Arthur Reynolds

Friday

Arthur Reynolds

Pay no attention to a restaurant’s hygiene rating

From our UK edition

Colonel Saab is not your average curry house: the tasting menu costs £90, and a giant fish tank is nowhere to be seen. Its starry clientele, who include Jude Bellingham and Keir Starmer, may therefore have been alarmed by recent reports that the restaurant closed temporarily after receiving a zero food hygiene rating (the lowest on the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme) from Westminster Council. But if my experience is anything to go by, they shouldn’t hesitate to visit more eateries on the council’s naughty list.   This year, in the name of social media engagement, I’ve eaten at 13 zero or one-star-rated restaurants and counting. Some have been a tad suspicious.

Monday

Arthur Reynolds

Celebrities make the best pub landlords

From our UK edition

Last week, Ryan Reynolds and his fellow Wrexham owners bought The Turf, the pub where the football club was founded in 1864. They’ve promised to preserve its character and keep the longstanding landlord behind the bar. Reynolds is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party, but it’s hard to imagine a more conservative act than guaranteeing a pub’s future. Sir Ian McKellen, a man who prides himself on voting Labour at every election, admitted as much when he took on the 500-year-old, Grade II-listed Grapes in Limehouse: ‘Dickens wrote that "it had outlasted and clearly would yet outlast many a better trimmed building"... I wanted to make sure it continues to do so.’ Celebrities are our new aristocracy British pubgoers, too, are natural conservatives.