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 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 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. wintry weather does not feature heavily in our forecast between now and christmas day, but cloud, wind and rain will. 0n the earlier satellite picture, you can see this stripe of cloud that brought rain in the south on tuesday. then a zone of clear skies not lasting long. more cloud rolling

in from the atlantic, in association with a warm front, bringing a rather grey and quite damp wednesday in many locations. also quite a windy day out there, so any early brightness across england and wales will be replaced by cloud spreading from the north and the west with some outbreaks of rain. northern ireland and scotland just having a generally grey and cloudy day with some bits and pieces of rain and drizzle. it's going to be a breezy or indeed a windy day, but a mild one for most. just a little bit colder in the far north there in shetland. and then through wednesday night, extensive cloud cover, some mist and murk, splashes of rain, heavier rain pushing into scotland and the winds really picking up. gales likely across northern scotland, but we could see gales developing elsewhere by the start of thursday morning. it's going to be a mild start to thursday but a really windy start to the day, with this deep area of low pressure passing to the north of the uk. this frontal system bringing cloud and a little bit of rain as it slides just

a touch further southwards. behind that, some sunny spells, but some showers which could be wintry over high ground in scotland. and it is going to be very windy. particularly gusty conditions to the east of high ground — say, to the east of the pennines, northern and eastern parts of scotland. we could in places see gusts of 70 to 80 miles per hour, very rough seas and maybe even some coastal flooding around some north sea coasts. temperatures, well, just two degrees by the middle of the afternoon in lerwick, 12 there for cardiff and plymouth, so staying mild in the south. quite a messy weather picture for friday. it looks like we'll see a band of rain trying to push northwards and eastwards. that could run into some cold air to provide a bit of snow over high ground in scotland. temperatures are 4 degrees in aberdeen, 12 for london, 12 for plymouth. now, mild air will win out for most of us over the weekend and as we head towards christmas day. just a little bit colder in the north. and it is over higher ground in the north of the uk, particularly in scotland, where we do have the chance of a little bit of snow.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm mariko 0i. the headlines.

as pressure grows for a ceasefire in gaza, ruled ineligible to run and the primary of colorado in the 2021 capital attack by the state supreme court. and this is live in iceland a volcanic eruption throwing love into the skies in the southwest. aid agencies at the southwest. aid agencies at the worsening conditions in gaza security council delays votes on the cease—fire resolution. thank you for being with us. we

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