Shownotes
This week on Hospitality Meets, we had the incredible privilege to sit down with Natasha Robinson, a torchbearer for a storied legacy in the restaurant industry. Natasha’s deep-rooted connection to hospitality comes from a lineage spanning generations, with her parents standing out as boundary-pushing restaurateurs. From her upbringing amidst the bustling energy of family restaurants to her contemporary role guiding young talents, Natasha’s journey is awe-inspiring!
We cover
- January
- Changing trends
- Being Born into restaurants
- Growing up with your community
- Rejecting restaurants (And then being sucked back in)
- Getting Michelin Stars
- Winning 3 stars
- Shouting
- Interior Design
- Unite the Clans
- Competitions and the Gold Service Scholarship
And so much more.
🌟 Tune in to hear more about Natasha’s inspiring journey and her vision for the future of hospitality!
Enjoy!
The Guest
Natasha is a fourth generation restaurateur, worked Front of House for 40 years, in a family business, at the highest level, in London (Chez Nico, Incognico, Deca). She's now the other half of Serenata Hospitality (with Sergio Rebecchi). She and Sergio in run the 3 major FoH Competitions in the UK (AAE and MCA for RACA and GSS). She lobby's for the Hospitality Industry and gives motivational talks to FoH teams. They encourage, support and mentor young people in Hospitality whilst being ambassadors and advocates for the Hospitality Industry. Natasha is also a Director of Rye News and champion the Highstreet and independent businesses in her regular columns.
Instagram - @Serenatahospitality
The Sponsor
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Try RotaCloud’s time-saving tools today by heading to https://rotacloud.com/phil
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
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Transcripts
And a huge hospitality meets. Welcome to Natasha Robinson. Oh,
Speaker:thank you, Phil. It's lovely to be here. How are you? I am very
Speaker:good. Today is supposed to be the first day of spring. It's the spring
Speaker:equinox. It's trying desperately to be sunny outside,
Speaker:but the blossoms are starting to open
Speaker:and my garden is full of tulips and daffodils, so I'm great.
Speaker:Yes. There's just something, isn't there, about when the weather starts to turn
Speaker:in this way where, I don't know, everything just feels a bit
Speaker:nicer and, you know, let's just get to it. Yeah. Hope
Speaker:and optimism, that's what it is. Yeah. And especially as well, I suppose, from a
Speaker:hospitality perspective. Look at me, getting straight back on message. You've
Speaker:got, you know, they're pretty. They're normally the
Speaker:lean trading months as well, aren't they? That sort of the first quarter of, of
Speaker:any year, because people are, you know, got the Christmas hangover
Speaker:and all of that. Although my wife and I do our best to compensate for
Speaker:that because we've both got our birthdays in January, so trying to find
Speaker:places that. That remain open for my birthday, especially on the 5 January.
Speaker:So this is a note to everybody out there who closes for the first two
Speaker:weeks in January. Please stop it. Don't.
Speaker:It's funny, because we used to. Historically, January was always a very good month
Speaker:for us because there was part two of
Speaker:Christmas, if you like. So a lot of people entertain at Christmas, their
Speaker:customers or their clients or whatever, but actually to be able to look after your
Speaker:own staff and take your staff out on Christmas parties or things like that, that
Speaker:very often happened in January, once all the excitement of
Speaker:the season had passed and you actually had time to sit and think. So January
Speaker:was always good for us, and then things would trail off slowly. But
Speaker:I do know that trading patterns have changed completely over
Speaker:the years. So for a very long period of our career, you could
Speaker:pretty much plan because you knew this was a good day, this was a slow
Speaker:day, this was the high season, this was the low season, but all of that
Speaker:has changed. And in fact, you mentioned birthdays. April,
Speaker:historically, which was my father's birthday, and my birthday
Speaker:was the worst month of the year, actually. And it's so
Speaker:within the family, April is like, yay, hey, birthday month. And because we
Speaker:were just a week apart, we did our birthdays together. But from a business
Speaker:point of view, April was not a good month. Is that right?
Speaker:Is that right? Yeah. I mean, I suppose you kind of
Speaker:just in some ways, there's some things that you can affect in terms
Speaker:of trying to drive business in, but sometimes you've just got to go with the
Speaker:flow, haven't you, really, of what is going on. Yeah.
Speaker:A lot of people have said to us, a lot of our kids have said
Speaker:that. In fact, the weekly pattern has changed completely as
Speaker:well, because a lot of people still work from home. London
Speaker:is busy now, sort of Monday, Tuesdays are good days, apparently,
Speaker:in London, and conversely, Fridays, Saturdays, not so much,
Speaker:because people take longer weekends or work four days, three days,
Speaker:or however they do it. So that has completely changed as well. So that would
Speaker:be alien territory for me if I was running a business now, having to
Speaker:relearn all of those. Yeah, well, I suppose
Speaker:London, from that perspective through the week, has changed, but actually
Speaker:the benefactor has been then the local communities, isn't it? Because I've certainly noticed it
Speaker:where I live, Stansted and Bishop Storford way,
Speaker:the restaurants are busier. There's actually more restaurants coming online than there
Speaker:have ever been before, which is just in the face
Speaker:of all the doom and gloom that's out there in terms of business trading conditions
Speaker:and all of that. And I think we're all aware of the pressures
Speaker:that exist right now, for sure. But at the same time, there's
Speaker:still the opportunity to thrive. There is. I mean, if I look at
Speaker:Rye, obviously, I was born and brought up in London and worked in London all
Speaker:of my life, but for that last ten years, we've been living in rye so
Speaker:completely outside of the capital, we're backwards and forwards all the
Speaker:time. But looking at the way that Rye has changed in the last ten years,
Speaker:it's quite amazing. It is now full of restaurants. It was, historically, it
Speaker:was always full of coffee shops and tea rooms and that sort of thing, but
Speaker:now we have some really good restaurants either in town or around town.
Speaker:And certainly people are always amazed when I tell them, Hastings and
Speaker:St Leonards, and they all go, see, seriously, Hastings, isn't that.
Speaker:St Leonard's, which is the far end of Hastings, is an
Speaker:absolute goldmine for restaurants.
Speaker:Young, new, hopeful, bright, happy businesses which
Speaker:are extremely professional, extremely well run, very
Speaker:popular. One of our favourite beach bars in the entire world happens to
Speaker:be on the beach at St Lennon's, for goodness sake. So
Speaker:all around here, businesses are doing hospitality,
Speaker:businesses are being rejuvenated and starting to
Speaker:thrive. We have lost some. There is no doubt we've lost some. But as some
Speaker:go, they're replaced by new and arguably
Speaker:better, more professional ones. A lot of. We have a lot of breweries
Speaker:down here, a lot of kids who are starting up breweries were surrounded by
Speaker:vineyards by accident. When we moved down here ten years ago, we didn't realize
Speaker:that we were moving into the wine capital of the
Speaker:British Isles, amazingly. So the part of East Sussex that we're
Speaker:in. I know, isn't it terrible? We're very near to
Speaker:Kent, so we're on that sort of on the border of East Sussex and Kent,
Speaker:which is british wine country. I mean, who the hell knew? So there's
Speaker:a lot of hope and a lot of growth, not just in London, but I'm
Speaker:happy to say, in the southeast, if you like.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. You can come again. I love this positive, positive
Speaker:outlook for sure, but just gone straight
Speaker:into this. But, you know, for the world out there, what is it that you
Speaker:do? Okay, well, so I was born into
Speaker:restaurants and born, grew up and worked in restaurants all
Speaker:my life, and now that I'm retired from that,
Speaker:I, along with Sergio, we support, mentor, and
Speaker:encourage young people into hospitality. So I did 40
Speaker:years in restaurants. He did 60 years in hotels and restaurants.
Speaker:So we like to say that between us, we have 100 years of food
Speaker:and beverage in front of house knowledge, which sounds crazy, but
Speaker:in effect, we actually do have so much knowledge and experience, and it's now
Speaker:time to give back and share that with the younger generations who are coming up
Speaker:in our industry. Love that. Love that. And you do that under the banner of
Speaker:Serenatta hospitality. Hospitality. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Combination of our name, sergio, natasha, Serenatta comes out, which is rather
Speaker:nice. Rather pretty, rather lyrical. Yep. I can
Speaker:find nice songs on. On Instagram to post behind our
Speaker:posts with Serenata in, because it's a lovely word, isn't it? Yeah,
Speaker:that is. That's lovely. I like that. Yeah. And you were very. You were kind
Speaker:enough to reach out to me on Instagram, actually, and it's only taken us about
Speaker:three years to make this happen. But. But we. We got there in the end.
Speaker:I know, but, yeah, there's a lot of things that I want to discuss around
Speaker:the work that you do, but we'll do that laterally because I actually want to
Speaker:take you all the way back. You've already mentioned that you were kind of born
Speaker:into the industry, as it were. So I don't know whether you didn't
Speaker:really have a choice to go into hospitality or whether
Speaker:it was just something that you were just born and destined to do. I
Speaker:had a choice, and I actually opted out for a while, I have to say.
Speaker:So on my mother's side of the family, which is the french side of my
Speaker:family, I'm, in fact, a fourth generation restaurateur on
Speaker:my father's side, on the greek side of the family, I'm a
Speaker:third generation restaurateur. And I know. So,
Speaker:yeah, so it is definitely in my blood. However, my
Speaker:parents, when they met and married, were not
Speaker:planning to go into owning and running a restaurant. They sort of
Speaker:just fell into it. My father had tried all sorts of different
Speaker:careers previously and finally ended up owning
Speaker:a restaurant because after years of not knowing what he wanted to do,
Speaker:they took a year out. He had enough. Took a year out, went to the
Speaker:south France to where my mother's family are, and just
Speaker:took a time out, basically. And they spent a year eating
Speaker:and drinking their way around France and the local area and stuff.
Speaker:That sounds terrible. I know, isn't it terrible? He'd been
Speaker:brought up by in a household. He was actually born in
Speaker:East Africa. So he was born in the middle of nowhere in Tanzania
Speaker:on a size of plantation. And my great
Speaker:grandmother had to make everything from scratch. So we're
Speaker:now talking thirties, forties, fifties. So
Speaker:no running water, no electricity. Everything was make do. She had to
Speaker:make their clothes, she had to make food from scratch for
Speaker:a large family. So my father was always surrounded by
Speaker:fantastic food from the word go. And he kind of took it for granted, as
Speaker:a lot of us continentals do. It's just part of our
Speaker:life, and that's the way it is, you know. You wouldn't consider that
Speaker:people don't like food, enjoy food, know how to cook food,
Speaker:not a thing. So fast forward. He came to England
Speaker:to study, started working, couldn't really find what he
Speaker:liked. Took this year out eventually with my mother
Speaker:and rediscovered his love for food and thought, I know,
Speaker:why don't I open a restaurant? My mother went, yeah,
Speaker:okay. Just like that. Just like that. And that's what
Speaker:they did. So this is now 1973, and they open a tiny little
Speaker:restaurant, East Dulwich. By now, they have two little girls with them. Where they go,
Speaker:the girls go. And we were. We found ourselves in
Speaker:this restaurant where we used to help and work
Speaker:and mainly sit around waiting for my parents to finish service before
Speaker:they took us home at night. And it was not uncommon for us to be
Speaker:sort of sat at the back table of the restaurant, do our homework, have some
Speaker:dinner, and then get carried home afterwards. I love that. I
Speaker:love the visual of that in terms of the. How
Speaker:integrated in family life that is for you. And, you know,
Speaker:it doesn't have to be this
Speaker:corporate machine of the cycle of restaurant. A good
Speaker:restaurant in a local environment like that is a part of the community, isn't it?
Speaker:So why not have your kids up the back of the
Speaker:restaurant doing the homework? I love the authenticity of that. I think it's just really,
Speaker:really cool. Well, so that's how we grew up and
Speaker:a lot of because of the location at the restaurant at the time in
Speaker:Dulwich, we were near a couple of the big training
Speaker:hospitals, so the student doctors used to come and have something to
Speaker:eat with us and then as we got
Speaker:bigger and moved into town, the student doctors became more
Speaker:qualified and more senior and so we sort of grew up together. So
Speaker:by the time we ended up 30 years later, a lot of our customers were
Speaker:sort of top medical specialists and all of this sort of stuff, so we
Speaker:all grew up together and along the way they had families and children
Speaker:and they brought their children to the restaurant who grew up through. So there was
Speaker:a very, very much a sort of a progression of
Speaker:us, the customers and the family
Speaker:atmosphere sort of permeated throughout everything, really. Yeah,
Speaker:yeah. Brilliant. And so you were a child at this
Speaker:point. How did it progress from there in terms of
Speaker:your forced into child labour? Of course I was the same. Yes,
Speaker:child labour. Growing on the. Yes. In the garden, growing herbs
Speaker:for my father and helping them out at weekends, which
Speaker:I probably started probably at about the age of 16 or so,
Speaker:Friday and Saturday nights, which, as we were saying earlier, were the big days of
Speaker:the week in those days. So I would help my mother
Speaker:in the restaurant front of house and it just
Speaker:sort of went from there slowly, slowly, so fast forward to about
Speaker:1718 when I was studying at school, which
Speaker:I was not a natural study. I hate
Speaker:studying. I hated studying. I have to say, I have changed a lot since
Speaker:then. I am dyslexic, so it took me years and years and years to
Speaker:know how to even read and write and therefore I was more
Speaker:artistically minded. I drew, I painted, I
Speaker:could do anything with my hands and I thought to myself, that's what I really
Speaker:want to do. I don't want to work in restaurants. I've done the restaurant thing.
Speaker:17. Done the restaurant thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Been there, done there.
Speaker:Everything there is to see. That's it, yeah, move on. Next. So
Speaker:I actually studied history of art and design and
Speaker:merchandising. I thought, right, last thing I'm going to do is work in a restaurant
Speaker:like my parents. I'm going to go out there big, wide world.
Speaker:And I did that for a little bit and then slowly,
Speaker:slowly got sucked back into the restaurant because I was working still part time
Speaker:on and off with my parents. And then as
Speaker:daddy became more
Speaker:professional, I suppose, because it had started out as a sort
Speaker:of. Right, let's try this and see where this takes us then. In
Speaker:where we were at this time, we were in Battersea. He got his first
Speaker:star. So he then. Yeah, he then. What
Speaker:year are we in now at this point, roughly fantasy. Early
Speaker:eighties. Yeah, early eighties. Okay. We lived
Speaker:upstairs. Brilliant. Yeah. Well, here we are again, like the authenticity of,
Speaker:you know, a family restaurant, as it were. But I suppose at that time
Speaker:as well, the food scene in London
Speaker:probably had not fully taken off by any stretch of imagination. So
Speaker:you were, you know, to get a star at that time. You were probably one
Speaker:of a chosen few would imagine it was. It was an
Speaker:uphill battle at that time. Everything was a fight. People were
Speaker:not used to eating out as much as they do now.
Speaker:People were. Didn't have cookery books all over their
Speaker:kitchen counter or shelves the way that they do
Speaker:now. They weren't used to some of the ingredients that
Speaker:we had in the food. Oh, I don't like this. I can't eat garlic. What's
Speaker:that? Ooh, that tastes odd. Why have you put it in all that sort of
Speaker:stuff? Right. And it was very difficult. And
Speaker:as my dad says in one of his books, he always says that when he
Speaker:started cooking, he had to go to the chemist to find olive oil. Now, he
Speaker:had grown up in a greek household where olive oil was what you had
Speaker:at home and cooked with. You couldn't move for olive oil in Greece.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely. So here you couldn't move
Speaker:for not finding olive oil. You had to move around boots to find olive oil
Speaker:because that's the only place that they stocked it in little jars for
Speaker:medicinal life. I know,
Speaker:and we're not talking that long ago. No, I
Speaker:mean, not in the grand scheme of things. Right. I mean, yeah. I mean, to
Speaker:think of. To think about how that is just such a
Speaker:taken for granted staple of any household now, isn't it, really? I mean,
Speaker:anybody who cooks will have a bottle of olive oil
Speaker:kicking around. For sure, and several others, because
Speaker:we're now so used to the variety of things we can get and we
Speaker:don't have to go to specialist delicatessens or shops or things like that. Any
Speaker:supermarket will have an array of all sorts of things. And
Speaker:so we got our first star. And
Speaker:this made daddy realize that. Hang on, I'm
Speaker:onto something here. I need to do a bit more investigation.
Speaker:He was a very sort of erudite person. And
Speaker:one star. Okay, that sounds very nice. What does it mean?
Speaker:Why have I got it? And can I get another?
Speaker:And then he realized that actually, once you've got the second, there is a
Speaker:mythical thing called a third star. So to him it was
Speaker:a given. Why would you stop at one or two when three are available? You
Speaker:just go for the three. What? You know, that was his attitude. Yeah.
Speaker:What was his rule? He wasn't the chef. Yes, he was
Speaker:the chef. So my father was Nicola Dennis, and he was. He
Speaker:ended up being the first british chef to get three Michelin
Speaker:stars. And he was british because when he was born in Tanzania,
Speaker:Tanzania was a british colony, and by default, you
Speaker:get british citizenship. So greek family and
Speaker:background, british passport. So when he got his third star,
Speaker:that made him the first british chef to get three Michigan stars. Right. Isn't
Speaker:that one of the wonderful things of hospitality as well, though? Like, just. You've
Speaker:just named three places that, you know. Okay. The
Speaker:british passport maybe helped to move between those two territories, but
Speaker:greek background, tanzanian born, british made, as it
Speaker:were. Yeah. That, to me, just sums up how
Speaker:wonderful this world can be when you. When you just think
Speaker:laterally about what's. What's possible. Absolutely.
Speaker:And particularly, as you say, in hospitality, we are surrounded by
Speaker:every nationality and it's wonderful. And that's. And that's
Speaker:also London. That's very, very much London, isn't it? The melting pot, the hotchpotch.
Speaker:That is London, where you grow up surrounded by everything. My sister and
Speaker:I went to the french listi when we were growing up,
Speaker:and the french list was also a pool of
Speaker:people from around the world, because a lot of families
Speaker:travelled or dads were posted to various locations.
Speaker:And the one stable thing that they could give their kids was if they put
Speaker:them in the french lysis. If you're posted to Dakar,
Speaker:there's a french lysis. If you're posted to Athens, there's a french lysis. So
Speaker:your kids education will be continuous and
Speaker:unbroken. So within that school system, we were not only
Speaker:surrounded by kids from all over the world, but
Speaker:also all the restaurant kids from London. They all went to the French
Speaker:DC as well, to all the french kids. So we grew up surrounded by all
Speaker:sorts. And then in London, London is
Speaker:a mini, is such a cosmopolitan city and it is wonderful for that.
Speaker:Amazing. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, I read something somewhere, this is a few years
Speaker:ago now. It's probably changed to even more. But
Speaker:the melting pot of restaurant diversity that is available
Speaker:means that in London you can eat somewhere for lunch and
Speaker:dinner in a different place and you'd never have to go back to the same
Speaker:place in seven years. It was just. I thought that was from
Speaker:a statistical perspective, I thought, isn't that incredible that there is that
Speaker:quantity of places to go and see? And, okay,
Speaker:you've got every possible area of the spectrum on there in terms
Speaker:of quality and integrity, probably in some instances
Speaker:as well. But nevertheless, it's just such
Speaker:a ripe and ready place to London is ready
Speaker:for whatever experience you want to, to bring into the fold.
Speaker:It's wonderful. It is wonderful. And going back to locally, so
Speaker:not so London centric, Hastings and St Leonard's also has all
Speaker:sorts of varieties of cuisines. We have lebanese restaurants,
Speaker:we have west african restaurants, we have local family restaurants,
Speaker:we have farm led restaurants, we have organic. I mean, we have everything. We
Speaker:have arabic grocers also in St Leonards, which is lovely because, I
Speaker:mean, I go and I step into an arabic groceries and the produce is just
Speaker:so lovely, all the herbs and spices and you get that fabulous instant hit
Speaker:smell that you get in a continental grocers or
Speaker:delicatessen. So I get my fix of that half an hour from here. It's
Speaker:fabulous. Really, really great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So back to the restaurant
Speaker:first achieved and what is your involvement in, at this
Speaker:point in time? So, initially it was part
Speaker:time working, helping out at weekends, and then when daddy
Speaker:sort of realized that actually three stars was the pinnacle of what he should
Speaker:be achieving, we came together as a family and we realised
Speaker:that one of the best ways of achieving this goal would be as a
Speaker:family. So you come together, my sister,
Speaker:myself, my parents, and no one
Speaker:will work longer, better, harder, stronger, faster than your family.
Speaker:So we came back together. I gave up any
Speaker:sort of dreams of working in history, of art or design or
Speaker:anything like that, which actually, within hospitality, I was able to come
Speaker:back to many years later. So it wasn't. It's not all lost, because
Speaker:hospitality is so enormously varied.
Speaker:There is room for that. If that's the way that your mind
Speaker:works, you can find that niche. Yeah. So we came
Speaker:together and then at that point, so
Speaker:rather like my father, don't do anything by halves if you're going to do
Speaker:it properly. So threw myself in all in
Speaker:front of house. Go for it. My big thing was
Speaker:reception and organizing reception, and
Speaker:my mother was still, at that point, in front of house. And then when she
Speaker:stepped back we had a restaurant manager, so basically just running and
Speaker:managing everything, making sure that it's the best that it can possibly
Speaker:be. Yeah. And then eventually we got our
Speaker:third star. So that was great. Brilliant. Yeah. And so how
Speaker:describe then, I guess, when the third star comes along, because, as you
Speaker:say, that's not something that's handed out just for the
Speaker:crack. You know, there has to be,
Speaker:I suppose, a sustained devotion to
Speaker:excellence across, you know, quite a long period of time before you're kind of, I
Speaker:suppose, even considered. It's rare that somebody just goes straight in at three. I think
Speaker:Heston did it, didn't he, when he reopened the fat duck? But it's, you know,
Speaker:he had years of history of three stars before that. Yeah,
Speaker:but so, yeah, describe the feeling then when. Because this was something
Speaker:that you, as a group, as a family, were actually meaningfully
Speaker:focused on trying to achieve. Yes, yes, absolutely. So when it happened,
Speaker:what was that like? It was. It was quite extraordinary
Speaker:because for my father, it was the absolute pinnacle
Speaker:of working so long and so hard
Speaker:and being an absent father, probably an
Speaker:absent husband, an absent everything, which we didn't specifically feel.
Speaker:But I think parents feel that more than the kids very
Speaker:often, that they didn't do enough or they weren't around enough or
Speaker:whatever. So for him, that was fantastic for my mother,
Speaker:obviously, because she was 50% of that. Without her, it would never have
Speaker:happened, because having, you know, a
Speaker:flamboyant chef who's always loud and, you know, letting
Speaker:off a fair amount of steam, you
Speaker:need someone grounded and quiet
Speaker:who just runs the business and makes sure that it keeps ticking over,
Speaker:so runs the family, makes sure the girls are okay, looks after the
Speaker:dogs, make sure they're fed and watered, looks after the finances of
Speaker:the business, looks after the staff, looks after the pay. So that was her role.
Speaker:So it's between the two of them. That's how it happened. It was
Speaker:also fantastic for all of his boys. He always had
Speaker:extraordinarily strong, loyal brigades of
Speaker:boys who followed him from restaurant to restaurant and
Speaker:worked with him for very long periods of time. Our first head chef, Paul
Speaker:Flynn, was with us nine years before he moved back to Ireland to
Speaker:open his own restaurant. Our front of house team stayed for many years. Our metre,
Speaker:Dan Luc, was with us, and I always forget this. So either ten or 15
Speaker:years he worked with my mother and then he became the
Speaker:Metra D and took over from her. So it was a
Speaker:reward for all of the hard work that everyone had put in.
Speaker:And I know it's Cheyney Ko is the one that
Speaker:carries the three stars, or my father's name has the three stars associated.
Speaker:But without this whole package of people, it would never have happened. It
Speaker:doesn't happen in a vacuum. And his mantra was always,
Speaker:it always said, consistency, consistency, consistency.
Speaker:He wasn't one of these people who had a dish of the day every day.
Speaker:And right, what we got today, let's have a look and see what we can
Speaker:do. He would perfect his food
Speaker:over years, if necessary, to make each dish
Speaker:as perfect as it could possibly be. And a lot of our boys have
Speaker:taken that with them, and they are very strong,
Speaker:very consistent. They have strong businesses. They
Speaker:understood the ethos of running a proper business,
Speaker:as well as just being able to give good food and good service, that it's
Speaker:the complete package. And I think they learned that from my parents as well. Very
Speaker:much. Yeah. Well, I suppose that's a major part of
Speaker:anybody who is devoted to a life in hospitality. At some point, I
Speaker:think it comes to us all whereby you feel almost this
Speaker:outpouring of desire to give back, to make sure that the people who are
Speaker:coming through are getting the skills that they need to be successful
Speaker:and so on and so forth. I can't imagine that that's any different than
Speaker:somebody who, like your father, who devoted so much to the industry.
Speaker:But I also like the fact that he was, I suppose, humble enough to understand
Speaker:that he could be producing the greatest food on the planet. But
Speaker:without the rest of it, there's no three stars.
Speaker:There's no business, probably. And this is the intricacies of
Speaker:business I find really, really fascinating, especially when you're in an operation
Speaker:that is so people focused. You can't
Speaker:deliver excellence without everybody being on the same page and without all
Speaker:pulling together in the same direction. The fact that you had such length
Speaker:of service and key components of the team speaks volumes as
Speaker:to how you're actually able to achieve consistency. I'd say absolutely, yes.
Speaker:Absolutely it does. You know, he always had a reputation for being sort of very
Speaker:loud and very shouty and very outspoken and very this and very loud and very
Speaker:difficult to be around or be with or work for. But, I mean, if that
Speaker:were all true, then we wouldn't have had this consistency, as
Speaker:you say, this backbone of staff who stayed with us.
Speaker:And also, to get to the top of your
Speaker:profession, you do have to be very focused and single minded, and if you're sort
Speaker:of flappy, hysterical, shouty and loud, you're not going to get there.
Speaker:So behind the sort of
Speaker:face of his larger than life personality,
Speaker:there was also a very, very meticulous, dedicated person.
Speaker:Yeah, I think the thing about the shoutiness is something
Speaker:that gets a lot of kind of focus now, isn't it, that, you know, nobody
Speaker:wants to be in shouty kitchens, and I completely understand that. But I
Speaker:think sometimes there's. Shoutiness can be
Speaker:misrepresented. I think none of us are perfect and we all have our moments
Speaker:where we lose our marbles over something. And actually, if your
Speaker:devotion is to excellence and really what you're trying to do
Speaker:is get everybody to get up to that standard and maybe somebody delivers a
Speaker:sauce to the past which is not quite perfect, or, you know, the mise en
Speaker:place is just a couple of millimeters out or wherever on your veg prep or
Speaker:whatever it is. Actually, if you. I suppose the key thing with
Speaker:leadership in that respect, if you are. If you're kind of susceptible to little
Speaker:moments of shouty weakness, let's call them, if people are
Speaker:aware that that's part of it, but the intention behind it is actually,
Speaker:it's a positive intention because we want this place to be the best it can
Speaker:be. We want you to be the best you can be. And sometimes people
Speaker:just need a little bit of a kick to get there. And I think, you
Speaker:know, it's not something that I advocate in any shape or form.
Speaker:You know, I think bullying is just, you know, is unacceptable. But
Speaker:actually raised voices are just
Speaker:part of life, you know? And, yeah, his
Speaker:voice was very often raised because he had a loud, raised voice. His
Speaker:kitchens technically were very quiet, very
Speaker:organized. No shouting, no,
Speaker:he had very colorful language, but there was
Speaker:no bullying or intimidation in the way that there has been in some
Speaker:kitchens. He would never have stood for any of that. Yeah. His
Speaker:anger was very often aimed at either customers
Speaker:or media and journalists who didn't understand what he was
Speaker:doing. And he
Speaker:would get angry on behalf of his
Speaker:teams because he was standing up
Speaker:for perfection and excellence. Because what we do
Speaker:is a profession. It's not a job, it's not a hobby,
Speaker:it's not something you do, because there's nothing else you
Speaker:can do or you can. What he was
Speaker:standing up for was the hospitality profession.
Speaker:Yeah. And people who denigrated it or made fun of it,
Speaker:he wouldn't put up with. He wouldn't put up with
Speaker:people who. So, as I said earlier on, journalists who
Speaker:made fun of what we did for a living, customers who
Speaker:wouldn't turn up no shows, for instance, was a huge thing for
Speaker:us. The thing is that we're still talking about these problems now. We
Speaker:are still talking about these things. Absolutely. But now if you
Speaker:think of how much more conscious people are of restaurants and
Speaker:hospitality going back a few years, going to a
Speaker:restaurant, not going to a restaurant, turning up three when you book for
Speaker:six, not a big deal. Not. People just did not
Speaker:care. And it is perfectly true.
Speaker:People always say, is it an apocryphal story? Is it true? It's absolutely true.
Speaker:When we had no shows. And remember, these were very small premises
Speaker:and therefore small amount of customers, small amount of
Speaker:covers, very tight margins. So if you have a table of four who don't
Speaker:turn up, you know, that's it. Your whole day has been a waste of
Speaker:time. So he would go through the service, carry on as
Speaker:normal, and then either when he got home or before, just before
Speaker:closing the restaurant, he would ring those people. So we're now talking 02:00 in the
Speaker:morning, he would ring them and he would say to them, would you like
Speaker:us to keep your table? Are you still coming? Or shall I send the staff
Speaker:home now? Right. And of course they would get very,
Speaker:very irritated. But he had then had the final word, so
Speaker:he was happy. And of course, all of these boys used to find that very
Speaker:funny. Yeah, but I like that. I think that's a really
Speaker:good tactic, actually, because, you know, the people who. Stuff
Speaker:happens. Of course it does. And, you know, think plans change and all of that
Speaker:kind of stuff. Totally respectful of the fact that that can happen. It's happened to
Speaker:me before. But the, the respectful position
Speaker:is, is that if something happens, you just call ahead and say,
Speaker:look, this has happened. I respect your cancellation policy, whatever it is,
Speaker:because, you know, these are things that restaurants have to have now. Yeah, but
Speaker:I respect you. I respect your trade, I respect your establishment.
Speaker:I will cancel my dentist, I will counsel my doctor. If I have an appointment
Speaker:with my kids head of year or
Speaker:school teacher, I will cancel that if I can't make it. Well, why
Speaker:wouldn't you accord us the same respect and cancel your
Speaker:table with us? That's all we need, a phone call. Yep. I call ahead if
Speaker:I'm going to be ten minutes late. Oh, yes, yes, I know.
Speaker:Yeah. That's how paranoid I am about. I don't want to lose the booking. Just,
Speaker:you know, I have to make you aware that I'm just running behind. But anyway,
Speaker:yes, we digress. But it's really, really interesting. It's very. It's
Speaker:also. It's interesting because I come back to that, the point I was making about
Speaker:the shoutiness. The shoutiness has come from
Speaker:passion for the craft. Yes. And actually, as you say, is kind
Speaker:of protecting the craft, protecting
Speaker:the, the industry in some respects, I guess, against
Speaker:disrespect, really, ultimately, yeah. But back
Speaker:to your story. Where. Where are we? Right. Where are we
Speaker:now? How long are you then involved in this phase of the
Speaker:operation? What happened next? So we are. So
Speaker:we're now in Park Lane. So over the course of 30 years, the
Speaker:restaurant, because it was a small family
Speaker:venture, we moved several times over the years. Nowadays,
Speaker:it's not uncommon to open great, big, gleaming, beautiful
Speaker:restaurants in fabulous locations right from the go get world. That
Speaker:wasn't how it happened in our day, and certainly not any way that we could
Speaker:ever afford doing that. So we started off in Dulwich, and then
Speaker:we moved to Battersea, and then we moved to Victoria, and then
Speaker:we moved to great Portland street, and
Speaker:then in great Portland street. At that point, we had two stars
Speaker:and we moved the restaurant from great Portland
Speaker:street into the Grosvenor House Hotel. And that's where I met Searchl,
Speaker:because he was director of food and beverage and banqueting at the Grosvenor house. And
Speaker:along with his then GM and another person called
Speaker:Gerald Lipton, they put their heads together and thought, there's an
Speaker:empty shop in the Grosvenor house. The X restaurant,
Speaker:which, in fact, had been in its heyday, 90 park lane, had been the
Speaker:first restaurant within the forte organization to get its Michelin
Speaker:star. And in fact, that was under Sergio. That was his thing. Even though he's
Speaker:a hotel man at heart, he had been very focused on the
Speaker:restaurants within the hotel operations and he had got them their first
Speaker:merchant star. So this shop was now empty.
Speaker:And someone had the bright idea to invite Cheney
Speaker:Cook to move into the Grosvenor house. And at the time, that was totally
Speaker:unheard of. No one had done that before. Nowadays, it's
Speaker:quite normal for big hotels to have named chefs, and
Speaker:in fact, they go out of their way to bring in and
Speaker:attract multi Michelin starred chefs into their
Speaker:premises. At the time, everybody thought that we had gone crazy. They
Speaker:thought, oh, well, you know, Cheyne was obviously not doing well. They
Speaker:obviously need help and support. They obviously need to be under somebody else's
Speaker:umbrella. It was the absolute total contrary, because
Speaker:we had been invited in, because we were who we were to
Speaker:add to that property, and that's what we did.
Speaker:So once again, groundbreaking moved to Grosvenor house. And in effect,
Speaker:that's why we got our how, when and why we got our third
Speaker:star being in that bigger environment. Yeah.
Speaker:So I was working there, running there, and
Speaker:I said to you earlier on, I was able to find ways to sort of
Speaker:channel my creativity. And that was in doing things like the flower arrangements.
Speaker:We used to have fabulous flower arrangements, and that was my big thing going to.
Speaker:As if I didn't sleep few enough hours in the day,
Speaker:I ended up. I used to go to Covent Garden first thing in the morning,
Speaker:buy enormous amounts of flowers and decorate the restaurants for
Speaker:all the. When we did all the functions, we did weddings, we did parties with
Speaker:things like that. So that was one way of doing it. And then later on,
Speaker:interior design, when we got our third
Speaker:star, daddy had done his thing. He
Speaker:had achieved his goal. He'd done. He got to
Speaker:the three. There are no more to do. So he thought, that's it, I'm
Speaker:off. And he retired. Really. Right. Well, you know, leave
Speaker:your audience wanting more, you know. Absolutely, as well.
Speaker:But that's great as well, though, because there
Speaker:is almost nowhere to go apart from sustaining it then. Right. I mean, that's
Speaker:the. That's an achievement in itself, without question. Yeah. But, you
Speaker:know, everybody's wired differently. Right? And if that's what was focused on, it
Speaker:is very difficult sometimes when people achieve their dreams, for them to figure
Speaker:out what the next dream is. That was his challenge, to get the three.
Speaker:He got the three. I think we did it. We lasted, kept them up for
Speaker:a couple of years or so. And then he said, our lease. We only
Speaker:had a ten year lease at Grosvenor House. So when the lease was up, he
Speaker:sort of went, okay, I'm out of here. I'm off. Done my thing.
Speaker:So we're like, oh, okay. Are you sure? He's like, yeah, that's
Speaker:it. Nowadays, I mean, yesterday, or was it a couple of days ago, there was
Speaker:the launch of the. The Michelin Paris. We had
Speaker:the launches all over the. In February, there was the launch of the british
Speaker:mission in Manchester. And it's a
Speaker:huge song and dance and everybody, there's a party and there's an. On
Speaker:stage and it's a whole. It's become like the oscars, and you get a plaque
Speaker:and you put your plaque and you photograph yourself in front of your plaque and
Speaker:you're on Instagram and you're this. And in our day, we weren't even
Speaker:allowed to write on our menu, you know,
Speaker:Chez Nikolt, and put the three Michelin stars, for instance,
Speaker:or on your. Not on your website, because we didn't have websites in those
Speaker:days we had letterheads. Oh, how quaint. Old fashioned paper
Speaker:and pen. So we had a, you know, on the cheney called Letterhead, you couldn't
Speaker:write underneath three stars. So things have changed an awful lot and evolved.
Speaker:But anyway, he got his stars. He went to live in the south France,
Speaker:or my parents went to live in the south France. But meanwhile we had
Speaker:decided to open a brasserie, if you like, a
Speaker:sort of slightly more informal restaurant, typically
Speaker:french brasserie, that worked along the lines and the principles of classic french
Speaker:food, but in a lighter style. And some of our boys
Speaker:came and started that off. I was running those. Sergio came
Speaker:and then at that point, retired from hotels and came and worked with us
Speaker:and we did all of those. So in its heyday,
Speaker:Incog was an absolute fantastic brushstroy in the West
Speaker:End, in the heart of theatreland. So we had to learn a whole
Speaker:new skill, which was the pre theatre. Oh, yeah. Oh,
Speaker:yeah. To add to the rest of your service. And there I
Speaker:was able to do another one of the things that I loved, which was interior
Speaker:design, and David Collins designed that restaurant for
Speaker:us and I was able to work with David Collins
Speaker:and he was fantastically inspirational and
Speaker:it was a way of
Speaker:expressing my creativity by getting involved in that, because at the end of the
Speaker:day, I've discovered that the thing I really loved doing at the time was
Speaker:opening restaurants, because opening restaurants is fantastically
Speaker:exciting. Everything from sort of designing
Speaker:extraction and I tell you, even all of the
Speaker:technical stuff, all of the plants, all of the kit that you need, I find
Speaker:as fascinating as what colour curtains you're going to have. And should we have
Speaker:carpet or should we have marble? And all of this sort of stuff,
Speaker:it's really, really fun, hard work,
Speaker:but I couldn't have done it with anyone more brilliant than David Collins
Speaker:because he was also groundbreaking within the hospitality industry. He is the
Speaker:first designer who became a
Speaker:household name within our industry, within the interior design
Speaker:world. Everyone wanted him to do their businesses up.
Speaker:He brought glamour and beauty and
Speaker:designing spaces as well as
Speaker:we created the food and as the front of house created the
Speaker:service. So that was also became part of the package,
Speaker:having an interior designed restaurant. And nowadays that's, again,
Speaker:that's par for the course. But at the time. And it was in fact Pierre
Speaker:Kaufman who gave David Collins his first break within
Speaker:restaurants when he designed dark Clare for him. And
Speaker:then everybody wanted David Collins to design their restaurants. Of course they
Speaker:did, yes. Good enough for Pierre Kaufman. It's good enough for me.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. My goodness.
Speaker:Yeah. This is the glorious thing for me about running this little
Speaker:podcast is the stories of things that are just
Speaker:out there that you don't, maybe you know a slight bit about, but
Speaker:don't know much about. I had no idea about
Speaker:the history of you, really, and what you've been
Speaker:able to kind of get involved with over your career to
Speaker:date. It's quite magical, some of the things that you've.
Speaker:And I also love the fact that it's family business. I mean, I
Speaker:hail from a family business myself. Granted, not at a three Michelin
Speaker:star level, but nevertheless, my mother and father were very, very devoted
Speaker:to ensuring that they were delivering consistency for the things
Speaker:that they loved. Yes. And that I think that coming from that place of
Speaker:authenticity, of if you kind of do
Speaker:things in the eye of what you enjoy,
Speaker:I don't. There's. There's many people out there who will be exactly the same, who
Speaker:will enjoy what you enjoy as well.
Speaker:And so, yeah, I love. I love the family
Speaker:element of your story, as well as the kind of the devotion to
Speaker:excellence. Thank you. Well, you see,
Speaker:now, when I look back from where I am now,
Speaker:I know so many people in the industry. I know now
Speaker:so many young people. So every year, we meet at least
Speaker:200 new young people who enter our competitions,
Speaker:and some of whom we get to know very, very well and
Speaker:become very close to. So we know so many people in
Speaker:the industry, Xiaoju and I, that that's one of the big things we do, that
Speaker:we are able to put people together or to bring
Speaker:people together who might need each other or help each other out or things like
Speaker:that. So that's a very big part of what we do and that
Speaker:we enjoy so much. I mean, having all of this knowledge, you can't keep it
Speaker:to yourself. You have to give it back and share it. That's surely.
Speaker:Why do you accumulate all of this knowledge during a lifetime? It's
Speaker:not to sit in your armchair in front of the telly and go, look how
Speaker:clever I am. Look at the number of people I know. Oh, look at the
Speaker:number of prime ministers I've met in my lifetime. Oh, great. Share
Speaker:it. It's all important information that you need
Speaker:to help other people with. Absolutely. You
Speaker:know, you've mentioned it a couple of times through your journey
Speaker:as well, that the importance of evolution in all of this as well,
Speaker:the industry has evolved immeasurably. The way that people behave has
Speaker:evolved immeasurably. So it stands to reason that the industry has
Speaker:to continue to keep evolving. But you do that from having a
Speaker:really, really sound base of knowledge for the moment that you're in. And
Speaker:then, you know, so there's always something more to learn. There's always,
Speaker:you know, but we're. Here's a. I got through, what, about
Speaker:50 minutes on this? And here's a cliche. We are stronger together, right? I mean,
Speaker:you know, that. That's just a fact. Absolutely.
Speaker:Totally stronger together. It's one of the hashtags that I very often
Speaker:use, not in my hospitality role, but in one of my other
Speaker:roles at, because I work. I'm a director of and
Speaker:work with our local paper in Rye
Speaker:News, and I am working on getting together
Speaker:a media partnership currently between the Rye Chamber of
Speaker:Commerce, the Rye Jazz Festival, which is an international, big festival
Speaker:every year that comes to Rye, and the Rye Arts Festival. And the hashtag that
Speaker:I use is stronger together. Rye is a very small town.
Speaker:We want it to stay beautiful, keep thriving,
Speaker:growing, encourage the hospitality, because it's very much a
Speaker:tourist town. We need fabulous restaurants. We need brilliant hotels.
Speaker:We need to be able to employ the young people around
Speaker:here that they don't end up straying or lost or not
Speaker:within careers. We can give them all of that here. And one of the ways
Speaker:of doing that is by working together. We are stronger together. All of
Speaker:this individualism and fighting against the
Speaker:system and not wanting to be part of a group is just ridiculous,
Speaker:because at the bottom of. At the end of the day, what's the
Speaker:thing that keeps us in hospitality going is
Speaker:teamwork. Whether you're in the kitchen or front of house
Speaker:or back of house, wherever you work, you work in a team.
Speaker:You can't do it on your own. You have to have your colleagues around you.
Speaker:You have to get on. You have to. You have to be best friends. You
Speaker:have to get on in a professional sense, I have to be able to rely
Speaker:on you. I know that you can do this. I can't do that. You can
Speaker:do this. But together, this is what we can achieve. And teamwork
Speaker:is behind everything that we do in hospitality.
Speaker:Absolutely. I've utilized a phrase on this show a few
Speaker:times, and in other establishment things, forums and
Speaker:panels and all sorts of stuff. Is that unite the clans? Is what I say.
Speaker:Yes. There you go. Absolutely. We have a bit of
Speaker:a propensity to. It's almost like this. All
Speaker:the ideas are amazing, but my idea is the best, but rather
Speaker:actually having a melting pot of just ideas flowing all the
Speaker:time, where everybody. We have this massive collective of people that exist
Speaker:in this industry. Imagine if we got all those ideas together
Speaker:under one roof and really, really forged forward, because
Speaker:there are challenges that we need to fight together. We need one united
Speaker:voice as opposed to pockets of many
Speaker:voices. And I think if we do that, then we've
Speaker:got a chance of really having a proper seat at the table.
Speaker:But until then, I think we'll probably still be having the same
Speaker:conversations for years to come. Yeah, I agree
Speaker:with you. I mean, we do need better representation at higher
Speaker:levels. We need to be a louder, stronger
Speaker:voice. We need to be able to lobby government more than
Speaker:we do. I know. We try. I know Kate Nichols does an amazing job.
Speaker:Kate Nichols, who's someone I'd love to meet. I've never had the chance to meet
Speaker:her. So far, the biggest thing that she has achieved
Speaker:for our industry, I think, from my point of view, was during
Speaker:lockdown, when she lobbied constantly for the hospitality
Speaker:industry. Now we know what we do for a living, all of us. We all
Speaker:in our little silos, we all do our thing. We know and understand what
Speaker:we used to call catering, we now call hospitality. But it wasn't so
Speaker:much in the public consciousness at all. Because of her,
Speaker:the word hospitality appeared in virtually every
Speaker:single news bulletin throughout the entire day.
Speaker:During the 18 months to two years of the pandemic,
Speaker:every single time you turned on the television or the radio, you heard the word
Speaker:hospitality and it became. It
Speaker:went into the national consciousness in a way that it hadn't done before.
Speaker:And that is an amazing first
Speaker:step towards putting us out there and making us
Speaker:better known, better understood, better appreciated. And
Speaker:she now has a platform and a near
Speaker:within government which I'm sure she will carry through and
Speaker:keep growing lobbying on behalf of the now
Speaker:renowned hospitality industry. Here. Here.
Speaker:Absolutely. You mentioned competitions that you
Speaker:run, so let's talk about those, because you
Speaker:are actually very, very kindly this year. And in fact, the previous year, but I
Speaker:couldn't make the previous year, invited me to the gold service scholarship this year, which
Speaker:you're heavily involved with as well. I was just blown
Speaker:away by that event and, you know, especially because it was invite only as well,
Speaker:so I felt very special. But, yeah, that
Speaker:that's one thing that you're involved with, but you also have other awards that you
Speaker:actually are right behind and kind of responsible for. So talk to me about
Speaker:everything that you do in that. Okay? All right. So basically,
Speaker:I've been there and done that. My time is gone, but there are
Speaker:loads of young people coming through the industry currently and
Speaker:in the future, loads more. We have to keep our industry going.
Speaker:And so Sergio has been. He's part of
Speaker:the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts and he has been running the annual
Speaker:awards of excellence and the Master of culinary arts for over 40 years now.
Speaker:So that's one of the. Those are two of the competitions that we run. And
Speaker:then when the gold service scholarship was started, it was initially an
Speaker:idea that Willy Bauer had. Willy Bauer was
Speaker:big at Forte and then he was big within the Savoy
Speaker:organization, Savoy Group, and he wanted to
Speaker:highlight front of house. And he took his idea to Alister's
Speaker:story, and Alister's story was obviously very impressed with the
Speaker:idea, took it, ran with it. So Alistair's story, Baxter story,
Speaker:as was. And he also thought that this was a
Speaker:brilliant idea and made it happen. So Alistair's story made the gold
Speaker:service scholarship happen with the founding trustees,
Speaker:who are people like Silvano Shiraldin, and obviously
Speaker:Sergio. And Sarah Jane Staines was one of the founding
Speaker:trustees, so they started the gold service scholarship. Edward
Speaker:Griffiths came on board, Thomas Cox came on board,
Speaker:and Knut Wilde from the Berkeley is
Speaker:now on board, as well as Lydia Forte. So there's full circle for
Speaker:Sergio, who's one of Lord Forte's old boys. And all these
Speaker:years later, he's working with Lord Forte's granddaughter, Lydia.
Speaker:So Sergio now runs all three of those competitions,
Speaker:obviously not single handed. He is. Edward is chairman of the judges for
Speaker:the gold service scholarship. He works very closely with someone called John
Speaker:Cousins, who's an amazing person, who runs both competitions with Sergio,
Speaker:who we couldn't do without. And John Couzens, he
Speaker:writes one of the sort of bibles of hospitality, food and beverage service, I think
Speaker:it's called, which is a very dry title, John, by the way, but it
Speaker:says what it does on the tin and it's what young people need
Speaker:to read to have a strong understanding of
Speaker:the principles and techniques of hospitality. So each
Speaker:competition is very different and it spans
Speaker:the age groups. So the first one that you enter
Speaker:is the annual awards of excellence, the Royal Academy competition.
Speaker:And that's from your earlier stage in hospitality, which is
Speaker:generally about 18, I suppose, that sort of age. And that goes up to
Speaker:18 to 26, and that's
Speaker:their competition. Then the second to the mid range age
Speaker:group. So that's a slightly, a fairly technical competition. The Gold survey
Speaker:scholarship focuses more on personality and personal
Speaker:skills and that sort of intangible that you bring
Speaker:to hospitality. And that goes up to the age
Speaker:of 28, I think, 2022 to 28 in that
Speaker:age range. And then the final one is the master of culinary
Speaker:arts. And the Master of culinary arts isn't age specific, but you
Speaker:need to have had at least ten years managerial, a ten year
Speaker:managerial role within the hospitality industry before you can enter the master of culinary
Speaker:arts. So that has its challenges because
Speaker:you would say, oh, well, you know, they've been managers for ten years now. They
Speaker:know it's all fantastic, easy peasy. When you've been a manager for ten years,
Speaker:chances are you spend a lot of time on a computer or in
Speaker:an office or sitting down and in fact going
Speaker:back to the floor and remembering how you carve a salmon
Speaker:perfectly or how you prepare fruit with a,
Speaker:with a fork and knife rather than, you know, carving it properly rather than
Speaker:using hands. They have to identify ingredients,
Speaker:identify cheeses, identify. So in fact,
Speaker:there's a lot of study involved in doing that at their
Speaker:age. So we help with that. And when you've achieved the
Speaker:master of culinary arts, it's like a master's degree in any other
Speaker:profession. So it is a master's degree, hospitality,
Speaker:and you are at the peak of your profession and from
Speaker:then on you can then teach all of those coming behind you
Speaker:within your establishment the skills and
Speaker:techniques of hospitality. Yeah,
Speaker:there's a few things in play here for me. One, I'm going
Speaker:to come back to the gold service scholarship as an example. I haven't been to
Speaker:your other awards yet. Maybe we'll rectify that in the
Speaker:future. Absolutely. Well, the annual awards have just started, so. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Excellent, excellent. Is that, you know, if ever you were in any
Speaker:doubt that the future of the industry is in safe hands, you just need to
Speaker:go along to that event because, you know, the devotion to
Speaker:excellence from what is essentially a group of young people, you
Speaker:know, I suppose you could argue the much maligned. Youth of today, as
Speaker:it were, it drives me mad. Oh, they don't do this. Oh, they don't do
Speaker:that. Or in my day, they did this. Well, it
Speaker:is so not true. Absolutely. Could not agree more.
Speaker:Absolutely extraordinary. Absolutely. Yeah. So that to me
Speaker:was just a wonderful reminder that we have such amazing talent
Speaker:coming through all of the time, every year. Yeah, there's always, you know, there's new
Speaker:and even the people who don't, who don't win, you know, there to make it
Speaker:to that final list is just an amazing achievement in itself,
Speaker:even to just be nominated, I think it's just a wonderful achievement in itself. It
Speaker:is amazing and we try, we want to encourage and
Speaker:build and grow these people. So when you enter the annual awards, when you
Speaker:get through, you become an achiever. You have achieved the annual awards of
Speaker:excellence. When you go through the gold service, if you're a
Speaker:semi finalist, you get prizes as well. You don't have to go all the way
Speaker:through quarter and semis, I should say. And
Speaker:when you get down to the last eight, those last eight at the gold service
Speaker:scholarship are all winning finalists. They are the eight winners
Speaker:of that year. Now, within that category, of the eight winning finalists,
Speaker:a scholar will be named. So each year will be represented by a
Speaker:scholar. But they have all achieved, and they are all winning
Speaker:finalists at the gold scholarship, which is something that we
Speaker:try to promote to encourage people
Speaker:so that they don't feel deflated or let down, if they feel that they haven't
Speaker:done well or got through. It's all part of the giant
Speaker:learning curve. And if you didn't succeed the first time by
Speaker:getting as far as you want to, you try again the next year. There's nothing
Speaker:stopping you until you get to that age limit, obviously. You keep going and
Speaker:going and going until you become an achiever or a winning finalist. It's there for
Speaker:you to take if you want it. There's that feeling of
Speaker:coopetition with it as well, which is a wonderful word to use. And
Speaker:I think that we are, as an industry, especially brilliant at this. You only just
Speaker:need to look at a great british menu, which is currently running. Yes.
Speaker:Whereby, yes, it's a competition, but the minute somebody
Speaker:is in the mire a little bit, then somebody else steps up to
Speaker:help. That, to me, is just absolutely.
Speaker:That's a hospitality mentality, 100%. And
Speaker:you get the sense from the gold service scholarship that there's that same camaraderie that's
Speaker:being built amongst competitors that ultimately, when all said and
Speaker:done, we're all winners and we're all here to support each other. And actually, we're
Speaker:all here to just make sure that this industry continues to flourish and be the
Speaker:best that it can be. And I will play my part in that wherever I
Speaker:can. Well, one of the big things that we like to try and do is
Speaker:support them all, all the way through. I definitely
Speaker:feel. I could feel that at the event. Thank you.
Speaker:That's so important to hear, that there are no
Speaker:tricks. You just have to learn some
Speaker:basic things. And if you can't or don't know
Speaker:how, or we will show you, we will help you. We do
Speaker:seminars before the events, before the final, for instance,
Speaker:we show them the food, the drink, everything. We're not there to
Speaker:trip you up or catch you out. We are there to help you be the
Speaker:best person you can be. And you can see one of the
Speaker:most moving things for me is we have something called Team gold,
Speaker:where as long as you get to the semi finals, you are part of Team
Speaker:gold forever. And they run events and look after each other and speak to each
Speaker:other and keep in touch and all of this sort of stuff. But the final
Speaker:eight within the gold service scholarship become
Speaker:such a strong unit because of what they've been
Speaker:through during the course of the competition. Every year,
Speaker:group remain friends for life. This is.
Speaker:We're glad that it's happened, but it's not anything that we said, you know,
Speaker:you will form a WhatsApp group, you will speak to each other regularly, you others
Speaker:will. It just happens organically and you can see just before
Speaker:the scholar is actually announced, that happens every year
Speaker:that they all sit holding hands together, the front
Speaker:row, because it's the sort of the group
Speaker:together waiting to find out who is the scholar. And when the
Speaker:scholar is announced, the other seven are just as happy as the scholar
Speaker:for that person to have won, and that's a natural thing that happens,
Speaker:which is quite wonderful. I could not agree with you
Speaker:more. It's just a fabulous, fabulous thing. And I felt incredibly privileged
Speaker:to be there this year. It was a stunning event. It's
Speaker:just, you know, in a world of doom and gloom, it's just, I think
Speaker:these things are so essential in reminding us all that there's so much brilliance goes
Speaker:on on a daily basis and having awards to kind of recognize that the
Speaker:gold service being won and all of the other ones that you do as well
Speaker:are so, so important about reminding people that
Speaker:we are watching and we are listening and we are seeing what you're doing. And
Speaker:it's important that we mark these moments of positivity in people's lives to
Speaker:help keep them elevated and keep them wanting to push
Speaker:on and do more. Well. And one of the big things of
Speaker:all, well, the annual awards and certainly the gold survey
Speaker:scholarship, is that the prizes that they all
Speaker:get are all educational prizes that keeps pushing
Speaker:them forward. You don't just have the great party at Claridge's. And I didn't
Speaker:have much time to talk to you on the night because I sort of spend
Speaker:my life running around. I know so many people
Speaker:and all the fabulous food that they prepare for us at Claridge's. And everybody says
Speaker:to me, oh, have you had the lobster roll? I've got this. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker:yeah, in a minute. In a minute. All of a sudden it's 10:00 they're clearing
Speaker:down and like, I've had nothing, but we've just had the most terrific night because
Speaker:for us, it's a huge showcase every year. But
Speaker:the. What the kids get from these competitions, again, which makes
Speaker:them different to any other competition, is obviously the care and
Speaker:nurture and the following that they
Speaker:will have and the umbrella and the love and the protection that we will give
Speaker:them going forward and the team gold friendships that they make
Speaker:between themselves. But it's the educational programs that
Speaker:they are given. I mean, one of the prizes at the gold service scholarship
Speaker:is a week in Lausanne, the Ecolotelia de Lausanne,
Speaker:which is the most prestigious hospitality
Speaker:university in the world. And that costs an absolute fortune
Speaker:to go to, equivalent to if you're going to Harvard or
Speaker:Yale or something like that. Financially, our eight winning
Speaker:finalists get a week at Lausanne. That's part of their
Speaker:prize. So they all get to experience that, apart from
Speaker:just visiting vineyards, visiting
Speaker:Michelin starred restaurants, doing stages at the Ritz or
Speaker:at Core, or at the Waterside Inn, attending a
Speaker:banquet at the Royal household. I mean, who the hell ever gets to
Speaker:garden parties? Great within the Branson, Buckingham
Speaker:palace, but a state banquet being part of that, I mean, that
Speaker:is a unique, totally unique, once in a lifetime experience.
Speaker:That's one of the prizes you get. It is all geared
Speaker:around education and encouraging them to
Speaker:learn in the present, giving them
Speaker:experiences that they can take into the future, grow their careers, and then they
Speaker:will be in a position to give back at a later date in the way
Speaker:that we do not. Yeah, totally. And
Speaker:it's just. It's just absolutely wonderful. What a way to
Speaker:start what we are not. It's a Wednesday today, isn't it, that we're recording
Speaker:this just a wonderfully positive piece of
Speaker:work that you are doing and have done all the way through, it
Speaker:seems, your career to date. Thank you. And I don't
Speaker:mean that in a patronizing way. I mean, they really, really thank you
Speaker:for everything that you do within that. And I'm so, so,
Speaker:so grateful that I think even without this show, I don't even
Speaker:know if our paths would have ever crossed. So it's kind of, for
Speaker:me, I feel really privileged that I've been able to meet you and have this
Speaker:chat with you. That's such a sweet thing to say. Thank you so much.
Speaker:I mean, that's one of the lovely things about our industry that I always say.
Speaker:I don't understand why people don't view hospitality as the
Speaker:extraordinary career it is. I mean, it is just.
Speaker:You can be any size, any shape, any colour, any
Speaker:sex, any sexuality. You can walk in
Speaker:almost off the street into any job, and you will
Speaker:be picked, paid to learn a trade which you can then grow
Speaker:and to develop into whatever you want it to be. There is
Speaker:so. There's so much variety within hospitality. There's what
Speaker:you do, there's what I do. There is so much. And why we
Speaker:can't sell this. I just don't understand. No, I
Speaker:know. Yeah. Well, we keep trying. I think that's the thing.
Speaker:We have to keep trying. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker:stronger together, unite the clans. Stronger. Absolutely, totally,
Speaker:totally agree. Brilliant. Natasha, thank you so much for
Speaker:your time. I feel like I could talk to you all day, to be honest,
Speaker:but we can't do that. In fact, we
Speaker:should. I think we should. Absolutely. Yes. Well, we'll have a coffee
Speaker:or a wine or something like that at another time. Very good. And set the
Speaker:world to write and. And hospitality especially.
Speaker:Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day ahead.
Speaker:Thank you, Phil, so much. Take care. You, too. See you soon.
Speaker:Bye.
