Is It All In The Name?

with so many restaurants opening up does the name of it make a difference?

recent London openings include Karpo, which sounds like an intriguing cross between Kafka and Harpo Marx, but is actually the 'Greek goddess of fruits of the earth'; 10 Cases, which might suggest a link with Sherlock Holmes but in fact refers to an idiosyncratic wine-buying policy; and the bar/bistro Soif, the French for thirst, but which some customers have taken to be a philosophical question—“So if...?”


'every new opening I deal with wants to have a catchy name,' says Maureen Mills of the restaurant-PR specialists Network London, 'there are three rules: make sure it’s not rude, people can spell it, and it’s not in an obscure language,' so that is all pretty straight forward then, so what were the owners thinking when they monikered restaurants with names such as Soon Fat, Chink's Bar & Restaurant, Hitlers Cross and Crabby Dick's to mention a few?