Well it seems another celebrity chef’s restaurants have been shuttered with the appointment last week of administrators to George Colombaris’ Made Group of about 15 Melbourne restaurants. This follows on news that Heston Blumenthal’s fine dining venture in Melbourne has closed owing staff a reported $4.4 million in wages and entitlements. Other big names went before him – Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, Gordon Ramsay’s Maze plus Adriano Zumbo And this is in a city that hosted the World’s 50 best restaurants and has a well established culinary reputation. All of which prompts one to ask why. Not to apportion blame, especially towards hard-working chefs and their staff, but to ask whether it is the critics, social media, are we fickle customers, or is it rents, food and labour costs. There probably is no simple answer, but the late Anthony Bourdain once espoused his own theory on celebrity chefs.
