KomodoPR PR london agency

Wall Street is occupied and unions are on strike. Is it any wonder that many of us are looking back to our yuppie heyday this winter?

On Monday afternoon the classy low-lit basement, Mark’s Bar at Hix Soho, was filled with the cream of the London restaurant industry crop. The event? table7.com’s Food For Thought, a timely discussion about the challenges facing high-end restaurants in today’s changing economic climate.

Led by restaurant critic Richard Vines, the panel included Ratnesh Bagdai, partner with Mark Hix in Restaurants Etc; James Lewis of Gauthier Soho; Massimo Riccioli, Chef Patron of Massimo Restaurant & Oyster Bar in the Corinthia hotel and Eliot Sandiford, Head of Lifestyle PR at Bacchus.

Food For Thought kicked off with an introduction to table7.com, delivered by co-founders Ashwin Jain and Moses Hassan, who summed-up their business model in three words: experience, value and sustainability. The floor was then passed to the panel, a discussion driven by the table7 commissioned research into current restaurant-goer’s behaviour in light of the economic downturn.  

The debate was wide-ranging, covering topics such as privacy clauses for corporate Christmas festivities, the opportunity for creative development (which the January slowdown brings) and the habits of younger diners increasingly frequenting high-end establishments.  

The discussion culminated in a lively Q&A session involving members of the audience, with contributions from Zeren Wilson of Bitten & Written and Adam White, Managing Director of Village London, amongst others.  As the afternoon drew to a close, Ashwin Jain and Moses Hassan wrapped things up in time for guests to enjoy a round of cocktails and Hix signature bar snacks.

Far from being an afternoon permeated by thoughts of economic doom, the pervading feeling was one of optimism: discussions on daring new menu styles, creative ways of manipulating social media and solutions for maxing-out cover capacity every night  – using table7’s brilliant business model – all ensued.  All said, the London restaurant industry is certainly thriving, which works for us! Here at Komodo the thought of Christmas passing us by without a cheeky splurge on a festive lunch would be just too much to bear!

Yes, you may have heard… Angry Birds has launched a new Christmas game on Chrome and rumour has it, there’s another surprise in store for Monday Dec 5^th.

Our beaks are sealed as to what this could be, but to give press a clue, we decided to ruffle a few feathers with a unique performance of the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ song – Angry Birds style.