Those in the hospitality industry attribute this burgeoning interest to such factors as the easing of the recession, the expansion and changing attitudes of the middle class, and to risk-takers such as Mezzo's Conran. Quaglino's in the teeth of the recession in 1993. And it started the money flowing. Quaglino's made other investors see there is a market there,'' says Sally Bulloch, executive manager of The Athenaeum hotel, whose refurbished Bulloch's restaurant is one of several to reinvigorate hotel dining. That market is the growing British middle class, which, like the one in America, has discovered it's OK to dine out three to five times a week.
More people have more disposable money .
The major beneficiaries of all this, along with the dining public, are the chefs, who are reveling in a new-found freedom. London is the place to be,'' says French-trained Bruno Loubet of L'Odeon. In France, and other European cities, there is a natural restriction in what you can do - the cooking is more classic. In London you can do things that in France would seem very weird. It is just modern food, a modern approach, an eclecticism of ingredients,'' Maschler says.