The Restaurant Industry

In my previous blog posts I believe I have explained what fine-dining is and how it is different from casual dining in terms of the hospitality and restaurant industry. Now I want to use this blog entry to try and explain the restaurant industry in the UK in more detail and the type of restaurant that I believe is the current market leader of this industry.

In the UK the restaurant industry as a whole is worth over £40 billion. In my opinion this is because of the fact that This industry is incredibly diverse. There are many different types of restaurant ranging from high-end Fine Dining Restaurants such as Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck, to relatively cheap fast food service chains such as McDonald’s. It is relatively easy to classify restaurants by type of service they provide such as fine dining or casual dining etc. or by the food type or specialty they serve such as Chinese, European etc. De Angelis (2013)

Its obvious just from walking down your local high street what type of restaurants are doing well in the economy of the modern day. I say this as everywhere you look there's bound to be some kind of fast food chain outlet. This is a good example of a positive sign for the company providing evidence that their company is doing well. However London and other large cities have recently been the site of many fine-dining restaurants including Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver's respective restaurants. De Angelis (2013)

After researching the industry I have found that the fast food industry is the most successful of all the chain restaurant sectors. This is obvious from the fact that in the top ten chain restaurants of 2011 fast food restaurants account for over half of the ranks and McDonald's are at number one. These top ten restaurant chains also account for 52.3% of the top 100 U.K chains. In my opinion These figures prove that the fast food industry is the market leader in the restaurant and hospitality industry in the UK as a whole. De Angelis (2013)

References

Alex De Angelis,(Thursday Oct, 31,2013), Companiesandmarkets.com,

Available at; https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/uk-restaurant-industry-000000282.html

How Does Fine Dining Differ From Casual Dining?

In my previous blog post I explained what Fine Dining was. Now I hope to explain what makes fine dining different from casual dining. One main difference is that fine dining restaurants provide services that casual dining restaurants would not. An example of this would be providing silver service or similar high-end services.. This makes the fine dining sector different from casual dining As it shows a skill set that is incredibly unlikely to be found elsewhere.

There are many other differences between the two such as the quality and type of service, and price as well as staff knowledge and quality. These are incredibly important to fine dining as the quality and type of service they offer are what gives them their higher-end reputation. This is important as we as customers expect a fine dining company to provide us with an exceptionally high standard of service to live up to the title of “fine-dining.”

Another Difference is the prices fine dining restaurants charge. Fine dining restaurants generally price their food differently from casual dining Restaurants. This is mainly because as fine dining is more of a luxury experience, they try to use the highest quality ingredients which obviously cost a lot more than the ingredients used in casual dining restaurants meaning the menu prices increase. Fine dining restaurants also charge more as they need an incredibly highly skilled workforce to prepare and cook their customers food.

Finally fine dining restaurants are made different from casual dining by the staff members in the restaurant. This refers to both the knowledge possessed by and the quality of staff members. The knowledge possessed by the staff in a fine dining restaurant may be different from the knowledge possessed by the staff in a casual dining restaurant. As in a fine dining restaurant staff are expected to know more advanced techniques or methods in terms of both the kitchen and front of house than the staff in say a smaller more casual dining restaurant. The staff quality also makes fine dining different as it is essential to have a top quality workforce in a fine-dining restaurant.

What is fine dining?

Hello, My name is Jennifer Houston and over the next few months I will be writing all about The Fine Dining aspect of the hospitality industry. I am currently studying International Hospitality Management at university and hope to use this blog to help people of all backgrounds to greater understand what fine dining is and how it impacts the hospitality industry as a whole. I will also write about how different fine dining is compared to casual dining.

Fine dining in my opinion is a restaurant that provides food,beverages and services of an exceptionally high quality or standard to members of the public.The food served in a fine dining restaurant is usually served to their customers in a formal but professional way. An example of a fine dining restaurant would be Heston Blumenthal's restaurant The Fat Duck.

Fine dining restaurants as you may expect charge quite Extortionate amounts of money for their services. This is mainly due to the fact that they try to use the highest quality ingredients which obviously cost a lot more than the ingredients casual dining restaurants would use. Another factor contributing to the price of fine dining restaurants would be that the customer is paying to have an incredibly highly skilled workforce prepare and cook their food to an incredibly high expected standard of quality.

Most but not all of the higher quality fine dining restaurants may be awarded a certain award called a michelin star rating. This award serves as a benchmark or goal for the restaurant and its competition to try and meet. However it is the chef who works in the restaurant not the actual restaurant who is awarded the star rating. This means if the chef leaves the restaurant the restaurant no Longer possesses that star rating. The maximum number of stars that can be awarded are three stars. There are only 4 restaurants in the UK that currently possess 3 michelin stars these are ;

• The Fat Duck in Bray
• The Waterside Inn also in Bray
• Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in Chelsea
• Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester in Mayfair