Margaret Thatcher inspired my life, my business and my writing

I was a young thirty-something when Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979. Three years before, Louise and I had left London to join the family business in Taunton.

At that time, the country was an economic basket case while The Castle had plodded along as a respectable middle-of-the-road hotel in a West Country market town.

I was ambitious for the business. Most of all I wanted a decent restaurant to attract people to the hotel. A dangerous wish in the English provinces where serious dining rooms were often graveyards for ambitious restaurateurs.

For me and many like me, Margaret Thatcher was an inspiration. She instilled a spirit of self-belief and enterprise. She gave us the freedom to be brave. To be radical.

After the misery of the 1970s, this fresh outlook on life was invigorating. And it had a transforming effect on the hospitality industry. Unless you were French, British chefs were sneered at as kitchen skivvies. But as the Eighties progressed, they suddenly became media darlings. Mrs Thatcher’s sheer energy and conviction revived our country’s lost pride and restored Britain’s greatness in the eyes of the world. Foreign visitors to our shores also began to realize that you could eat well here!

At The Castle, we won a Michelin Star in 1984 and by 1989 I had published my first volume of Great British Chefs.  

Mrs T’s battles to win the day for Great Britain were global. Mine were rather more domestic! But her example lives with me and I mourn her passing with millions of my countrymen.

Kit Chapman, Proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and Author of My Archipelago

Read Full Post »

Castle Bow Bar + Grill opens to the TripAdvisor Merry-Go-Round.

The paint on the front door of our new Castle Bow Bar & Grill hardly had time to dry and Liam Finnegan, our new Head Chef, had barely unpacked his kitchen knives when a small platoon of local restaurant critics filed their pieces for TripAdvisor.

First up was a saddo eager to twist the knife early. Transparently, someone with a history of antipathy towards us. Someone expressing “disappointment” with faux-pathos and an oh so generous rating of 2/5. We’re not bothered. We love TripAdvisor for all its quirks and warts.

The thing we have come to learn about TA is that it has democratized and amateurized (in the sense of instilling “love”) the habit of eating out in the English provinces.

Where once we feared the middle-class judgements of Michelin and the Good Food Guide, now we recoil at the raw and often harsh outpourings of the people who post their reviews on TripAdvisor.

The established guides remain important, but to a significant degree these books have been overtaken by the populist voice of this brash new authority. TripAdvisor makes us all sit up. It upsets us, deflates our sense of purpose. And, not infrequently, it also reassures us that we are getting it right.

If your restaurant is busy and you’re making a profit, you’ll be OK. If, occasionally, your pride is pricked, get over it and carry on cooking!

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton & author of My Archipelago 

Read Full Post »

Election Day in Greece (3): Eurozone reprieved.

You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief in the capitals of Europe as Antonis Samaras delivered his victory address in Athens last night. The Euro is safe for another day!

The world’s media had gathered to bring us the news live, with a running analysis from a parade of pundits. Rarely is a small country granted such a scale of attention! We watched the whole circus from the peace of our island home with the lights of Skiathos Town blinking at us across the bay.

What happens next? I am confident Mr Samaras will be successful in forming a working government with the support of Passok and, perhaps, one or two of the other more moderately inclined parties.

As for me, I’m getting back to my book, Digby Jones’s Fixing Britain, The Business of Reshaping our Nation – a text which should lie on every government minister’s desk. It’s had me shouting at David Cameron and George Osborne to get real!

Kit Chapman, author of My Archipelago and proprietor of The Castle at Taunton 

Read Full Post »

Election Day in Greece (2): 17 political parties, 17 ballot papers!

At the school-turned-polling station, the voters of Skiathos came pouring in. By midday the perspex ballot boxes were filling up fast.

The atmosphere was relaxed, informal, orderly. A young police officer kept a discreet watch on proceedings as people climbed the staircase to the airy first floor classrooms. Some eight had been set aside for the vote, a notice at each doorway indicating your registered name’s position in the alphabet and, therefore, which room to enter to collect your ballot papers.

Yes, ballot papers in the plural. And each voter was handed seventeen! One for each political party contesting the election! (In the May election, voters had a choice of twenty-two parties!)

The procedure goes like this. You enter the booth. Choose one of the seventeen sheets of paper, each branded with the name and logo of the party up for election. Fold the ballot paper of your choice and insert it in an envelope. Discard the other sixteen. And drop your envelope in the perspex box.

Later, I ran into a local businessman. Why, I asked him, do you need seventeen ballot papers? What’s wrong with one ballot paper listing seventeen party names and a stubby pencil to mark your preference?

“This is Greece”, he replied!

Kit Chapman, author of My Archipelago and proprietor of The Castle at Taunton

Read Full Post »

Election Day in Greece: Europa holds her breath.

Two weeks of calm on the Sporades archipelago have broken. A stiff wind unsettles the sea as I gaze across the Bay of Skiathos. Poseidon is rattling his trident. His brother Zeus, first among the gods and god of the weather, reminds us that it was he who carried off Princess Europa in the form of a bull.

Mythology remains a powerful force in our imaginations. As the Greek nation goes to the polls today, Mount Olympus is warning its people to beware. To be wise in their choice.

The result is anyone’s guess. Opinion polls are inconclusive and many of the islanders I have spoken to will be entering the polling booths undecided.

Nevertheless, the smart money is backing Antonis Samaras, leader of the main conservative party, New Democracy, to form the next government as Prime Minister. And this time round, I am assured, a government will be formed!

The Greek economy is heavily dependent on tourism, an industry under seige in the present crisis. Samaras, an economist by background with an MBA from Harvard, has promised to stimulate the ailing hospitality trade and boost jobs by cutting sales tax (VAT) from a crippling 23% to just 5%. It is a policy which has found favour (and one which we in the UK have been campaigning for through the British Hospitality Association and Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine).

Samaras is also clear amout Greece’s position inside the Eurozone. “The Drachma means death,” he told Greek television.

But what of the voters on this Aegean island as they crowd into church this morning, rehearse their Orthodox liturgy and then troop into the polling station at the school on the port? Well, they’ll mark their ballot papers as the mood takes them, then fill the cafes and bars before returning to their families. Life will carry on… while the political spotlight falls on Athens.

On television screens all over Europe this evening, politicians and business leaders will be watching anxiously for the outcome to emerge from this small and proud nation.

Kit Chapman, author of My Archipelago and proprietor of The Castle at Taunton

Read Full Post »

Comedy and tragedy in the Greek debt crisis. A Mamma Mia wedding with a chocolate climax!

On the beautiful Aegean island of Skiathos – the first in the Sporades archipelago – you might never gather that Greece was in deep crisis. Neither would you have the faintest notion that the country was in the grip of an historic general election in a week’s time. No electioneering posters. No party political rallies. Not a politician to be seen anywhere.

Life carries on as normal. The local shopkeepers grumble about their trade, but no more than they ever have done. The cafes and bars are busy. And the island’s wedding tourism bonanza continues to thrive in the wake of the hit movie Mamma Mia which was filmed here.

Problems of national sovereign debt? Problems of hardship and austerity? A problem inside the Eurozone? What problems? Where? Apparently not here!

Yesterday evening we were sipping an ouzo in our favourite cafe on the quayside by the Old Port when an English wedding party passed by – bride and groom leading a procession of family and friends.

Suddenly there was a great commotion as Dimitri and Tassos, our friendly hosts, busied themselves in a rush to present the newly-weds with the house speciality, an unusual chocolate pastry I have never been tempted to try.

This extraordinary piece of culinary sculpture is fashioned in the shape of the male organ – an erect chocolate penis attached to a pair of chocolate testicles! And for a dash of extra drama, our two friends added a flare ejaculating a twelve inch plume of fire and a Greek flag on a cocktail stick which sprouted from the pastry’s right testicle!

The happy couple loved it! And the Old Port erupted in laughter and applause!

While a Euripidean tragedy unfolds in Athens, here in Skiathos life is pure Aristophanes!

Kit Chapman, Proprietor, The Castle at Taunton. Author, My Archipelago 

Read Full Post »

Alain Llorca: Garlanded by Michelin, sneered at by TripAdvisor

Louise and I are comfortably installed in a pretty “bastide” on a hillside facing the medieval village Saint-Paul de Vence in the South of France. It is home to the Michelin-starred chef Alain Llorca.

Last night we enjoyed a truly exceptional dinner which included the best plate of  asparagus we have ever eaten. The spears, spanking fresh, came with a mousse-like emulsion of chervil and chives bound with egg whites and a little mayo, the whole crowned by a soft-boiled egg wrapped in feuilles de Brick and deep-fried to a crisp pale gold. Savoury-sweet and fabulous!

Mr. Llorca deserves his Michelin Star. He is an outstanding craftsman supported by a charming team in the restaurant. But in his immediate vicinity of La Colle sur Loup, he is only ranked seventh out of twelve among an indifferent line-up of eateries listed by TripAdvisor.

And out of 35 reviews on TripAdvisor, while 20 rate him “excellent” or “tres bon”, 9 brand him “mauvais” or “epouvantable” (bad or dreadful). The rest just think he is OK. 

Take it from me, Alain Lorca is worth the detour. And it is an infinitely better restaurant than that famous, but grotesquely over-rated, over-priced institution, La Colombe d’ Or just up the hill in Saint-Paul.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

Read Full Post »

TripAdvisor. A game of love and hate.

Hoteliers and restaurateurs rage on about TripAdvisor. It used to be the guide books. Now, in this electronic world, print is surrendering to the internet.

My view on TripAdvisor? I am an agnostic. It has become part of our lives. It will endure. So we had better get used to it and stop whingeing.

It’s so much easier, isn’t it, to search for an hotel or a restaurant on your laptop than to dash out to Waterstone’s to buy a guide book? TripAdvisor is universal, it’s free and easily accessed. It’s word-of-mouth gone mad and it’s brutally democratic. Search for a bed or a bite in any town and you automatically bump into TripAdvisor.

So let the people speak! Anyway, it’s fun playing amateur critic. And like life itself, the reviews that people post about your place are bound to be infused with truth and lies, kindness and malice, love and hate, generosity, prejudice, anger, enthusiasm and every other emotion defined by the human condition. Objective criticism is not the point.

At The Castle we have been praised and scorned with the best. Recently one wag described us as Fawlty Towers without the jokes! But in the round we emerge very favourably – a comfortable town centre hotel where the food is good and the staff are genuinely friendly, efficient and solicitous.

If there is one recurring comment, it is that we are perceived as a little “old fashioned” – a misconceived and pejorative moniker in an age obsessed with celebrities, fashionistas and “hip” hotels. We do not score highly in the ranks of what the media love to label “cutting edge”. The Castle is, after all, a thousand years old and my family have been its custodians for a mere sixty-two of those years.

Our purpose is to remain true to the classical (“old fashioned” if you will) principles of good hospitality. A few too many TripAdvisor fans benchmark hotels by values that are often alien to ours. “Cutting edge” design in itself does not necessarily buy good hospitality.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

Read Full Post »

Music. Food. Love. The Chilingirian Quartet plays Schubert at The Castle

At the start of another Music Weekend – this year is our 36th season – I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Duke Orsino’s opening muse, “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it…”

These festivals are special. I launched them in 1977 to fill otherwise empty bedrooms over dreary winter weekends and we are still going strong. The performers are world-class, offering us an excess of good music – four concerts from Friday evening to Sunday morning, all matched with good food and The Castle’s loving hospitality.

This weekend is a particularly special occasion and we are sold out. The Chilingirian Quartet are old friends, regular visitors to the stage in our Music Room since 1978. And over the next three days they will be celebrating their 40th anniversary as a chamber music ensemble.

Their programme of concerts is a heady mix of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert with a little Brahms and Ravel for good measure. There is also one famous quintet tonight when the Chilis will be joined by Bernard Gregor-Smith, another old friend, as the second cello in a performance of Schubert’s magisterial String Quintet in C, D956.

This piece of music with, perhaps, Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet, is a great favourite and in 2010, when my family celebrated 60 years as custodians of  this venerable castle, the Chilingirian and Bernard played the last movement of the Quintet before the Gala Banquet to mark our Diamond Anniversary.

I can’t wait to listen to all four movements again this evening. More than the food of love, this is music to die for!

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago

Read Full Post »

Brussels fiddles while Athens burns.

Greece, my Motherland, is close to anarchy and social collapse.

The Greek people – the poorer classes that is – are close to despair. Meanwhile, the rich have been quietly shipping their cash reserves out of the country… an estimated 85 billion euros over the past few months.

Much of this wealth is landing in London. Estate agents in Knightsbridge, Mayfair and Belgravia are having a ball, among their clients the Greek Orthodox Church.

As an amateur observer, and with Europe’s finance ministers holding yet another round of talks, all I see is more muddle and confusion. What’s clear to me is that Greece now faces her final death throes as a member of this exclusive Euro-Club. The senior members of the club have had enough, their patience exhausted. All along they blame Greece. And now the well of goodwill has dried to the point where Greek and German ministers have been trading insults.

Brussels, Germany and the other northern European states are as much to blame for this mess. Greece may have cooked the books to gain entry to the club, but equally the bureaucrats and politicians in Brussels were criminally negligent in their due diligence, one pompous fool declaring that Europe could not deny the land of Plato and Aristotle membership of the Eurozone.

Anyway, how any sane economist could imagine the successful convergence of so many disparate economies and cultures is beyond me.

Brussels has dithered and continues to dither. Unless Germany takes a determined lead to rescue Greece – unlikely! – the proud land of Plato and Aristotle will be shamed and bankrupted before the end of 2012. 

In my last book, My Archipelago, I describe what I saw as a child in Salonica, Greece’s second city, just after the war. Now, as a pensioner, am I to witness once again the homeless; beggars; children scavenging for scraps in the streets and gutters?

Greece deserves better from her friends and neighbours.

Kit Chapman, proprietor of The Castle at Taunton and author of My Archipelago.

Read Full Post »