Welcome to the Money blog, Sky News’ personal finance and consumer hub. In our weekend feature, world-renowned chef Isaac McHale explains why Michelin-starred food isn’t the tastiest you can get, shares his go-to cheap weeknight meal and reveals his favourite wine for under a tenner.
Saturday 21 June 2025 10:11, UK
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Every week we interview top chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks, views on the industry and more. Today we speak to Isaac McHale, world-renowned chef and owner of the two Michelin-starred Clove Club restaurant in Shoreditch, east London, which has just been voted the 86th best restaurant in the world… 
My go-to mid-week dinner is… a fried egg on Japanese white rice with furikake, which is the Japanese seasoning mix for sprinkling on a bowl of rice. You can buy this on Amazon or get it from an Asian supermarket for a couple of quid, and buy some Japanese rice while you’re at it. I cook the rice and fry an egg gently, then serve the rice with the furikake sprinkled over and a fried egg on top. On the side, I steam some broccoli and stir-fry it with a tiny bit of butter, garlic and a teaspoon of soy sauce. You can always use non-Japanese rice too if you want, and try a few different furikake mixes until you find your favourite. A 50g bag for £4 or £5 will do you eight bowls of rice so it’s about 50p a portion – great value for money.
My favourite cheap place to eat where I live is… Singburi, the amazing Thai place that raced into the National Top 100 restaurants. I can’t remember which critic reviewed it, but all of a sudden it was even more rammed and impossible to get into than before. Industry folk loved it, they’d all go and suggest only ordering from the blackboard. You could get salted fish and rice for £9.50, or poached squid salad for £13. I am sad to say chef Sirichai Kularbwong has closed down his site here, so I’ll be travelling to Shoreditch for the new opening instead, which is just round the corner from Bar Valette and The Clove Club.
And the one to watch is… Short Road Pizza, which our neighbour Ugo started in lockdown. For now, you can find them at 199 Cambridge Heath Road at the 3 Colts Tavern in Bethnal Green. Amazing pizza, especially with the major pizza hype happening at the moment. Thin base, good crust. I order the Mark Buffalo, with pickled habanero chilli, from the specials’ menu.
We charge £225 for an eight-course tasting menu… that sounds like a lot but it pays for 16 to 18 people working from morning to night, to make fresh bread, fresh butter, chocolates, ice cream and everything else fresh, using the best ingredients we can buy, rare breed meats aged in-house and line-caught fish, to create delicious, amazing food and special memories for our guests every day. It also includes six small bites before the meal, and chocolates and small cakes after. It isn’t cheap, but you get a lot of labour and hard work for your money, along with an unforgettable meal.
You really don’t get much for a wine under a tenner now… but I buy a Chilean pinot noir for £9.75 on GoPuff sometimes and it is great. Rio Rica pinot noir comes in about 15 minutes straight to your door with other groceries.
One restaurant in the UK worth blowing out for is… The Ledbury – I am biased after six years working there, but it is the best. The restaurant is 20 years old this year but gets better every time you visit.
The impact of the budget means… at Bar Valette, we’re taking the very same ingredients you find at The Clove Club (with two Michelin stars) and serving them in a simpler way in a more relaxed setting. We’re by no means reducing the quality of what we’re working with so that we can provide a cheaper experience. There’s a misconception that running restaurants is always very profitable. If more people understood the costs of running a restaurant, and what the impact of new government regulations are having in terms of staff costs and importing produce, they’d be a little more receptive towards our ethos at Bar Valette. I am cooking whole fish, supporting the small boat fishermen who risk their lives every day going out to catch the freshest fish, and I am happy to pay fair prices so they can live a life, and then charge fair prices for them in the restaurant. I also want to make sure my staff are paid well enough and that their salaries reflect the mass inflation we’re experiencing everywhere at the moment.
The best city in the world to eat in is… Tokyo. You can eat well from high-end restaurants to simple noodles ordered from a vending machine, like at Butagumi (the original old shop location). The last time I was there, it was around £20 for the breaded pork cutlet, rice, soup and salad set meal lunch. And I love great soba restaurants like Ittoan. Sushi counter restaurants often have cheap lunch sets too. Special mention to Mexico City too for delicious tacos and bright sunny happy vibes. Check out El Higualdense for barbacoa goat tacos and pulque, open for breakfast and lunch. I remember vividly watching the 2012 Olympics there at 8am while eating delicious goat tacos and saying no to the fermented pineapple pulque drink. And go to El Turix in upmarket Polanco for Cochinita pibil – a yucatan braised suckling pig, served on panuchos, bean-filled toastadas.
Michelin food is not the tastiest food there is… the tastiest food is cooked with care, love and skill, and that could be anywhere, stars or no stars. But a Michelin star is a recognition of a level of skill and quality in the level of cooking. The tastiest things I’ve eaten in the past 12 months have been from all parts of the world, from tiny neighbourhood places to high-end ones. The pesto pasta at Chez Davia in the French town of Nice was life-changing and they haven’t got a Michelin star or official recognition of any kind. Ganbara in San Sebastian also doesn’t boast a Michelin star but is one of the most recognised pintxos bars in the world. At the same time, you can go to The Chairman, Hong Kong, which is near impossible to get a table at, with no Michelin star but it’s ranked in the world’s 50 best restaurants. The whole meal there was amazing.
If fine dining is going to have a prosperous future, we need… lower interest rates, wealth inequality, energy prices and the budget deficit and higher GDP and disposable incomes. Easy right? Apart from that, the industry needs to adapt, as it always has, to an ever-changing landscape politically and financially, while keeping its feet on the ground so that it doesn’t become so expensive that it is completely out of reach of most people. That doesn’t mean being cheap. It’s an industry of labour-intensive, high ingredient cost experiences, that bring people loads and loads of joy. But the headwinds facing the industry risk us having to increase prices so much in order to still be viable businesses, and in doing so we price out the vast majority of people who used to be able to come to a fine dining restaurant for a special occasion, and might not be able to in the future.
This is caused by…  factors way out of our control from tariffs and the reduction in business spending caused by it, from real estate price changes caused by hybrid working and upward only rent reviews, from government policy to Labour trailing doom budgets for six months in the news before they happen. Growth slows as a result of the drip feed of bad news. But people aren’t going to stop eating. And people aren’t going to stop appreciating delicious food and wines and great service, so there will always be a demand for fine dining and the best places will always remain.
The weirdest request a customer ever made was… a person who wanted Tabasco sauce on each course – we didn’t have any in the kitchen but we offered the guest some of our homemade chilli sauce we use for staff meals. She went home and wrote us a one-star review on Google saying the restaurant is awful because we didn’t have Tabasco for her to drown her food in. Or the no dairy person asking if she could have the creme brulee after we jumped through hoops to make alterations all through her meal. “Sorry, it has cream in it.” “Oh that’s ok, I’ll have it anyway.” Grrrrr.
By Megan Harwood-Baynes, cost of living specialist
The big news of the week was around inflation and the Bank of England’s latest rates. 
On Wednesday, it was revealed the annual inflation rate had eased slightly in May, to 3.4%. Last month, it hit a 14-month high of 3.5% after a raft of bill increases hit households.
Transport costs helped bring it down, but this was offset by the rising costs of products such as chocolate, meat, fridge freezers and vacuum cleaners. 
On Thursday, the Bank of England voted to keep the base rate the same at 4.25% 
Rising food prices and the risk of an oil price surge due to the Israel-Iran conflict in the Middle East have put pressure on the Bank not to make cuts too quickly.
But it’s not all bad news, because we asked our economics and data editor Ed Conway if the cost of living crisis is finally over…
He says that, if you’re looking purely at the annual inflation data – the numbers us journalists, not to mention politicians and economists, tend to focus on – the answer seems to be: probably, yes.
With the Israel-Iran conflict pushing up oil prices, we also did a deep dive into whether premium fuel is worth it.
Council tax bills are set to rise at their fastest rate for two decades due to the government’s spending review, a leading economist warned. 
Our political editor Beth Rigby also explained why council tax is the “sting in the tale” of that review.
Elsewhere, it was potentially sad news for savvy savers, with Poundland announcing it was closing 68 stores and two warehouses. 
And it’s even worse news for KitKat lovers, as they fall victim to shrinkflation. 
This week’s Money problem was about a bathroom fitter who disappeared halfway through the job.
Consumer rights expert Scott Dixon, AKA the Complaints Resolver, was on hand to offer advice on why the outcome hinged on how you paid.
On Friday, Money spoke with one ASOS customer who has hit out at the online retailer for closing her account after she had a baby.
Readers also united in criticism of freehold estates after our long read last Saturday.
We’ll be back with our regular live coverage on Monday, but tomorrow you can check out our Weekend Money long read. This week, we interview world-renowned chef Isaac McHale, whose East London restaurant has just been voted 86th best in the world. 
He explains why Michelin-starred food isn’t the tastiest you can get, shares his go-to cheap weeknight meal, and names the one UK restaurant worth blowing out for. 
He also reveals his favourite wine for under a tenner.
And don’t forget to sign up for our Money newsletter in time for next Friday’s edition. 
The grocery watchdog has launched an investigation into Amazon to see if it has been intentionally delaying payments to its grocery suppliers.
This would breach paragraph five of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice.
The investigation will cover a period from 1 March 2022 to 20 June 2025, with a particular focus on practices since January 2024.
Why it matters: Late payments can hurt suppliers, especially smaller ones. It can limit their availability to grow, invest or even survive. 
Delays in payment can significantly harm suppliers. The alleged delays could expose Amazon suppliers to excessive risk and unexpected costs, potentially affecting their ability to invest and innovate.
I decided to launch this targeted investigation based on the range of evidence I have seen from multiple sources. It will allow me to determine whether Amazon has breached paragraph 5 of the Groceries Code and the root cause of any breach.
I encourage all direct suppliers and other stakeholders to respond to my call for evidence and provide information about your experiences with Amazon. All responses will be completely confidential.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Mark White
Primark product staff have been told they will have to return to the office four days a week from September. 
The update, which is effective from 15 September, applies to employees based at the brand’s Arthur Ryan House office in Dublin.
Product teams will still be able to work from home on Fridays and finish at 2pm, Drapers reports.
“After experiencing remote, hybrid, and full-time models in recent years, we will be reintroducing a four-day in-office work week for our product teams,” a Primark spokesperson told the publication. 
“We know that when our product teams are together in-person, it strengthens productivity, creativity and development, ultimately delivering the best offering for our customers. 
“We understand how important balance is, and we will continue to offer flexible working hours and remote working on Fridays with a 2pm finish.”
It’s not the only company to push for more in-office working. John Lewis recently ordered its commercial teams to work in the office three days a week from next month. 
By Mark Kleinman, City editor
TalkTalk, the telecoms and broadband group founded by Sir Charles Dunstone, is preparing to hire City advisers to oversee a break-up of the company.
Sky News has learnt that investment banks were asked to pitch this week for a mandate to oversee a potential sale of TalkTalk’s two remaining businesses: its consumer arm and PXC, its wholesale and network division.
City sources said today that Barclays and Morgan Stanley were among the banks in the frame to oversee the strategic review, which has been triggered by separate unsolicited approaches for both parts of the group.
They cheered for a team worth upwards of $10bn (£7.4bn), but for years, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders were paid just $15 (£11) an hour.
But now, “America’s Sweethearts” have just secured a 400% raise. 
The wage increase is revealed at the end of the second season of the hit Netflix documentary that features the team of dancers.
It does not disclose any specifics of the pay rise. 
Jada McLean, who retired from the squad after having led the effort to secure higher pay, told The New York Times she made $15 an hour and $500 (£370) for each appearance last year, based on experience. 
After the pay raise, she said, veteran cheerleaders could soon make more than $75 an hour.
Why does it matter?
As cheerleader Megan McElaney says: “Dancers are athletes. They have so much value.”
But NFL teams across the country have been facing increasing fan scrutiny for their low pay to cheerleaders, even though they contribute skilled labour (could you do a backflip in cowboy boots?) and risk injury, and are prominent faces of the brand. 
One former cheerleader, Kat Puryear, compared her yearly pay to that of “a Chick-fil-A [restaurant] worker who works full-time.”
In comparison, NFL football players can command salaries of millions of dollars.
In 2018, former cheerleader Erica Wilkins filed a class action lawsuit against the Cowboys that resulted in a pay increase in 2019, from $8 to $12 per hour and from $200 to $400 per game. 
Wilkins, who cheered for the Cowboys from 2014 to 2017, claimed she sometimes made less than minimum wage and that the cheerleaders were paid less than the Cowboys’ mascot.
Now, the campaign by Wilkins, McLean and others has literally paid off.
By Megan Harwood-Baynes, cost of living specialist
ASOS is facing a backlash for closing the accounts of customers making high returns, with one woman telling the brand: “Sorry I had a child and my postpartum body doesn’t fit your inconsistent sizes.”
Last year, ASOS announced a new ‘fair use policy’ in a bid to cut down on the number of items being returned.
Frankie has been an ASOS customer for over two decades, first registering with the website back in the early 2000s.
“I’m ten months postpartum now, so you can imagine that I’ve had to order multiple sizes to see what fits me,” the 33-year-old from London told Money.
And while she has kept just under £700 of products so far this year, she has had to return items that don’t fit – and some that were faulty.
“I’d hardly call that [being] an unloyal customer,” she said.
Faulty jeans and body image fears
Despite reaching out directly to the fast fashion giant and telling them she felt she was being “penalised for having a changing body shape”, she was told she had violated the brand’s fair use terms on returns, and so her account had been permanently closed.
“If I ordered a size 12 from ASOS, one would fit, one would be like a size 8, and another would be like a size 14,” she said.
“I just ordered a skirt and some shorts, and a pair of tights varying from L to XL, and I’ve only been able to keep the tights.
“The shorts are either stuck to my thighs or fall from my waist
Other times I’ll keep the whole haul.”
She said she has been left feeling insecure, like she is “a nuisance for not knowing my size, even though their sizes aren’t consistent across clothing”.
“I worry that for more impressionable people, they’ll think something is wrong with their body and it’s their fault for making returns.”
She also said ASOS needs to have better quality controls, adding: “I was just as dissatisfied receiving faulty jeans as they were having to refund me.”
‘Clearly loyalty isn’t recognised’
Frankie isn’t the only mother affected.
One X user wrote on the social media site:  “Had this account for years and always order from ASOS but clearly loyalty isn’t recognised since I had my chat closed when I enquired about it… 
“I do most of my shopping on ASOS and can’t see how my returns are a lot. 
“God forbid a gal doesn’t know her size/style postpartum.”
‘I thought it was a scam email’
Marie Cavanagh, a 31-year-old energy consultant from London, told Sky News her account closure came as a “shock”. 
“At first I thought the message saying my account was being closed was a scam email,” she said.
“I have asked ASOS for more of an explanation as to why it was closed and was simply told that the decision was final, and that I wouldn’t be given any more information.
“The way this has been managed is appalling. As a loyal customer I feel really let down.” 
She tried to email the ASOS customer service team, but received a bounce-back reply saying the inbox was full. 
Why is ASOS closing accounts?
ASOS first announced the policy last year, saying it was reducing its free returns policy due to the rising costs associated with handling returns. 
“Serial returners” were told they would be charged £3.95 to send items back, unless they kept £40 worth of their order (for those with a Premier subscription, it was £15). 
But those who consistently returned items have started being told their accounts are being permanently banned.
An email, seen by Money, shows even Premier customers risk being banned. 
It’s not a new policy, but in the last 24 hours, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of people posting on X to complain about the closures.
“My account is being closed due to high returns, yet my last two orders were sun tan lotion and eyelashes, both of which I kept.  Apart from that, I’ve barely used my ASOS account. 
“What a way to treat loyal customers since the days of As Seen on Screen!” (As Seen on Screen was the original name of the brand, before it became ASOS in 2002). 
Another added: “At least you’ve been given 30 days. Mine was closed with immediate effect. Last thing I ordered was a pair of trainers in two different sizes. 
“Returned the size I didn’t need = account closed.”
ASOS says ‘small group’ of customers affected
It’s understood that ASOS maintains its free returns policy is still enjoyed by the vast majority of its customers, and that the online retailer has sought to help shoppers find the correct size with its Fit Assistant tool. 
In a statement to Money, ASOS said: “We recently closed the accounts of a small group of customers whose shopping activity has consistently fallen outside our Fair Use policy. 
“This helps us maintain our commitment to offering free returns to all customers across all core markets.”
Octopus Energy has launched its first home EV charger, and it could mean refilling your car for as little as 2p per mile.
It is plugged into the company’s popular EV tariff, Intelligent Octopus Go, which, when combined with its Drive Pack tariff, means potentially unlimited charging for just £30 a month.
And if you fancy a freebie, the first 100 customers will get 5,000 free miles – enough to get from Land’s End to John O’Groats (or just to and from work a fair few times). 
Drivers can sign up here. 
Sky News has launched a brand-new free Money newsletter – bringing the kind of content you enjoy here in the Money blog directly to your inbox every Friday.
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In this week’s edition, readers can enjoy a tip for saving money on the contents of your medicine cabinet, a guide to eSims beating roaming charges, and a look at a water meter related Money Problem.
We also break down what this week’s hold in the interest rate means for you.
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