CITY SET FOR HERON’S ROOM WITH A VIEW
BUSINESS hotshots out to impress in the City’s culture of superlatives, take note: plans are finally afoot to find a restaurateur to take on what will soon become the venue with some of the best views over the Square Mile.
Heron Tower, the 46-storey Bishopsgate glass and stainless steel giant due for completion just over a year from now, is on the hunt for an operator for its Restaurant and Sky Bar, which will occupy floors 38 to 40 of the building.
Standing 175m above street level, Heron’s chic eatery is up there with the likes of Tower 42, which is 183m tall, and the Gherkin at 180m, and will boast two of its own direct external elevators to save the hassle of queuing in the building’s lobby. (It will also have an external terrace à la Coq D’Argent, prompting whispers in the City that restaurant group D&D London might be in the running to strike a deal, though I hear no decision has yet been taken.)
Best of all, there are no stuffy regulations stopping non-tenants and non-members from enjoying a glass of champagne with a view. Get ready to book in those lunches pronto, ladies and gents…
MOTOR MOUTH
An amusingly old-skool response to the debate over electric cars catches The Capitalist’s eye, courtesy of a letter to Bloomberg Markets magazine from a reader over the pond in San Diego.
“A typical commute in an electric car may be 20 miles,” grumbles our scribe, “but on Friday, the typical young American drives another 10 miles to pick up his date, 10 miles to the event, 20 miles cruising around town, 40 minutes parked with the heater on, 10 miles to take his date home and 10 miles back home.
“The way I figure it, the heater won’t last 40 minutes on a cold night in a battery-powered car and the kid won’t get any action. Monday morning he’ll be the laughing stock at his high school.”
Clearly, making out in the back of a gas-guzzlin’ Chevy takes priority over saving the planet…
PALS REUNITED
A creeping sense of déjà vu over at beverage maker C&C Group, the owner of the Bulmers and Magners cider brands.
C&C drafted in John Dunsmore, the former chief executive of brewer Scottish & Newcastle, to turn around its ailing sales back in November 2008 – after which the new boss promptly brought in his old S&N pals Stephen Glancey as chief operating officer and Kenny Neison as strategy director.
Fast forward 15 months and who should be joining the company as non-executive chairman but Sir Brian Stewart (above), also a former chairman of – you guessed it – S&N. It’s all shaping up for a tremendously joyous little reunion.
LONG HAUL
Finally, spare a thought for the City’s Lord Mayor Nick Anstee, who I hear has been making a habit of being up at 6am in recent weeks to pound the pavements, in training for the London Marathon in April.
Fitness fanatic Anstee is the first Lord Mayor to run the gruelling course while in office, though it shouldn’t be too much of a shock to the system given his past experience running no less than 15 previous marathons. Ouch.