Lewis & Clarke win major pub award

STEVE WILKINS, managing director of Lewis & Clarke, has been presented with Caterer and Hotelkeeper’s Pub Industry Award 2003

THE LATEST addition to dining at Mayfair’s The Connaught opened this month. Called Terrace, it is an outside eating area constructed on the corner of Mount Street and Carlos Place with a cool white canopy, opaque glass floor tiles and pale green wrought-iron tables and chairs.

The restaurant seats 35 people and is served by its own kitchen where Angela Hartnett and her team have created a menu suited to al fresco dining. 

IN A MAJOR drive to support local and regional suppliers, all 84 of The National Trust’s licensed restaurants will now offer a selection of wines produced by Kent-based New Wave Wines and Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire – both chosen because of their close associations with the Trust.

Quarter bottles of three of New Wave Wine’s award-winning Curious Grape white wines are available at the restaurants and full bottles will be offered at Trust venues that hold corporate functions or are licensed for weddings.

Waddesdon will provide quarter bottles of its red and Sauvignon Blanc, while other lines – such as its sparkling wine – will be introduced depending on the requirements of the restaurants.

STEVE WILKINS, managing director of Lewis & Clarke, has been presented with Caterer and Hotelkeeper’s Pub Industry Award 2003.  Lewis & Clarke pubs include, among others, the Last in Shoe Lane, the Prophet in Worship Street and the Nudge in New Oxford Street.

Judge Tony Hughes, managing director of Mitchells & Butlers, said Wilkins was "at the cutting edge of the pub industry", and someone who set the agenda that other pub operators often followed.

"Not only is he an inspirational, innovative, creative guy, but more importantly, he knows how to make money," said Hughes.  Philip and Stephen Harris, owners of the Sportsman in Whitstable gained Caterer & Hotelkeeper’s Pub Operator of the Year Award 2003.

The brothers took over the Kent-based pub in November 1999 and quickly transformed it into a highly successful Michelin-rated, foodled operation with Philip as landlord and Stephen as chef-patron.

"They’ve concluded that there’s more to life than lager, and that the Sportsman is there to serve the local people," commented judge Andrew Pern, owner of the Star Inn in Harome, north Yorkshire, and last year’s Pub Operator of the Year.