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August 21, 2009

According to this report from Harden’s, the recession has not devastated the London restaurant trade as many had predicted it would. Instead, restaurant closures are below normal numbers over the last year while the number of openings is up 9%.

But let’s not pop that champagne quite just yet. The London restaurant trade is not the same as in the rest of the country and the fact that restaurants aren’t closing doesn’t mean that they aren’t suffering. I spoke to a high profile Edinburgh chef a few weeks back and he was certainly feeling the pinch. He also pointed out that his friends in prestigous London operations were only now seeing a real fall off in trade.

There are a lot of mixed messages out there. Whenever the recession ends technically, there will still be a lot of fiscal pain further down the line so it’s not exactly doubles all around but the Harden’s report does give cause for optimism.