Restaurant Winners Meet The Community

THE couple that won a Thame eating house in the recent TV Series, The Restaurant, have been meeting the locals today.
Jane and Jeremy Hooper, who have now moved to Thame, today invited members of the local business community, members of the Press and local people who would like to join the couple and work at ‘Eight At The Thatch’ (formerly The Old Trout), to meet them at the Swan Hotel.
Jane told ThameNews.Net: “After all the media attention and the training we have been doing with Peach and Raymond Blanc, we just can’t wait to get into the building and actually start doing what we have been chosen to do. We are recruiting local people wherever we can to work with us and shall be sourcing ingredients locally too.
“We do so want to become part of the local community and contribute to the life of Thame.”
Although Jane discovered that she was pregnant just a month after the series began, she is confident that, although she will probably take a couple of months off “to get used to being a mum,” she still intends to take a full and active part in the business.
Chatting about children and family life, Jane said that she and Jeremy fully intend to be a family-friendly establishment where people can bring children at most times of the day, but that they will also have a separate section for private dining and somewhere where those who want to eat undisturbed can do so.
There will also be a bar and the lunch-time menu will be quick-to-prepare food suitable for business lunches.
For the time being, the Hoopers will not be running their establishment as a hotel, but will use the rooms on the first floor as staff accommodation. (Jane hadn’t heard about the ghost that is supposed to inhabit one of the bedrooms, and said that she was unlikely to tell staff members about it!)
As part of their prize, Jane and Jeremy will be financilly backed and mentored, for a year, by Raymond Blanc, who runs Le Manoir aux quat’ Saisons, at Milton Common, just outside Thame.
Throughout the afternoon, a television crew were filming at The Swan, making a follow-up programme about the Hoopers, to be shown sometime next Spring. The filming included an interview with the Chair of Thame First (formerly The Chamber of Commerce), Alun Rowe who welcomed the Hoopers to Thame, saying that their arrival with such a high profile enterprise, he was sure would be good for the town.
Eight At The Thatch is expected to open sometime in November.

Photo: Jane Hooper interviews two local young chefs, keen to work at the new ‘Eight At The Thatch’ restaurant in Thame.