Tom Kerridge Forced to Cut Menu Due to Rising Costs

Michelin-star chef Tom Kerridge is among many British chefs who are forced to drop items like beef, salmon and cod from their menus because of soaring costs.

Kerridge has reduced the menu at his two-Michelin-star pub The Hand & Flowers in Marlow, from offering six starters, mains and desserts, to just three of each in a bid to counter rising food costs. He has also closed his other Michelin star restaurant, Coach, on Mondays and Tuesdays because of staff shortages.

The chef told the Daily Mail that a recruitment issue was affecting the sector, which has not recovered since the pandemic. Kerridge said that a lot of older staff members had taken early retirement during the pandemic and that the issue has been further exacerbated by Brexit, with foreign workers much harder to recruit.

Key ingredients have risen in price due to the war in Ukraine, meaning they are no longer viable for restaurants to serve. Cod is particularly affected, making Britain’s fish and chips something that is becoming increasingly too expensive. Sanctions placed on Russia, whose fishing fleet supplies 40% of the UK’s cod, have pushed prices up.

Mitch Tonks, who runs the popular fish and chips chain Rockfish in England, has joined many of the country’s chip shops and dropped cod from the menu. 'A plate of cod and chips was going to be £24,' he told The Observer, adding that he didn’t think it was fair to ask customers to pay that much.

Cod is not the only fish being cut from the menu. Chef Stuart Gillies - who runs The Bank House in Chislehurst, Bromley, and who ran Gordon Ramsay's restaurant empire for seven years - has replaced expensive salmon with cheaper mackerel. With salmon having risen in price by 20%, Gillies deems it unfair to continue pushing the increase onto his customers.