My father was in restaurants and my uncles were bakers from Ireland. From an early age I was working in different restaurants in London. For me it was second nature. I remember pals of mine would go over to the park and play football and I'd be going off to work. I wouldn't call myself entrepreneurial but I was always wanting to make some money so I could buy some nice clothes and enjoy myself. I didn't want to be wasting time.
I wanted to be a chef. But what I realised early on was that I had managerial skills. I was playing a lot of team sport and I was always captain of the side, the leader of the pack. That was honed when I went to The Ivy as head chef. I was 26 years old, so it was a big challenge for me.
To be a head chef, you need to lead by example. Places like The Ivy are 500-covers-a-day machines, so you have to keep the motivation going from 6.30 in the morning to way past midnight seven days a week. It's not about shouting and and swearing, it's about ensuring you give clear demands and clear deadlines. There isn't a lot of time for messing around.
I absolutely love food. For me, it's all about classic marriages of ingredients and treating ingredients with respect. There is a very clear path. Tomatoes and basil, you know? I'm not into overly contrived dishes. You don't have to keep re-creating the wheel.
At home my father was always cooking with fresh ingredients. We would go to the fishmonger's to get local mackerel or fresh salmon and we were really friendly with our local butcher, so there were always fresh ingredients around to play with. You need to work with your local environment and I think it's a shame we've lost some of that.
When I recruit chefs, I always ask them what they cook at home. If you haven't got the passion in your personal life to enjoy food and ingredients, how do you bring it to your professional life? If you go into a chef's kitchen at home and they've got fresh spices and herbs and all those ingredients that a chef needs, that sets them apart from being the professional guy who just does it as a job.
To run a successful restaurant you have to understand where you want to be and deliver within the confines of that. I think lots of chefs and proprietors get confused. At the outset you have to stay within your own market and be consistent, whether that's consistently mediocre or consistently fantastic. It's all about perceived value. At the end of the day, whether it's some foie gras or a fantastic hamburger or a great rib steak, a customer should be able to sign a bill and believe that they've had great value.
In 1998, when Chris Corbin and Jeremy King decided to sell Caprice Holdings to Luke Johnson, I went from being the executive chef of The Ivy to being the managing director of seven restaurants. So that was quite a big turning point in my career. It was nerve racking, but I relished the challenge. I have always been an individual who takes on challenges.
After being in a kitchen environment, an office can be quite a lonely place. In senior management, the higher you go up the ladder, the lonelier it gets.
A restaurant has to be consistent 365 days a year. Every day we go through the order of service with the staff. We approach it very much like going on stage. You've got to make sure that the troops are ready on each service to deliver what's expected.
When you're cooking live ingredients for lots of customers every day, things can go wrong at any single point, whether it's dropping a glass of Champagne or overcooking something in the kitchen. It's a human operation. The important thing is to deal with these situations professionally and try to make amends, whether that's inviting the customer back or just ensuring that they're looked after.
You're only as good as your staff.
We're a high profile company and we're expanding globally. We're on the radar every day. It's like performing in the Premiership. We have to keep raising the bar. We do lots of things on a week to week basis to make sure that we're up there with the leaders in the field. For instance, we've started a Friends programme on our website so people can get special deals. We have to understand what our clients are doing, how they're operating, and to try to mirror that. You've got to move with the times.
Keeping the individuality of our brands is important. That means the management within each of the brands owns the brand and protects it. We have a lot of crossover of customers but they cross over because they like the individuality of our restaurants.
Work-life balance is crucial. I work long hours and travel a lot, but I spend as much weekend time and holiday time as I can with my 13-year-old daughter. I think up to the age of 35 or 40 I was definitely all-consumed. But you continually learn how to balance things and if you get the balance right, you get more out of your professional and personal life because you are more focused. I found it difficult for many years to find that balance because I work long hours and have lots of responsibilities. But I think I've definitely found more of a balance now.
There's still plenty of room for expansion for the company. We've got lots of opportunities in the Middle East, the Far East and the States, we're looking at Eastern Europe and we're continuing to expand in the UK. But we're dedicated to ensuring that any development is properly thought through and done with the right partners. We're not scattergun.
For more information visit caprice-holdings.co.uk
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