Thailand’s Prime Minister, Samak Sundaravej (pictured) has decided to put his calling as a TV chef on the back burner following complaints from opponents that his parallel career breeches electoral laws. Samak’s weekly show Tasting, Grumbling, where the cantankerous 72-year-old combines traditional Thai cooking and spicy political tirades, has run for seven years.
Reality seems to have caught up with Jane and Jeremy Hooper, winners of the first series of the BBC2 restaurant-running reality show The Restaurant. Just seven months in, the Hoopers have stepped away from Eight at the Thatch in Thame, Oxfordshire, the running of which was their hard-fought prize for beating eight other wannabe restaurateur couplings.
Top of the crops
Unorthodox partnerships are not uncommon in the restaurant industry. However, the news that Britney Spears’ ex, Kevin Federline, is supposedly going into partnership with Jamie Spears, the troubled singer’s father and court-appointed custodian, on the takeover of a Los Angeles Mexican restaurant, Casa Cordobes, hints at the most bizarre hospitality union since Marco Pierre White and champion jockey Frankie Dettori said “I do”.
The London Restaurant Awards are back. Or rather they will be, on 1 September. The black-tie do that celebrates the cream of the capital’s dining scene has been in limbo since April 2005, when a fresh-faced Amy Winehouse (pictured) provided the musical interlude to the ITV-televised event.
1. Golden delicious
Jamie Oliver is to be a judge on a new US reality show, Oprah’s Big Give. The Oprah Winfrey-backed series begins tonight, pitting contestants against each other in the art of giving. Call it Philanthropy Idol – if you must.