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Celeb-chef obsession claims another victim?

Michael Caines, chef of the famous Gidleigh Park, is also to take charge of the kitchen at the Bath Priory hotel. Both properties are owned by greetings card millionaire Andrew Brownsword.

We can’t know whether Bath Priory chef, Chris Horridge, jumped or was pushed, of course, but the press release does raise a slight suspicion that he was ousted to make way for an expansion of the Caines empire.

If that is the case, it is a great pity. Harden’s describes Horridge’s cooking as “poetical, surprising [and] audacious”, and if ever there was an hotel dining room that didn’t need improving, this is it. (It already holds the highest possible **A rating in Harden’s UK Restaurant Guide 2009, as well as a broadly consistent Michelin rating of 1 star, with notably 'pleasant' ambience).

But even if Horridge did 'jump’ – he’s to be head honcho at Cliveden – could a successor ‘independent’ chef not have been found? The question is especially pertinent when, from the customers’ point of view, Caines’s attempts to gear up elsewhere on the fame derived from his two-Michelin-star Gidleigh Park flagship dining room (which also holds top Harden’s grades) have never led to the creation of anything of note.

The press release leads on the fact that Caines is “one of the UK’s highest profile chefs’. The idea, however, that these so-called ‘celebrity’ chefs have some special gift or insight which enables them to replicate excellence at will has been shown to be a pernicious myth, and Caines has convincingly demonstrated he is no exception to the general rule. On the basis of our annual survey of restaurant-goers, Harden’s currently reviews three ‘Michael Caines’ restaurants (other than Gidleigh Park). Not one of them is reviewed particularly favourably.

Whatever the reason for the shake-up, Caines is quoted as saying that he intends “to bring more synergy between Gidleigh Park and The Bath Priory”. If that ghastly management-speak means anything at all, what it means – from the customers’ point of view – sounds like very bad news indeed!

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