The Ledbury Staff
Food blogger Louise Yang had been hoping for a romantic evening with her husband at the Ledbury, Notting Hill's chichi restaurant frequented by Kate Moss and Lily Allen. What she got instead was the surreal vision of 20 rioters crashing through the windows and demanding cash, phones and jewelry. Yang wrote that rioters forced her to the ground and demanded she take off her rings. But the Michelin-starred eatery's staff was not cowed in the face of the onslaught. Instead, they charged out of the kitchen wielding rolling pins and other menacing kitchen tools. After driving off the looters, the staff ushered the guests to safety in the wine cellar and served champagne, whiskey and petits fours. Yang lamented the loss of her wedding and engagement rings, but another tragedy, she wrote, was the destruction of the "wonderful smelling" cheese cart. "So much cheese gone to waste!" she blogged, adding that it was "certainly a memorable dining experience."