The meat was taken from the Michelin-starred Galvin La Chapelle
The “fine dining bandit” who stole langoustines from outside a Chelsea restaurant is being suspected by restauranteurs of potentially carrying out another posh food theft, after footage surfaced yesterday (November 26) of a woman pinching £800 worth of meat from another Michelin-starred location.
Earlier this week, staff at Elystan Street restaurant in Chelsea posted video footage of a “porch pirate” stealing seafood from the popular spot on Tuesday (November 25). The video quickly went viral, leading staff at Galvin La Chapelle in Spitalfields, East London, to revisit footage from an alleged theft outside their venue weeks earlier, on November 4.
Insiders believe it could be the same woman, and footage from the alleged November theft shows a woman clad in a white hoody, black trousers and trainers, swiping bags of meat outside Galvin La Chapelle. She’s seen darting up and down stairs, rummaging through boxes outside the establishment’s door before making off with her loot, said to be worth £800.
Chris Galvin, owner of Galvin La Chapelle, commented: “It’s devastating to see this happening in the run-up to Christmas, the busiest and most crucial period for the hospitality industry. The produce taken from us wasn’t everyday groceries – it was high-quality, premium meat, and for Elystan Street it was langoustines!”
He added: “These are items that simply don’t end up in someone’s home kitchen, which raises serious concerns that this theft may be feeding into other restaurants. As an industry already under immense pressure, it’s disheartening to face targeted behaviour like this, but we hope shining a light on it helps protect other venues from becoming victims.”
This month’s alleged theft at Chelsea was captured on video and shared online by chef Phil Howard, the owner of the restaurant.
On Instagram, Phil wrote: “Caught stealing our precious langoustines this morning – you low-life scum bag. Hope you rot in hell with your other hard working mates.”
Becky McLaughlin, the restaurant manager, said: “It’s a cost that somebody just doesn’t realise, where it’s now going to have to be swallowed. In these times it’s incredibly different for restaurants so things like this can be so damaging which people don’t realise.”
She added: “I don’t know what they’ll do with them but they’ll have a very lovely supper. You can tell in the footage that she can see what’s written on the box, the contents of what’s inside it, and if they were smart then they would know how much it was worth.”
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