Social enterprise and the green salad test

We arrived in Cardiff this afternoon. I've come with Antonia and Francis pre-Voice, and we've been blessed with sunshine so far.

We've never been to Cardiff before so we thought we'd all come down. It's also all part of the vaguely-green-plan to stay in places longer when we travel. It seems a shame to come all this way for 24 hours.

We ate this evening at Jamie's Italian, Jamie Oliver's new chain of restaurants. We'd been walking through town earlier in the day and Francis had spotted a guy in the window, making pasta. Great theatre, great marketing, and as a result there was no chance of us going anywhere else.

One thing's for sure, if you've spent the last ten years going on about the importance of top quality ingredients, then you'd best make sure that your restaurant is up to scratch.

I have to say we were well impressed, and we clearly weren't alone; people were queuing around the proverbial block. The food was great, the service spot-on, and it was the most child-friendly restaurant I've ever been to. And not in a crayons and party hats way. More in a this-place-is-for-kids-too way.

If you watch Jamie on the telly he often says that the best way to judge a restaurant is to order a green salad. You can tell a lot about a place by its green salad. It might be iceberg, browning at the edges. Or it could be pseudo-posh lambs lettuce, straight out of a bag.

Or it might be juicy, tasty, artisan leaves, simply dressed. The point is there's no scope for adding false value, it's either top quality or it ain't.

So we ordered his green salad. He passed his test, with a bit of room for improvement (leave the daft yoghurt dressings to Pizza Express). But these leaves were clearly in a field til not too long ago, and hadn't come to us via a packing plant.

If you promise, you must deliver. Jamie taught me a lesson this evening, and it's one all social entrepreneurs could take note of too. We're going to spend the next few days banging the social enterprise drum. The Social Enterprise Mark will be launched, with big promises about how it will help social enterprise to break through into mainstream British life.

But will we pass the green salad test and live up to our hype?

Comments

[MIke Chitty]

Wonder if this endeavour will be benign? Jamie gets into the MLM game https://www.jamieathome.com

[Eira]

Did you manage to visit the market http://www.riversidemarket.org.uk/ all good things happening there.
Glad you enjoyed Cardiff you must visit Bridgend next time http://www.creation.me.uk/index.php
emelfp