Friday 18 March 2011

Sussex journalists eat steak for charity

A group of journalists including James Wallin from the Argus, Jonesy from Juice FM and Rob Marks from Brighton Visitor magazine, also the city's 'ghost walk' tour guide, took on the great steak eating challenge at the Old Bank Steak & Grill in Kemptown to support Red Nose Day.

Jonesy was star of the day, managing to eat a full four pounds of rump steak along with a side order of chips, sponsored by dozens of his listeners, whilst the others managed half their steaks before being forced to stop with dry mouths and full stomachs.

They were raising funds for Comic Relief which is this year supporting Sussex charity Sightsavers, which prevents avoidable blindness in developing countries. The journalists have been promoting their cause, which was shown in the BBC1 Red Nose Day Celebrity Trek.

Said owner, Helen Bailey: “The Old Bank Steak & Ribs is Kemptown’s friendly, new steak house restaurant, serving delicious food with great service in a warm and comfortable setting. We are aiming to be the ‘Cheers’ of the neighbourhood - a rarity in the city, offering quality steak and ribs, local catch of the day, grilled chicken and vegetarian dishes at good value prices.”

“The whole night was about raising funds for Comic Relief and Sightsavers, which is a fantastic cause."

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Star quality chef appointed by stadium

A former personal chef to the prime minister and multiple award winning cook, Frederick Tobin, has been appointed as head chef at the American Express Community Stadium to serve superb quality food throughout the stadium.

Fred’s star-studded career includes posts at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s Country Residence, the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, Harrods in Knightsbridge, The Grove in Rickmansworth and most recently, the Felbridge Hotel in East Grinstead, winning many rosettes and accolades along the way.

Elliott Moore, general manager of catering at the stadium, said: “We received nearly a hundred excellent applications for this job and went through a rigorous process to select our chef – but without a doubt, Fred was the right man for the job and we very much look forward to working with him to take stadium food to a new level in quality and service.”

The final stage of the recruitment included a true MasterChef-style ‘cook off’ between shortlisted chefs, held at Queens Park Rangers’ Loftus Road Stadium, where Fred cooked from a mystery box of ingredients, creating seared supreme of salmon with a soused potato and spring onion salad and supreme of chicken filled with cream cheese and mushroom mousse.

Fred, who was born in Crawley and lives there now with his wife and four children, said: “Working on my home turf in one of the most exciting projects in the region really is a dream come true and my goal is to create a new benchmark in excellence for stadium food. This is an awesome project and is something that I can really get my teeth into – it’s huge for Sussex, huge for the South and huge for me!”

Fred will be overseeing seven kitchens, eight 1901 Club corporate hospitality suites, 14 kiosks, each with their own chef, a supporters restaurant, as well as a huge range of non-match day events, from trade fairs and conferences to weddings and private parties. He intends to use as much local, Sussex produce as possible in the food served at the stadium and is already in discussions with local suppliers, seeking out the best ingredients.

The American Express Community Stadium events team is now open and ready for business and are now taking bookings for conferencing and events at the hottest new venue in the city, opening this summer. High spec event rooms with capacity from 2 to 500 have sweeping views of the South Downs and the pitch. Email EventsBrighton@azure.uk.com or call 01273 542 343 to find out more.