Style goes down on Tom Aikens

Tom Aikens' suppliers, don't read any further, you may hurl.

In a fantastically badly timed article, the Style section of the Sunday Times carries a fawning article by Christa D'Souza on Tom Aikens.  I know these magazines have a fairly long lead-time, but this is really badly timed.

For irony and hubris, my favourite bit of this piece is:

It’s 11am and we are sitting in the reception of Tom Aikens, the Michelin-starred Chelsea restaurant he opened in 2003. Things have changed a little since we saw each other at that dinner. The popular up-market fish-and-chip shop he opened last summer has been closed down after complaints from the neighbours about the smell. And he’s not doing his food products at Selfridges any more. Otherwise, he is just as hyper and driven as ever: team Aikens is raring to go. There’s the cookbook. Then there’s the hugely desirable cookware he has just designed with the couple’s friend David Linley. There’s also the possibility of a television series in which he goes to places such as Sierra Leone to address one of his pet topics: fish piracy.

Er, he may have opened in 2003 but what about what happened this week?

I wonder whether that rather expensive sounding line of cookware with David Linley is in that part of the Aikens empire that has gone under, and what about that book deal? I'm guessing not.

What with the rather frosty economy and the enormous dent his cache must have taken in the last couple of weeks, I imagine both these endeavours could well get put on hold. Which is a shame and I mean that genuinely. I've never eaten in one of his gaffes, it's never really appealed and I don't like his public persona, unlike say Heston Blumenthal, who comes across as a good bloke and his food is mind-blowing. But the problems facing Aikens are probably just the start of what will turn out be a snowball effect that will almost certainly engulf others that I do like, either personally or because of their contribution to my taste-buds. And that's sad.

Comments

[paul]

Tom Aikens has always been a tosser i mean what sought of arse hole orders a load of food from his suppliers knowing full well he cannot pay them then he has the cheek to phone them back to see if they can still work together in the future Tom Aikens = w****r IMO