Wednesday 22 November 2006

In The Begining

So here we are, 7 years old! A group of friends, 5 in total, all chefs, who's paths have brought them together and then drawn them apart over the years. Who take a short break from their diverse, busy lifestyles once a year to get together and enjoy good company, great wines and food.

The profile for the evening is simple, find a restaurant which will appeal to the group. The restaurant must hold at least One Michelin Star and Three rosettes. The hotel for the evening; cheap and cheerful (so as we have more money to blow on the food and wine!) and that's it! You would imagine simple enough, unless it's your turn to organise the get together!

We started as a group of four, Simon (that's me), Mark, Daren and Nigel, in 2000. A passing comment in November, "lets all go out for dinner."
2004 saw the introduction of the fifth member of the group, Alan.

Little did we know back then that such an innocent comment would turn into a ritual that none of our partners would ever quite understand. You see, a golden rule is no wives, girlfriend or partners allowed! Now it's starting to sound like a cult, it isn't honest! We have no secret handshakes! We DO NOT dress up in little white aprons or dance naked around any burning bushes - not unless the bush is still moving, if you know what I mean!!!

Stop it, it's sounds sordid, and it isn't at all, really! It's just good fun! Reminisce on old times and passed acquaintances, let each other know how our career paths have changed over the past twelve months, basically, take time out for old friends.

This year one of our group - I think Mark, through the idea out across the table suggesting we develop a website to write about our experiences in these restaurants each year as well as the restaurants we each visit separately over the course of the year, so you can read about our experiences before you go and spend your hard earned cash there.

We also would like to encourage our readers to post their own comments on the restaurants we visit as well as write about there own gastronomic experiences around the world.

As I have had a little experience of Blogging, I thought this would give us the gateway we desired to reach the people we hope this would be interesting, as well as useful to.

Over the next few weeks I am going to write about our experiences in these fine dining restaurants over the past seven years, good as well as not so good, and provide you links to the restaurants' own websites. I will also write about what we each do now as well as our backgrounds and, later in the year, a small diary as we plan next years trip! (perhaps you could post comments on where you feel we should try next?)

We really hope you are going to enjoy whats to come here as much as we have enjoyed our reunions every year. Here is a list of the restaurants we have descended upon as a group over the past seven years;

2000 Halcyon Hotel - Toby Hill, London 1 Michelin Star,
2001 The Fat Duck - Heston Blumenthal, Bray 1 Michelin Star (Now 3)
2002 The Capital - Eric Chavot, London 2 Michelin Star
2003 Hibiscus - Claude Bosi, Ludlow 2 Michelin Star
2004 Patrick Guilbaud - Guillaume Lebrun, Dublin 2 Michelin Star
2005 Midsummer House - Daniel Clifford, Cambridge 2 Michelin Star
2006 Martin Wisharts - Martin Wishart, Edinburgh, 1 Michelin Star

Watch this Blog!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

looks great, cant wait to read and add reveiws.

Anonymous said...

how can i join this exclusive club