Apple activists picket restaurant
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Your support makes all the difference.GORDON RAMSAY discovered yesterday that Bramley apples have a nasty habit of repeating on you.
The outspoken celebrity chef disparaged the British fruit on television last week, and yesterday found his restaurant besieged by furious, placard- waving apple-growers.
Mr Ramsay already faces legal action by the Bramley Apple Growers' Association after he ostentatiously substituted French Granny Smiths for the English apple in a dessert during his Channel 4 television programme Ramsay's Boiling Point.
Mr Ramsay also insulted the chairman of the association on camera, after the association paid him pounds 3,500 to promote its homegrown fruit,
Yesterday the tables were turned on him.
A crowd of 20 chanting protesters from the Bramley Apple Campaign Group picketed his two Michelin-star London restaurant in Chelsea. Lunchtime diners looked on bemused as the demonstrators, wearing white chef's hats, brandished placards reading "Bramleys - the best cooker" and "Bramley is best, give us our money back". The apple activists handed a letter to the maitre d'hotel.
Keith Simpson, spokesman for the English Apples and Pears Association, who was at the picket, said: "We consider he has broken the trust and the agreement that existed between us. He has fundamentally undermined this country's Bramley growers' industry. This protest is part of a programme to encourage him to make a public apology and return our money. If all else fails, we will sue."
Diners entering the restaurant, where lunch costs pounds 28 a head, were handed leaflets.
At one point, Mr Ramsay appeared briefly by the kitchen entrance, but he merely raised his eyebrows and retreated.
A spokesman for the restaurant said he was considering giving the pounds 3,500 fee to charity.
Jo Rimmer, of the campaign group, said growers wanted a public apology and their money back. He said lawyers had told them they had a good case for breach of contract and defamation.
In the Channel 4 programme, Mr Ramsay said he was going to use Granny Smiths instead of Bramleys because his television guests, all "foodies", would not know the difference.
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