I don't know when pepper mills in a restaurant got to be right behind frankincense and myrrh in prominence. It used to be in a little jar that sat next to the salt on the table and everyone passed it around, sneezed, and it was no big deal.
I don't think fine dining is dying, but I think those rare occasions when you really want the fanciness are diminishing... I think a lot of people are going to find simpler, more casual ways to enjoy an experience.
I think food trucks are the new answer to American fast food. The idea of raising two or three million dollars and going through red tape to open a restaurant, there's lots of barriers to success. There's a really easy jumping place for food trucks. It's very hip and acceptable for new chefs to open a food truck first.
People are bored of these 12-course gastronomic menus. They want affordable glamour.
Subway is a real point of pride. We have influenced the way people eat.
In a city, it's very hard to do a restaurant, an avant-garde-cuisine restaurant, where each year you need to change the whole menu.
Everybody eats three times a day; it's only a question of where they choose to eat. The longer-term trends are people eat out more often.
Since Londoners started taking their burgers as seriously as the Americans do, discerning burger lovers have come out of the woodwork to judge every component from buns to pickles, patties to cheeses.
