Biography of Karen Hanton from Aberdeen who is the founder and Chief Executive of TopTable the restaurant booking and discount website. Includes details of the Aberdeenshire restaurants that are listed at TopTable.co.uk

Karen Hanton was brought up in Bridge of Don, Aberdeen in a croft where her father ran a dairy. She left to work in London after sitting her higher exams.

This led Karen Hanton to train and work in Human Resources and this included founding the company Mortimer Spinks a HR IT recruitment company at the age of 29 years. Karen later sold Mortimer Spinks to Harvey Nash. She also ran property businesses and one such business was a cafe and restaurant in Fulham which she staffed with her own team. This gave Karen a taste for the food business and when the internet was booming in 1998 she identified a gap in the market for a UK online restaurant booking service. Thus toptable.com was created from her home in Pimlico in London and went online in February 2000 with 500 London restaurants listed.

Within a month www.toptable.com had 257 members to their website. Top table grew and grew despite the dot com crash of the late 1990s and she remains the Chief Executive, owning half of the company’s shares. Toptable.com now has over 750,000 members, over 3000 restaurants that can be booked online, and is now global.

Visitors return to toptable.co.uk for many reasons and these include the top table competitions, exclusive restaurant discounts, reviews and even free meals which are awarded to site users who keep booking meals through www.toptable.co.uk

Over the years Karen Hanton has received awards such as the Financial Times and Moet Hennessy Extraordinary Achievers Award.

Karen Hanton has never forgotten her Aberdonian roots and though Toptable.co.uk started with London restaurants she was able to introduce Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire restaurants by 2008. These include Cinnamon, La Tasca and Tiger Tiger on Union Street, The Prime Cuts and La Bamba on Union Terrace, The Foyer at HMT Aberdeen and on Crown Street, the Carmelite on Stirling Street, Howies Restaurant on Chapel Street, the Silver Darling on Quay Street Aberdeen, the Raemoir House Hotel near Banchory, The Green Inn in Ballater, the Osprey Restaurant in Dyce, the Restaurant at Kildrunny Castle near Alford, The Seafood Brassiere at the Palace Hotel in Peterhead and the Udny Arms Hotel in Newburgh near Ellon. Other Scottish town and city restaurants listed in toptable include Dundee, Edinburgh, Fort William, Glasgow and Inverness.

For more information visit www.toptable.co.uk

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Aberdeen Restaurant Reviews

We also run the www.findextrawork.co.uk website where there is information about earning more money from a range of part time and full time jobs which can be done at home or out and about. Visit for more information.

Top Toilets Scotland

TopTable diners awarded Aberdeen steak house restaurant Prime Cuts in Crown Terrace the top toilets Scotland award in an online poll in 2008. There were 260 restaurants in the running for the top toilets Scotland award. Though the toilets in Prime Cuts has a rustic look there is modern conveniences such as moisturiser next to the soap in the ladies toilet and individual hand towels rather than harsh paper towels. Prime Cuts also featured at TopTable for their ambience, rating and service.