Cock.

I thought the Fat Duck was the world’s _second_ best restaurant?

Ok, his food is very poncy and anyone that calls a kitchen a “lab” deserves a slapping, but I’d like to see if the hype is up to the end result. Can anyone spot me the money to take my missus there?

I’ll let you know if the food’s worth it…

Anyone see his Perfect Christmas programme? That was seriously impressive attention to detail. Any ideas how he got his mulled wine half hot and half cold?

I haven’t eaten in the Little Chef for years. This programme reminded me why – the food is rubbish, and it’s not even cheap rubbish. Best of luck to HB but he’ll never succeed so long as the David Brent type in charge doesn’t want to address the fundamental problems – nasty ingredients, tatty decor, overlong menu.

nasty ingredients, tatty decor, overlong menu

Does no-one involved in catering watch that Gordon Ramsey programme where he gives that exact same advice every single week? Good local ingredients, simple menu, tidy decor.

All that poncey food he trialled on the first day was just to make a 3 part tv show out of it.
If he’d just trimmed down the menu, shown them how to cook a decent breakfast with nice ingredients, the show would’ve only lasted half an hour.

The CEO is a nob. Can someone send him this thread.

But amazing as it sounds, there are people who want the shite that is served at Little Chef. Some people wouldent know good food if they choked on it. If HB changes it too much they will have to get new customers. But the problem may be that everyone associates Little Chef with shite food. It will take some publicity to get new customers in the door. Oh and some pots and pans. The business model of low quality food, low skill staff and a big portion will have to change.

Some of the staff are amazing – that manager who has been there 25years – how sad is that. Most of his working life has been to serve shite food that will have helped fat people get heart attackes. Put that on your grave.

Yeah DezB, just needs quality bacon & sausages, home made burgers, shepherds pie, mackerel salad and chicken caesar salad. Ala Kitchen Nightmares.

Little Chef – DONE.

On average I eat in a Little Chef twice a year, I thought that the breakfast was already a little better as were the chicken nugget things the kids ate. However the £26 bill for a breakfast, a sandwich and two kids meals plus drinks reminded me why we didn’t eat in there more often on family road trips.

The Sunday Times reviewed it last week (the LC in Popham) and it got a pretty good write up according to my GF

Have a listen to R4 The Food Programme on listen again. Egon Ronay was on and part of it covered “public food”. The MD of Welcome Break was talking of £250k extra cost just for the better bacon and sausages. Ronay reckons that the operators have slipped back and need another prod to improve.

How empty must your life be, to have started off as a dishwasher in a Little Chef, and 25 years later you’re still working for the company 😆

“Does no-one involved in catering watch that Gordon Ramsey programme where he gives that exact same advice every single week? Good local ingredients, simple menu, tidy decor.”

You’d think not! Unless I’m going really upmarket (when I would expect a bit of ponciness on the menu) it’s how I judge a restaurant. If they’re offering a dozen or more main courses then you know the ingredients aren’t going to be fresh. Coversely if you see a menu with 4 or 5 choices, and a nod to seasonal, local ingredients, it’s almost always going to be half decent grub.

Quite interesting in that they are coming at this from polar opposites. I have found the superior, patronising attitude of Heston’s chefs a little annoying and also agree that the chief exec is a bit of a cock.

The fact that 5-1 folk preferred the old menu shows that they can’t too radical otherwise they’ll alienate their existing customer base without ensuring a new one to maintain what meagre profits they are making. Looking forward to part 2 tonight.

The Chief Exec was a class-A cock, absolutely disgraceful.

He seemed to think that HB would come in, cook some experimental food and the punter would flock back. He had no idea of what the existing customers wanted and how much good food costs to get on plates.

I found myself shouting at the TV what could be done, it really was simple stuff that could get it back on track.

Oh, and HB is a legend, his food really is off the scale, a man who takes 2 years to perfect a black forest gateaux deserves anyones respect!

I didn’t see the program but do occasionally eat a Little Chef.

When I do it’s generally an exercise in dissapointment.

Done well a full english breakfast is hard to beat. But LC manage to cock it up most times.

The last time we went the food and service were so bad we wrote to the company to complain. The lame response we recieved indicates why LC are in such a mess.

Looks like that sad sack manager guy has quit

http://www.caterer.com/JobSearch/JobDetails.aspx?jobid=42660110

havent been to a little chef since 1999ish

me and a mate were heading to coed-y-brenin for the weekend friday after work, stopped at one of those pits on the A5 somewhere

it was disgustig, plates from earlier in the day were left half finished on tables, flies!
the staff were slow, sarcastic and screwed up both our orders, when the food finally did arrive it was like chewing greasy cardboard, the toilet belonged in iraqi jail too
even the till didnt work when we tried to leave and

to really make things worse when we got to the hostel in dolgelau everyone else had just ordered a massive takeout curry

little chef is a national disgrace i would like to see it go under and be replaced by a load of decent greasy spoons who can at least do unealthy food that tastes good

bring back Happy Eater!

whippersnapper – Member
bring back Happy Eater!

What ever did happen to happy Puka?

LC is shite. I wouldn’t go in if they were the only places open on the road. It isn’t that difficult to get right, just try one of the French equivalents next time you’re over there.

Bob

….Happy Eater’s turned into Little Chef’s but that doesn’t stop me having good memories of them. I can’t belive how expensive LC are….last one I went to was on the A50, never ever again, unless it turns back to a Happy Eater.

I’ll start by saying I didn’t watch the programme.

Went to LC just outside Fort William when I was up at the Worlds last year. I was really sceptical but Nick promised me that they’d changed and it was OK blah blah. Anyway he was paying and we were knackered after the long drive up there so I was just after food.
And you know what? It was really good. Food was tasty and healthy, we got excellent service and it was quite cheap. OK so the decor was a bit 50’s but so what. We went back there the next night and although the food wasn’t as good as the first time it was still a decent meal.

I remembered a stop off at LC many years previously on the way up to Scotland which was dire. Had the Full English and it was just a plate of lukewarm congealed fat, revolting. We refused to pay and eventually they grudgingly brought us out a replacement breakfast which had actually seen the inside of a microwave.