Joël Antunès has been appointed executive chef at the forthcoming Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, which opens early 2010. Overseeing a host of operations, including a 200-seat signature restaurant, Antunès is making a return to London after his apparently unhappy tenure at the Plaza Hotel's Oak Room in NYC, where he was let go in February after the restaurant received a critical drubbing. In a career spanning more than 30 years, French-born Antunès has previously worked in the U.K. as well as overseen dining rooms in Bangkok, Tokyo and his native France. Park Plaza Westminster Bridge hotel, one of the largest to be built from scratch close to Westminster for a generation, will boast 1,000 guestrooms and a luxury spa.
– Roger Clarke