Stop press: Sally Clarke ~ Lifetime Achievement Award ~ CODE Hospitality
April 16, 2024
We know forty years is a ‘lifetime’ for many people, and then some, but a mere blip in the onward trajectory for our national treasure, Sally Clarke. Last night (Monday, 15 April), Sally was quite rightly awarded CODE Hospitality’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.
Adejoké Bakare was announced as the winner of CODE’s Woman of the Year and we congratulate her on all she has achieved.
From the Evening Standard, ‘Bakare was honoured alongside an impressive list of fellow winners, including Lifetime Achievement Award winner Sally Clarke MBE, who is celebrating 40 years of her Kensington restaurant, Clarke’s, this year …’.
Read all about the awards, here.
There is also a link to follow on CODE Hospitality’s Women of the Year Instagram post.
Instagram announcement from CODE:
codehospitality Congratulations to @sallyclarkeltd, our Lifetime Achievement Award winner for this year’s CODE Hospitality’s Women of the Year 2024.
When Sally Clarke opened Clarke’s at 124 Kensington Church Street in 1984, the plan was to be there ‘just a few years’. Forty years later, London’s restaurant scene is unimaginable without Clarke’s; unimaginable without the quietly radical influence this no-nonsense chef, restaurateur, and writer from Surrey has exerted on it. Clarke’s is a little different today. The menu is à la carte; the food more British in accent; but Clarke still writes the menu herself, twice a day. Though the restaurant may seem ‘old school’ with its white tablecloths, beautifully lit art, fresh flowers and besuited staff, it has always been well ahead of its time in terms of seasonality, sourcing, and food waste.
Clarke has grown the business @sallyclarkefood in a considered manner over the last four decades, opening two shops (on Campden Street and Westbourne Grove), a wholesale bakery and a production kitchen. She now employs over 100 staff, some of whom have been with her for decades – a testament to the safe, supportive workplace she has nurtured. She was awarded an MBE in 2009.
[Code Hospitality Instagram, Monday, 15 April 2024]
Keep a close eye on Sally’s social media posts through Instagram and other ‘quiet’ moments announced in the press, our newsletters, and the restaurant and shops for what is next in this 40th year of celebrations. A new book is … coming … but she will never shout any of this from the rooftops. Stay tuned for many more good things. Do follow Sally on Instagram — @SallyClarkeLtd and @SallyClarkefood.