New hotel jobs in London could be created as the result of a new scheme being launched by the Lanesborough.

The Knightsbridge hotel will be offering the Lanesborough Butler Picnic, which provides a hamper and butler service to be served in Hyde Park.

Paul Gayler reveals how to make your food taste sublime. By Xanthe Clay

The sauce chef holds the master position in a professional kitchen. His is the last station a chef will train at before becoming a sous chef and being put in charge of the kitchen.

With good reason, too. A sauce, be it creamy, tangy or oily, does more than merely lubricate. It should bring out the flavour of the main ingredient and transform a simple bit of meat or salad from so-so to sublime.

Budding chefs are being given the chance to have one of their culinary creations served up at a five-star London hotel.

As part of the Taste Of Diss food festival, July 12-19, one lucky winner of a cookery competition will be invited to work for the day at the Lanesborough Hotel with top chef Paul Gaylor.

The chandeliers sparkle, but does the food? Zoe Williams finds it all a bit over-elaborate at a Knightsbridge hotel

One day, C says, he's going to go to Rome, find the poshest hotel, set up an English restaurant in it and have the waiters hover about, saying, 'This is a simple dish you might find in the villages around Leeds or Macclesfield, where we take the lard, and we drizzle it over the traditional British mix of flour and yeast, which we have first fashioned into what we call bread…' And then, he continues, 'I'm going to see how they like it.'

You get the picture, I'm sure - Aspley's occupies a phenomenally plush room of the Lanesborough, dressed to the highest velvet-everywhere standards of international hoteldom, finished off with an oil mural on the back wall so fashionable and so blindingly opulent that I couldn't tell whether it was a Nazarene conversion scene or a Kylie concert.

Maybe it doesn’t make all the headlines like receiving a Pulitzer or an Academy Award, but winning the prestigious Tea Guild’s Top London Afternoon Tea Award, is one of the highest accolades awarded in the world of tea. So hat’s off to the The Lanesborough for winning the 2008 award.This was due to The Lanesborough’s renowned tea selection and their ascribed tea sommelier, Karl Kessab, who offers you the best in service, selection and setting.

Guests can enjoy the award-winning afternoon tea in the luxurious surroundings of the hotel’s new restaurant Apleys. They can converse with Kessab about the merits of the various teas, which are delivered to the table in Samovars (a traditional Russian water heating device.) In tribute to this award, The Lanesborough has created a new green tea blend, named Rose of the Orient – this rich in anti-oxidant tea is a blend of some of the world’s finest green teas including Sencha, China Wu and Pai Mu Tan, flavored with jasmine, cornflower blossoms and rose buds.

Afternoon tea is served from 3:30 p.m. until 6.00 p.m. in Apsleys when you can selection from more than 30 of the finest teas from around the world personally recommended by Kessab.