←Luxury London hotel Chiltern Firehouse evacuated after fire breaks out
Текст: The popular celebrity venue Chiltern Firehouse in London will remain closed until further notice after a fire forced about 100 people to evacuate on Friday lunchtime.
The London fire brigade (LFB) said 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines attended the blaze at the restaurant and luxury hotel on Chiltern Street in Marylebone after a 999 call was made at 2.52pm.
The fire started on the ground floor of the Grade II-listed building, one of London’s first purpose-built fire stations, and spread to the second and third floors and the roof.
It raged for six hours before a firefighter near the scene said it was “completely under control”, adding that the four-storey hotel will probably need a “large refurbishment”.
André Balazs, the owner of Chiltern Firehouse, confirmed no one had been hurt in the fire, and said it was “fully contained” by 9.30pm. “Our guests and staff safely evacuated.”
In a statement, the LFB said: “Crews worked hard over a number of hours in challenging circumstances in a complex historic building and successfully contained the fire to one property, preventing it from spreading to neighbouring properties.
“Firefighters will remain on scene throughout the night, damping down hotspots.”
The restaurant is on the ground floor of the building, and an eyewitness said they had been told the fire had “started in the kitchen” and then “went upstairs”.
“The restaurant was emptied and there [were]lots of very glamorous people milling around outside, shivering,” the witness added. “They were very smartly dressed and I don’t think they expected to be waiting in the cold … You can smell the smoke outside but I did not see any flames.”
Another eyewitness, who works nearby, said he saw “the whole street full of smoke”.
“There was really thick smoke and it got into the other street as well … the visibility was awful,” Guy Fischman, 23, from Richmond, London, told PA.
By 5pm, the road had been closed off, he said, because of the number of fire engines trying to fight the fire.
“[The fire] definitely got bigger than expected. I didn’t expect it to get so big seeing as the fire brigade got there quite early,” he said. “The whole street was shut off and you could see the smoke from quite far away … it was crazy.”
He added that he was “in complete shock” about seeing the thick smoke and flames: “My coat stinks of smoke right now … I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that in the UK or in London.”
Crews of firefighters from across London were deployed to the scene, including from Euston, Kensington and Chelsea, Paddington, Soho and West Hampstead fire stations.
By 5.30pm, about two hours after the fire started, thick black smoke was billowing from the roof and firefighters began using an aerial platform to pump water on to the area.
Videos on social media showed flames at the top of the building being doused by fire officers on a crane, while smoke comes out of the roof.
LFB firefighters said a cordon was likely to be in place overnight, preventing access to the streets surrounding the five-star hotel.
Shortly after it opened in 2014, the restaurant was reported to be “
single-handedly feeding the celebrity sections of the tabloids”, a place where paparazzi “loll and glower, ready to pounce on the luminaries who swarm [there] like candle-crazed moths”.
It was given 5/10 for value for money and 7/10 for food by
restaurant reviewer Marina O’Loughlin, and described as a place that “seems to be almost permanently accessorised by Kate Moss”.
Bill Clinton, Bono, David Cameron, Keira Knightley and Lindsay Lohan have been photographed at the venue in the past. Madonna and Naomi Campbell are also among its celebrated clientele.
Balazs said: “It is with heartfelt gratitude and appreciation that we watched a remarkable 120 firefighters from [more than] 14 stations rapidly descend on what they told me was a hugely sentimental building for so many of them.
“We know in fact one of those who rushed to the Chiltern Firehouse this evening had been stationed in the building when it was a fire station 30 years ago. I am truly grateful to all of them as I am sure that this is not the Valentine’s Day evening they had in mind.”
This article was amended on 17 February 2025 to remove a statement that the fire had begun in the ducting of the building. This was the latest information available at the time of the incident. The London Fire Brigade has since said that the fire was started by burning wood falling from a pizza oven and igniting the void between the basement and ground floor.
‘Butter is a perception’: inside the UK’s first plant-based Michelin-starred restaurant
Текст: Kirk Haworth, the owner and head chef of the east London restaurant Plates, hates the word vegan. “At least seeing the word on a menu,” he says. “Plant-based cooking is not a trend. Not for me, anyway. I’ve been doing it for eight years and it’s just in my soul now.” And yet this week, Haworth became the first UK chef to win a Michelin star for cooking only plant-based food.
Plates is small, with just 25 covers. There are two sittings but it is full until the end of April. The phone is always engaged, and they can only cope with reservations today and tomorrow. For everything else, send an email.
“It’s been like this since we opened – we had 76,000 people trying to book, and the website crashed,” he says. The restaurant opened a few months after he won the TV show Great British Menu. “I’m not sure anyone’s reviewed it yet because they can’t get a table.”
The diners, then, are diehard Haworth fans, and come in two sizes. The couple next to me have been waiting nine months for a table (it only opened in July), while a man waiting for the loo says he enjoyed his meal but had been brought by a friend “and had no idea what this place was”.
Except for the two City guys discussing salaries at the bar, people have travelled from outside
London, take photos of the outside but rarely of their food, and are noticeable for being dressed up rather than well-dressed. Hoxton is, after all, the ground zero of scuzzy hipsters, and this is an unusual location for a Michelin-starred restaurant – being just off the Old Street roundabout, and down the road from east London’s more storied Turkish and Vietnamese restaurants.
It used to a be a restaurant/bar that closed after the pandemic – as did about 14% of restaurants in central London – but it was a vegan one, suggesting there is something in the filtered tap water.
To the food. It is a tasting menu, but a generous one. Among Haworth’s favourites is a dish of slow-cooked leeks that comes crowned with a handful of frozen verjus (pressed unripe grapes). He also likes the barbecued mushrooms.
But it is the ones that should, by rights, be meat that stand out. A lasagne that feels like lasagne except made from mung and urad beans; the whole thing is then served – as if to remind you, again, of what it is not – with a thumb of cucumber. Then there is bread, or rather, a bread-ish croissant rolled into a swirl and served with green “butter” made from cashews. Asked why the non-butter butter is still called butter, Haworth says simply: “Butter is a perception.”
Nowhere on the menu is the word “vegan”. Nor “plant-based”, “dairy-free” or even “cow-lite”. “Look, I hate imitation,” he says of the now popular fake meat and cheese market. Although beetroot has an uncanny ability to mimic beef, the meat and fish are not so much doctored as completely swapped out.
Everything here strikes a balance between casual and assiduity. Even its name, Plates, betrays nothing except that there will be a lot of them. The semi-open kitchen, which has that monastic serenity you only get when food is not cooked to order, is surrounded by a chef’s counter made from four felled London trees.
Customers sit on mustard banquettes, the large Holiday Inn opposite hidden by cafe curtains. There is only one loo, but it has a huge basin carved from polished rock. The Michelin inspectors described it as cosy rather than cramped. But what looks cosy, in other words, is actually more posh.
In the truest three-figure Michelin tradition, there are some at-table sauce pouring performances. Plumes of dry ice fog hover over some dishes and you are told which cutlery to use, and in which order. The mocktails – including the “yuzuade” – are fun but unnecessary. And some of the textures – some teeth-squeaking puffed rice – are a little overwhelming. Then there is the price – £90 before you’ve had anything to drink, which feels a little mighty for vegetables. Still, there are enough single diners dropping £150 to remind you this is a destination.
The Michelin system is not what it used to be. According to a
report by University College London, starred restaurants are statistically more likely to close down than highly rated venues
without the accolade. At this week’s ceremony, there were fewer new one- and two-star restaurants compared with last year, and only one three-star addition. But that does not mean it is not difficult to get one. “I’d like to say it’s harder to get a star with plant-based food, but I’ve cooked both and it’s hard all round,” says Haworth, who trained at the French Laundry, which is famous for its oysters and caviar.
The meal is finished with a cacao gateau covered in raw caramel. This is the dish that won him the Great British Menu. As such, it is twice the size of everything else. When it first opened, there were three desserts on the menu. When they drop a course, it is the risotto that makes way, not the rice pudding.
Though Haworth concedes the current food system is not sustainable, it was only after being diagnosed with Lyme disease that he explored a plant-based diet, finding it helped mitigate the symptoms. “But that’s just me. Most of the people who come in aren’t vegan. I’d say 99%. That must show you something.”
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