first and foremost, food in great restaurants should be about the taste, and that i am 100% unequivocal about. and it should be taste. because time and time again, and i'm sure you've been to some of these restaurants as well, where the food looks absolutely beautiful, so, so beautiful, you want to put it up on the wall and not taste it, and you go, "wow, this is great." and you're salivating and you take a spoonful of it and you go, "what does it taste of? "eh? "nothing." so style over substance. give me substance any time, any day of the week. so that's—that's important. but going back to the phone, i do it, but i do it for memories. i don't do it to post on instagram or anything, because i'm getting of a certain age that i forget. so i tolerate it. but if people do get their phone out too much, then we might have a little quiet word and say, "oi, eat whilst it's hot, please." let's get to something that is hitting notjust

you in your business, but all restaurants right now, and that is a very tough economic climate. mmm. and actually it's been a climate building for years. and perhaps you were knocked back and many others were, more than anything, by the covid pandemic. and ijust wonder, as you reflect now on what that meant to your business and many other restaurant businesses in this country and around the world, just how tough was it? it was incredibly tough. and i will never forget those days where i had to come in here to check the premises, obviously, for insurance reasons, and to make sure everything was all right and to come in to... because you shut down. for the first time in your family history with le gavroche, it shut its doors. you had to, of course. we had to. lockdown was lockdown. but to come in here... ..lights out, the smell of a stale restaurant, the dust everywhere made me weep. did it? and made me cry. i sat down over there on

one of the banquettes and just put my head in my hands and just thought, "what the hell? "why, why, why?" and it was very, very tough. and i was within sort of moments of saying, "well, i'm closing. "what's the point?" do you think, not so much here, because as you've said, you could fill this restaurant every night if you wanted to go on and on and on, but do you think for the industry as a whole, it actually hasn't truly properly recovered? because, of course, since then we've had a cost of living crisis, we've had energy costs spiralling, food prices spiralling. and if you look at the figures, the numbers of restaurants in london and across the united kingdom, which are closing their doors forever per year, is soaring right now. it is. restaurants and pubs. restaurants, pubs, clubs, etc. closures are happening all the time. and you're absolutely right. i mean, obviously, we came out of lockdown and there was a huge surge.

but then there was the staffing crisis, there was obviously energy prices which went skyrocketing and there was no help for our businesses in energy prices or very, very little, and rent and rates still skyrocketing and inflation. it made me laugh when you saw the headline at 10% when actually food inflation was nearer 20%, and itjust went on and on. and then let's not forget as well, a lot of restaurants, a lot of businesses had taken out loans that needed to be repaid. so it is very tough and i think there will be more closures, and it's a very, very difficult time. i really, really do think that the government could help the hospitality industry now. we need it now. we're one of the biggest employers, the hospitality industry in the uk. we bring in so much.

people fly into to the uk, tourists, and they want to eat and they want to have great times. they want to spend their money with us. and the uk government at the moment is... ..not reacting. i've got to ask you one very specific question. you've several times talked about the difficulties of hiring the right talented, professional staff. one issue may be because historically this industry — and it has to be said, your restaurant — hasn't paid people terribly well. in fact, going back to 2015, it was revealed that you here were actually, if you added up all the hours worked, were not paying people even the national minimum wage. yeah. how could you be asking your clients, your dining guests to pay bills of £200, £300 per meal, and yet not even pay your staff a living wage? that's correct. and that came down to me. i took the blame. i put my hand up and apologised. i took my eye off the ball

and the people that were in place. we had systems, but... i apologised profusely and it was not intentional. there are systems now in place that means that this won't happen again and everybody that was owed money was paid, paid back. right now, obviously, your wages are better because you say you learned a lesson, but right now, is it still really difficult to hire the right kind of people? yes. yes, incredibly difficult. and... and is that, sorry to interrupt, but ijust wonder, in your view, is that a direct result of brexit, as you see it? because you used to get many young, talented kitchen staff from europe. it's harder now. most definitely. it's a combination, i would say, of lockdown and brexit. i would say, if i were to put it in in percentage terms, i would say it's maybe 40% lockdown, 60% brexit.

and by that, i mean lockdown has made a lot of people change theirjobs and realise that, actually, they can earn a living maybe delivering for amazon or suchlike, and not having to work on the weekends or unsociable hours. but then brexit was the big, big spanner in the works. and that certainly, certainly hurt us in the hospitality industry, but notjust us. i mean, look at care industry, look at nursing, all of that. i want to end, because we're nearly out of time, i want to end with some thoughts from you about where your cooking goes from here and where the restaurant business goes from here. let me ask you this, do you feel that there's still room for innovation, for new approaches, new techniques in cooking, or given the immense diversity of tastes and foods and restaurants we have

in a city like london now, are we sort of reaching peak foodieness? no, there's still more to come. i looked at my dad and i thought, "god, you're so old—fashioned." you know, "there's better ways of doing this, "more, sort of lighter ways." and so i brought that to the restaurant, but still respecting, obviously, my french tradition, french heritage. and my daughter calls me a dinosaur now, so she's evolved as well. but when you go out... i think it's going to be constantly evolving. do you? when you go out today to a new restaurant, do you ever taste something that you think, "my god, i never "thought of doing that, that has blown my mind"? yes. and i think that's wonderful. and i think that that's why i love being a chef and i love this industry. it is because every day is different and there's... it is such a creative industry, or can be, and there are geniuses out there that can create and that will carry on innovating.

and that excites me. i think it's wonderful. yeah. final thought. you say the geniuses are out there, they'll carry on. you're not carrying on, you're quitting. and rene redzepi, you know, i went to noma to talk to him, he was winning, every year for a while, the best restaurant in the world award. he's closing noma and he says he's going to concentrate on his laboratory and food science, not on his restaurant. do you think we are coming to the end of a golden era of the sort of international elite restaurants? no, again, still not. there will always be a place for restaurants like rene�*s or like le gavroche. and i think it will always, always come... and it will always evolve. and by our very nature, chefs, we are inquisitive and we are innovative, and we're always seeking and looking for the next thing. so you're still going to be in a kitchen somewhere, just not this one.

just not this one. the roux brand and the name le gavroche is carrying on. and we're going to take le gavroche on the road and we're going to be doing some residencies, notjust in the uk, maybe all over the world. so just watch this space. michel roux, it has been a pleasure. thanks for being on hardtalk. thank you. hello there. it's a rather cloudy start to the new week, but there should be a lot more sunshine emerging for most of us on tuesday. that's quite a mixed week of weather ahead. it will be tricky for travelling at times in the run up to christmas

with more rain to come in the forecast, turning very windy too on thursday and friday. and in the colder—feeling air, there could even be a few wintry showers at times, especially over the high ground, of course. and there's currently cold air sinking southwards. milder air lasts across southern areas of england and south wales for a time too, but then it's gradually moving again. it's a soggy, very wet start to the day on tuesday across southern england and wales. that heavy rain eventually clearing, but not until we get to the afternoon. it's still a legacy of cloud across parts of kent and sussex until the end of the day. but lots of more sunshine emerging further north and west, with a brisk north—westerly wind and some showers just moving through into north—west scotland. again, wintry over the hills, temperatures dropping through the afternoon, but it's only a brief colder spell because, then, things will start to turn a lot milder from the west as we head through tuesday night. temperatures dropping lowest out towards the east, rising through the night for these western spots, with that warm front

gradually pushing further eastwards through the day on wednesday. you can see the winds turning a little bit more westerly. and there will be some rain across north—west scotland, north—west england and northern ireland, western wales for a time. the further south and east you are, the drier your wednesday is likely to be, but there'll be a lot of cloud around, some rather murky conditions and some mist and fog too. but temperatures rising back up again into double figures pretty much across the board. but again, that mild air is not set to last because it's going to turn colder again, very cold for some spots on thursday with this cold front sinking southwards. a very brisk north—westerly wind, tight squeeze on the isobars there, and there'll be gales across the far north of scotland, gusts of wind here of up to 70 to 80 miles an hour. very brisk winds for irish sea coasts, and also for north sea—facing coasts, there could be a coastal surge too, possibly blizzard—like conditions with wintry showers across parts of scotland. again, a very tight squeeze on those isobars as we head into friday. so strong winds yet again. we're into colder—feeling air and there'll be plenty

of added wind chill. but as you can see, the mild air is still not too far away, and that will be working its way in from the west again as we head through saturday, possibly turning colder once more for the second half of the weekend. bye— bye.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore,

i'm mariko 0i. the headlines. as pressure grows for a ceasefire in gaza, intense negotiations at the un security council to agree a new resolution. in hong kong, the media tycoonjimmy lai has gone on trial facing charges of breaching national security. new covid variant is spreading fast across the world, cases soar in asia as singapore encourages people to wear masks, once again and a volcano in iceland has erupted, sending fountains of lava into the air.

welcome to newsday. negotiations are continuing at the united nations