MICHELIN-starred chef Adam Handling has been called a “disgrace” for forcing a local bakery to change its name. Handling has several restaurants, including flagship, Frog, in Covent Garden. He cooked for world leaders during the G7 summit in Cornwall last year.
Earlier this month, his lawyers contacted FROG Bakery in Camberwell, which opened in spring, giving it six weeks to change its branding over copyright. Food writer Jonathan Nunn said it’s a “shame” that Handling’s companies are using their “clout to crush a fellow food business”, adding that it’s “a disgrace, really”.
A spokesman for Handling, above, said the name had “caused confusion”, adding: “We have no choice but to protect it from both deliberate and, as this seems to be, accidental conflicts.”
Daisy: it’s the way I tell ’em
Daisy Edgar-Jones credits some of her success to doing silly voices as a kid. The actor’s family “would always speak to each other in accents ... my mum would put on a stronger version of her accent and I would too,” she told the Kermode & Mayo’s take podcast. Londoner Edgar-Jones has a Northern Irish mum and Scottish dad, and does a Southern US accent in new film, Where the Crawdads Sing.
Will Rishi’s projects be put on ice?
WHAT will become of Rishi Sunak’s pet projects as Chancellor if he doesn’t become PM? Last year, Sunak announced plans to move large parts of the Treasury to Darlington, the nearest town to his North Yorkshire seat. This is still official policy, with some of the move already in train, but some in Whitehall think it seems likely to be slowed down. Sunak also hoped to back NFTs, a risky digital asset. Will his schemes continue?
Booker Prize joy for Londoner
THE BOOKER Prize longlist came out yesterday and included three British authors. Londoner Maddie Mortimer, nominated for her first book, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, tells us she is in “a state of shock”. “I’ll be celebrating in Soho at the pub around the corner from the London Library, where I write, and I’ll be pinching myself throughout the night ”. The choices have been praised this year, but are again led by Americans, with six of the 13 on the list. The Booker started including US entries in 2014.
SPICE GIRL Mel B brought two of her daughters and their dyed pink dog Cookie to a Women’s Aid NFT art launch at Blacks Club in Soho last night. Reality star Megan Barton-Hanson was there too.
Elsewhere, Mika Simmons launched her The Happy Vagina book at the AllBright club, while Bridgerton actor Florence Hunt attended a French Connection anniversary party, also in Soho. Rising star Hunt, who hails from Derby, looks like she is living the high life, but told us most of her cash “goes on train tickets to London”. Mary Charteris DJ’d.
