Friday five: the week’s top restaurant stories

– London-based dim sum chain Ping Pong has scrapped service charge and is replacing it with a discretionary 15% ‘brand charge’ to fund wage rises for all of its restaurant teams​​. The group, which operates five sites across the capital, says the move means its teams will benefit from increased company wages that ‘match earnings they would have received with service charge distribution’. As a result of the new wage levels, which came into effect from the beginning of this month (1 April), the starting rate for an employee with no previous hospitality experience will be £12.44 per hour – £1 more than the recently increased National Living Wage, but lower than the voluntary London Living Wage, which currently stands at £13.15. The group says the decision to ditch a tronc-based service charge was brought on by new tipping legislation that’s set to come into force in July, which will require hospitality business to pay staff all money left to them in tips.

– The pair behind the Native restaurant brand will launch a restaurant on the former Pensons site next month. The Michelin-starred restaurant closed late last year citing ‘relentless inflationary pressure’. Native chef Ivan Tisdall-Downes and business partner and front of house counterpart Imogen Davis will relaunch the Pensons site​​ – that’s part of the Netherwood Estate on the Worcestershire/Herefordshire border – on 22 May, showcasing their ‘diligent, hyper-sustainable menu style’. The 32-cover restaurant with rooms (two in an adjacent building, with additional accommodation on the estate), also features a 14-seat private dining room on the upper level. The grounds of the Netherwood Estate, tended by a team of gardeners, farmers and foragers, will supply many of the ingredients used on the menus.

– Hospitality food price inflation remains more than double the rate seen in the retail sector​​ despite steady easing over the last year, the latest CGA Prestige Foodservice Price Index reveals. In March 2023, the level of food inflation in hospitality and retail briefly converged at 19%. However, while inflation in retail as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has eased since then to 5%, wholesale price inflation for hospitality operators as measured by the Foodservice Price Index has only fallen to 12%. This means inflation in hospitality is currently 2.4 times higher than in retail.

– Londoners will be able to try the ‘world’s best pizza’ for the first time thanks to a partnership between Neapolitan pizza restaurant group Fatto a Mano and Master Pizzaiolo Franco Pepe​​. Pepe’s Margherita Sbagliata – translated as ‘mistaken margherita’ – will be available throughout May at Fatto a Mano’s five restaurants. Priced at £16 the special will feature Fatto a Mano’s signature pizza dough, made with Italian 00 flour, and proven for 24 hours, topped with buffalo and fior di latte mozzarella along with Lorenzo extra virgin olive oil from Sicily. The pizza is then baked for no longer than 90 seconds, before Pepe’s riccio (‘curly’) tomato passata is added. Made from an ancient variety grown exclusively for Pepe in his home city of Caiazzo, the passata is added uncooked to preserve its natural flavour, and piped in geometric lines alongside dots of a basil oil. Pepe earned the title of World’s Best Pizza Chef for three consecutive years at the Best Chef Awards in 2021, 2022 and 2023. His Margherita Sbagliata was named the Best Pizza in the World from 2016 to 2018.

– Bill’s is trialling a new bar-orientated sub brand​​ that will offer a wider variety of sharing dishes alongside draft beers and more hot drinks options. Bill’s Newbury relaunched as Bill’s Café Bar this week with Bill’s St Albans set to be converted to the new, more relaxed format later this month. The Richard Caring-owned group says the move comes off the back of ‘record sales’ across its 45-restaurant estate of £92.6m, up 4.6% on like-for-like sales for 2022 and guest metrics being at ‘an all-time high’. Bill’s – which has shrunk significantly following the pandemic and wider challenges in the casual dining space – suggests that the new brand could eventually help it expand the business. The new Café Bar format will also feature a ‘generous’ happy hour promotion encompassing both drinks and food in the form of small-plates each day between 4pm and 7pm, a weekend prosecco offer (£17.50 a bottle before 5pm) and a selection of Bill’s signature favourite dishes available each evening between Sunday and Thursday for £10. Guests will be able to order both at the bar or their table with the space in the two new Café Bars converted into distinct ‘zones’ that will allow for the space to be utilised by the guest ‘in a way that comes naturally to them’ creating ‘a fun and relaxed environment’.

For more of this week’s headlines, click here​​.​

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