A New Era for Me

Craiglochart Campus, Edinburgh Napier University - picture by sparky2000

As you may or may not know, I started my journalism studies at Edinburgh Napier University this year. We had to write four articles to start our new career with and as I never in my life have done anything similar to this, it was quite an experience.

The first one was an interview made in Princes Street Gardens so I grabbed my notebook and my pen and went for my “person hunt”. We had to find two people, elderly or tourists. I decided that the best would be to find an elderly tourist And so I did.

The first few people I asked said that they were not interested, they did not want to buy anything Even the elderly people were not kind and this was a shock for me. Grandma and grandpa are kind… Or at least they should be…

After walking my legs off, I finally found a gorgeous couple from Germany. The interview was exciting as I had no idea what to ask from them. Imagine: I had to write an article about a person’s life story… And I am not so good in preparing in advance, in fact, I do not believe you can prepare in advance for an interview if you do not know who the interviewee is going to be.

Anyway, I knew what I wanted to know I just did not have enough experience (especially in English), to ask the proper questions. After a while I got the angle of the story and I was unstoppable.

The second piece was an easier one for me: a profile of a journalist. I felt very lucky as I happen to know a Hungarian journalist (we went to the same University and had a class together), so I could do the interview in Hungarian and did not even have to struggle too much with the questions. We have known each other for three years now and I knew a lot of things about him.

Thus, I could prepare my questions in advance as I almost knew his answers as well. This happened to be an hour-long interview which I really enjoyed translating into English. I would love to do this all my life. It was also very comfortable as I did the interview through Skype and I could look into my lecture notes to check whether I was doing the right thing.

Our third article was a Parliament report. This was the hardest as I had to cope with the different accents of MSPs and also with words I have never heard before. I did not know the politicians either, so I tried to guess their names from the vowels I heard I was not sure if I could manage but I could even get some quotes.

Our final task was a feature for the BMI‘s in-flight magazine, the Voyager. We were asked to write something in connection with Edinburgh or Glasgow. As I work in a hotel restaurant this was not really difficult; I meet tourists every single day, I talk to them, I know why they choose certain restaurants and destinations so I decided to write about something regarding restaurants. I called the head-chef of the four star hotel, and we had a chat which I recorded. The result was a 1000-word article about the comfort of hotel restaurants.

In the future I would like to make a few changes: I would like to be more prepared as luck will not always accompany me throughout my academic studies. I will also have to get used to the different accents here and this might improve by listening to the radio or going to council meetings…and if I read more newspaper my vocabulary will improve and I will also get to know how certain articles look like, what makes them interesting and what readers want.

Eating In-Out?

Elements Restaurant, Novotel Edinburgh Centre - picture by Viqe

Going to restaurant wearing your bikinis or your most comfi robe? In the 21st century nothing is impossible.

More and more hotels seem to open a restaurant within their premises in recent years, however, according to Booking.com, only 65 out of 193 hotels have their own restaurants currently.

We asked Gordon Haig, head-chef of Novotel Edinburgh Centre’s Elements Restaurant, what he thinks the reasons are.

I could only meet Haig briefly, as when he is not working he is either travelling with his family to explore new cuisines, or he is just too busy looking after Johnny, his one-year-old son.

Haig started as a sous-chef four years ago in the hotel and after leaving for Holiday Inn, he became the head-chef there. Last year, Novotel seemed to be missing Haig so they offered him the same position in their kitchen and that was when he met his wife, the sous-chef.

As he has always been working for hotel restaurants, he knows all there is to know about them.

Haig calls F&B (food and beverage) a “necessary evil” to hotels, and says that nowadays they have the urge to have it, i.e.: bars and restaurants on the premises. The number one reason for this is money, of course, according to him.

Although most of the hotels do not have as much income from operating restaurants as from rooms, they (especially newly opened ones), have to have it.

Haig, who works in a hotel restaurant from which a mile radius away there are approximately 130 other restaurants, admits: “In Edinburgh there are so many restaurants, that a lot of hotels will just see it as there is no point doing it because you can make more money just by having rooms.”

Although this might be the case, there are certain advantages of hotel restaurants as well.

The upsides of a hotel restaurant from the guests’ point of view are vast: they can eat a luxurious 3-course meal in casual clothes, wet hair, after just having stepped out of the shower or the swimming pool, they do not have to care about transportation and therefore need to spend less money, bad weather is never an issue and they do not have to pay straight away as at most places they can charge everything on their rooms and only pay when they leave the premises.

This proves Haig’s idea: “People choose hotels that have a restaurant mainly because it is more comfortable.”

Businessmen often work in their rooms throughout the day and they can also find comfort in room service: ”They do not want the hassle of going out if they’ve got work to do,’”said Haig.

However, there are also some downsides of these restaurants: a lot of them are a part of a hotel chain, which results in a standardised menu.

Accor, (the company behind Novotel, Ibis, Mercure and many more) Hilton and Marriott surely have a standard menu and these cover more than 7600 hotels worldwide. This suggests that there is not a great variety of dishes (just around 40) while in a simple restaurant there are at least 120 choices according to Haig.

Standardised menus are often chosen by hotels as it is more economical. They can sign a contract with the suppliers for a year in advance and thus, they get discounts and also a standard price.

For some, these menus can be good, though. It can mean that if one goes to a hotel of the same chain he can be sure to get the same quality, taste and flavour.

Gordon Haig, head-chef of Novotel Edinburgh Centre's Elements Restaurant - picture by Viqe

Despite the downsides, hotel restaurants are suitable for groups as well unlike most ordinary restaurants as they can offer TDH (table d’hotel, French for hosts’ table) and buffet menus.

Also, if someone would like to try the specialities of a particular destination, these restaurants are flexible: they can create a special menu for certain groups if asked in advance.

Haig, however, says that it is always good to look for a small, local restaurant: “I like trying a restaurant where the locals would eat in, rather than a hotel restaurant.

“Unless the hotel has a really good restaurant, I would always go out.”