Humans of Hospitality: Recent Episodes
Mark Cribb
Humans of Hospitality is a weekly podcast, showcasing stories and insights from the world of hospitality – the human beings rather than the big brands behind our food and drink. You’ll hear from the producers of ingredients and the people who combine those ingredients to bring you new dishes and drinks… and the owners of the bars, cafés and restaurants who create memorable settings, so you recall your mouth-watering meals years later. They are the people who bring vibrancy to their corner of hospitality and, who, as a group, make all our lives richer and more interesting.
Each week brings a new inspiring story. We are exploring hospitality in its broadest sense. Farming, politics, culture, cooking, nutrition, welfare, family, business, love and more. Wether you’re a famous figure or total unknown, if you love hospitality and have something important to say, chances are we’ll end up having a conversation. We want to explore the fair production of food, protecting the planet and humanity, whilst tasting awesome. It’s going to be quite the adventurous conversation.
If you want a world of formulaic and dull corporate sameness this is not the podcast for you. If you’d like to learn about amazing human beings who dedicate their lives to making the world of food, drink and hospitality more diverse for our daily enjoyment, please listen.
In showcasing these stories, founder and presenter Mark Cribb, wants to tip the balance back in favour of independent businesses: “Where we spend our money genuinely makes a difference to the kind of world we live in. So let’s at least make our world interesting.”
I so loved my first research chat with Thomas about Regenerative Farming & Carbon Credits that when the opportunity came up to record a podcast I took the chance to travel across the country and meet him face to face. I adore Thomas’s idea and the knowledge he has gained as a fourth generational farmer in Cambridgeshire .
In a nutshell Thomas spent a bit of downtime in lockdown pondering how to solve a global problem. But he did that looking out of his window in a very real, local and achievable way, that could have almost instant and measurable results.
As is all too often the case it’s the simple ideas that look like they have the greatest opportunity. If any of you listening have seen the ‘kissing the ground documentary’ on netflix then this is the deep dive podcast equivalent of one way to help with the challenge of what is happening to our soil. If any of you have listened to my podcast with Guy Singh Watson about organic farming, where we also touch on how many harvests are left in our soil, then this will be a great follow on episode.
For any of you simply interested in offsetting your carbon in your business, Thomas is now providing a measurable, British solution. A solution where you can potentially visit the farm that is saving the carbon and see what they are doing, why they are doing it and the difference it is making. And not only will you be saving carbon, you will be helping that farmer on a transition from intensive to regenerative. Perhaps helping the farmer fall back in love with ecology, and biology and being custodians of the land for a short, but oh so important period of time.
And if you are a restauranteur or work in hospitality in general, perhaps just asking questions, and caring more and more about where your food is coming from and who is growing it, is a great start point building momentum to support farmers who really want to be part of a positive movement.
I’m utterly confident that Thomas and his Gentle Farming business and carbon credits are going to do well. I’ll be looking into buying some myself and offering support, and I hope you will too.
Chat with Thomas on Linked in or follow Gentle Farming on Instagram or Twitter.
We are off to the world of events. Something I’d perhaps inadvertently neglected in my conversations around the world of hospitality. Certainly a part of the sector that todays guest Adam Phelps feels like the government has forgotten when it comes to recognition of the pandemics impact and financial support. Adam has been working at the top end of prestigious events for 22 years. Chatting through some of the choreography and planning required to deliver for clients who expect perfection, and are happy to pay for it was inspiring. 100 meals delivered to the table in perfect synchronisation by 50 model looking FOH members, immaculately presented is just one that creates a vivid picture in my mind.
Adam has looked after famous rock stars, the best jewellery and fashion brands and big festivals, but more recently has had to be exceptionally creative to find a way to navigate the impact of COVID. Losses have racked up, but Cellar Society are working hard to keep their team employed and ensure their loyal customer base does eventually come back to them when permitted to do so.
It feels fitting to be releasing this episode on the day that the government are once again pushing back full opening from the 21st June and the night club sector and large event companies must not be forgotten. Restaurant and pub garden trade is currently strong, but many in our sector continue to struggle. But this is not a covid specific episode and I think you’ll enjoy the conversation. Much of the story is about Adam and his teams adventures and business journey so far.
Many of your will know today’s guest Nathan Outlaw from his various TV appearances, Michelin stars, all round love of hospitality and the author of 5 well regarded books. Chatting to Nathan you can see why he’s such a popular hospitality human. Relaxed, positive, knowledgeable, with no pretentiousness and happy to chat about the challenges, lows and highs of his hospitality adventure.
Nathan was generous with his time in this conversation, where we touch on just how tough an impact the pandemic had with Nathan having to close his restaurants in London, but how it created a positive opportunity for him to revaluate his business and his lifestyle. Nathan is now super excited to be 100% focused on his two restaurants in Port Isaac in Cornwall.
And as you’ll hear during this chat Nathan has really worked hard to simplify the business and revaluate the importance of looking after the customer and keeping his chefs creative, with sustainability high on the agenda, rather than worrying about Michelin stars. With decades of experience behind him and a far greater understanding of the business element of restaurants compared to his early years, Nathan now gets to create a set menu at a set price for a set number of covers booked out 90 days in advance. It’s a genius model that really gives him and his team the freedom to enjoy simply creating incredible seasonal dishes that vary depending on what has been caught or farmed locally.
A real tale of learning, closing restaurants, opening restaurants and all the time loving the produce and the team around him, I really hope you enjoy this weeks conversation.
Check out his business here, find him on instagram, or the business on twitter.
Stefan Leser is a bit different to my normal guests on this podcast since he is based in Hong Kong and rather than being a little local independent Langham Hospitality has some big backers and a number of properties spread throughout the globe. It is that global perspective that I was really keen to explore with Stefan. There are some really interesting things we can learn from people like Stefan and Langham Hotels, who are operating across countries and across borders.
I wanted to understand how different markets across the globe are performing and wether that performance is due to governments taking a different approach on how to manage Covid. We recorded this show a few weeks ago, but at the time Stefan’s hotels across China, Australia and New Zealand were trading pretty well, whilst London obviously was closed. Where his hotels were doing ok, they were aimed at the domestic market only.
Many of these countries closed their borders fully very early on in the pandemic. As a result they seem to have kept variants at bay. Whilst being sympathetic to airlines and those in the international market I get the sense from many people that I am speaking with that a summer of domestic trade only would be way better than heading into another lockdown. Certainly with the so called Indian variant now hitting the news, what should we be learning by looking at other countries and seeing how they are managing the situation. Stefan may help broaden our perspectives with his views.
And then there is also how the product of hospitality is evolving and changing globally, as well as the customer and their expectation. What does it look like when your customer changes from international to national in city hotels and what do you need to change?
We explore all of this and much more as we join Stefan very high up in a Hong Kong high rise. Much as I miss recording these conversations face to face, the ability to hop across the globe in just a few seconds is pretty cool.
You can find Stefan on LinkedIn and Langham Hotels and Resorts website here or Instagram.
I think you are going to fall in love with Dan Austin, today’s guest, and the Lake District Farmers, for a whole heap of reasons. Firstly the Lake District is just an utterly stunning part of the world, so anything we can do to support it, and the way of life that has been going on there for hundreds of years, I personally think is important. Traditional farming, where animals can roam free on the fells for me is a big part of this. Not only does it protect a way of life, and lead to happy animals a million miles away from modern intensive production techniques, but clearly it creates nicer animals for the food system too. Lake District Farmers supply most of the best chefs and best restaurants in the country, as you are about to discover.
But more than that this is also a tale of perseverance, of business acumen, of learning and making things up as you go, of responding to business catastrophe and adapting fast to keep the business running. Dan and his team's perseverance and commitment comes across in so many of the stories he tells. Wether that’s being found half clothed having slept in the delivery van before meeting an important potential customer, or relocating the entire business over a weekend following a fire or simply realising that if you have a 1 in 100 chance of making something happen, you’ve just got to repeat it 100 times.
We also touch on the ethics of meat consumption, and the carbon impact of our diets so plenty in here for everyone.
Find them via the website and make sure you check out the INCREDIBLE videos. Follow them on instagram
Less so someone’s journey through hospitality this week, and more of a deep dive into a topic I hope hope you will find useful. Today I’m chatting to Victoria Searl, founder of Data Hawks.
I’m fairly techie and I’ve found it frustrating over the years seeing the potential of data in the hospitality sector. Cleary unlike for example selling double glazing, we operate in a social space where people often want to hear from us. Where guests are happy to take photos and share them to social media, where they are happy to check in and arrange to meet friends. And whereby perhaps sharing data on birthdays, or dietary preferences or working patterns to help fill quieter times of the week are all things the customer is happy to share, since they actually want to hang out with us. So with a potential positive relationship with data, the consumer and the business I wanted to explore what is actually possible, is it easy, is it hard, are we doing all we can and what should we do with the information we collate. Victoria has held a number of senior marketing positions in well known brands, as well as an operational career in hospitality.
Find DataHawks online or follow Victoria on twitter, or LinkedIn.
Phil Haughton has had a great food adventure over many decades. He has just written a book ‘Food for Thought’ that brings together this journey, combined with recipes and producers he’s met along the way. Phil’s current business is the Better Food stores and cafes dotted around Bristol. That combination of combining the hospitality of a cafe drawing people into the building and then hopefully inspiring them to leave with some exceptionally ethical and delicious food and drink is the evolution of a lifetimes learning for Phil, and now his wider team.
Despite Phil’s desire for all organic he is pragmatic enough, particularly after previous insolvency, to recognise you do also have to sell what the customer is willing to buy. Perhaps rather than seeking ethical perfection, we must take people on a journey in smaller steps. An upgrade to free range may sometimes be more palatable than fully organic for some products.
Phil has travelled the country finding the best suppliers, has set up and invested in community farms, has lived in a practical commune in Scotland learning how to live off the land, has set up and closed a veg box delivery business, has found the takings from his business in the bottom of a freezer and has defended the ethics to sell meat in a considered and informed way. In essence through a lifetime of learning and business Phil no longer has to think about the provision of food and farming and hospitality in the UK, he really knows how it works. He can see the challenges, but has some great, informed perspectives on what and how we can be better.
See Phil on YouTube, or follow Better Food on instagram or twitter
Hamish is a brave soul who at the age of 41, with his own business and a career working around the wine and whisky trade decided that his number one love in the world was plants. Not only was he brave enough to sell the business, he was crazy enough to have no idea where his next adventure would take him. He pretty much let the plants decide. He went off on a learning journey meeting an inspirational medicine man along the way. A dream and a country walk and soon enough he’d stumbled across a beautiful plot of land not far from the city. Well, dilapidated and covered in weeds may have been a better description for most, but for Hamish, it was a vision of beauty and he convinced his wife, 4 kids and five dogs to live in a mobile home on the land and create something beautiful.
Now he has a distillery, a cafe, a herb garden, an owl, an actual house and an incredible story to tell. Along with products in M&S, Fortnum and Mason and more. Unlike most in hospitality Hamish sees a herb as medicinal rather than culinary. His description of a dandelion will make you see the plant and the universe through new eyes. His willingness to go on a journey with no plan will inspire you to be brave and take risks and follow your heart, perhaps more than your head. He’s also about to convince you to stop feeling guilty about not mowing your lawn enough, and that alone is a great reason to listen.
Whatever you are doing, enjoy the image of Hamish and his owl, in a tree house, overlooking his garden, yet still nailing being yet another wonderful human of hospitality.
Find Hamish on the website or on instagram or twitter.
Unusually we recorded this one, with my golden retriever 'Jasper' whilst giving him a walk around a 130 acre country estate. But more importantly I was joined by Darren Venables, the Estate Manager at the Chewton Glen Hotel down in the New Forest in Hampshire.
Darren has been working at the Chewton Glen for over 30 years so really has seen a huge amount of change, and as far as the grounds are concerned has curated much of that himself. And our wide ranging conversation typifies the reason for setting up this podcast. To shine a spotlight on what happens behind the scenes of hospitality. So much that the public may never get to hear about, or even imagine is fundamentally supported by the hospitality trade.
Developing an orchard of 250 of the rarest trees in the country perhaps, or breeding your own Queen bees, or surveying wildlife on an annual basis, or attracting a wider species of birds into a habit for the first time in decades, to growing food for a cookery school, to planting xmas trees and so so much more. I just hope conversations like these open your mind as to how much awesomeness the independent hospitality sector is responsible for. And remember, where you decide to spend your cash, in supporting these genuinely small and hospitable businesses, really makes a difference to the type of world we are all going to live in. Less dominated by bean counter international chains and more diverse and richer for humanity and the environment.
Find Darren on Instagram, twitter or visit the Chewton Glen website.
Sarah has been pretty vocal throughout the pandemic in representing the Scottish Hospitality Sector.
I wanted to chat with Sarah in the first instance about how somebody goes from being the MD of a decent sized company in the city of London, to buying an ex Little Chef by the side of an obscure road in rural Scotland. Along the way driving revenue to over £1.7 million per year from a pretty small footprint. And secondly how Sarah had embraced technology to revolutionise how this road side cafe operates. Motivated by the pandemic, but along the way learning some really interesting things that I think the hospitality sector at large is going through. Probably five years worth of technical evolution in one year as we move from ordering from a human, to ordering on an app. Not in evening restaurant service, but very much so across the casual daytime sector. This leads to challenges around the user experience, but some potential big benefits if, as appears to be the case, spend per head increases, whilst labour costs decrease.
Sarah also makes some great points about the infrastructure busy tourism destinations are likely to need to have in place if we are to experience the staycation boom most are expecting. It’s not just about business being ready, but car parks and toilets and roads and so much more.
Find the Real Food Cafe online, twitter, or instagram
Chris Davies is founder and CEO of Harvest London, a couple of vertical farms in the city of London. Chris is going to help us understand how vertical farms could be part of the solution to feeding the planet. As Chris puts it, this will be part of the solution and not all food will be, or can be grown this way. But the benefits of growing food where it is to be consumed, rather than potentially 1000’s of miles away, the benefits of harvesting food and getting it to the restaurant door within four hours, rather than perhaps four weeks. The benefit of a perfect summers day, every day, no matter the time of year or external weather conditions. The use of tech and automation and the potential for companies to ship their perfect growing recipe to perhaps tweak just a couple of bits of the growing process to grow the perfect leaf. A little more water, 1/2 an hour less light, more blue light than pink light, a slight nutritional change. All of this can effect the flavour of what we grow and eat. And in Chris’s case much of this learning is being done around basil, but can be applied to so much more. And it is clearly a recipe that is working. Chris and Harvest London have just raised over a million pounds of investment, including from the UK governments future fund and demand is fast outstripping supply as they have grand plans for the future.
Find Harvest London online or follow them on instagram.
It was quite a few months ago when the opportunity crossed my desk to interview Tim Hall, who is the executive chef at Burgh Island. It caught my eye because Burgh Island is such a unique location, as a tidal island just off the south coast of Devon.
I was intrigued to understand a bit more around the complexity of running not one, but three restaurants, on an island that for many hours of the day cannot be accessed at all, or certainly not without its challenges. Add to that Tim’s reputation for excellent food and access to some beautiful foraged ingredients, a new owner of the hotel and a new fish restaurant on the island, and I thought it would make a lovely day out and place to visit. Alas lockdown got rid of the visit element, but it was still nice to catch up with Tim and and learn all things Tim and Burgh.
Visit the hotel website, or find them on twitter and instagram
Lee Cash was always driven to become self employed in the hospitality sector. He learnt his craft with some of the best, from Robin Sheppard at Bespoke Hotels and chef Raymond Blanc. But all the time driven and motivated to test himself, to learn all he could and get ready to put into practise the art of perfecting 1000 little details to make his own venues successful. I always enjoy chatting to people who really have proper hospitality in their soul. Who understand how spaces feel. How the lighting, the candles, the music, the team, the furniture, the layout, the space itself and so much more comes together to create somewhere special that people enjoy.
I loved Lee’s perspectives about pubs being a great leveller. More so perhaps than restaurants, you are likely to have every type and age of person hanging out at a bar, ordering a decent pint of beer. You’ll get to hear about how Lee and his business partner Hamish bought different skills to the business, and how over the years, at different stages in their growth, these different skills have helped Peach grow into such a fantastic business.
You’ll also laugh at the story of Lee going from being so skint one morning that he had to use his passport as a deposit in an Aussie backpackers, to a few hours later saying yes to his first chef job cooking alone on boat full of divers on the great barrier reef. That say yes now, work out how later, kind of attitude that so many driven entrepreneurs have.
You can read more about Peach Pubs on the website, or find them on twitter and instagram
We’re going big this week, and actually I don’t mean a big podcast, but a big business, chatting to Jonathan Neame, the chief executive of Shepherd Neame Brewers. With 320 pubs and pre pandemic turnover of £150 million they are bigger than the normal business I chat to on this podcast, but they have a really interesting family history. Having been around for over 300 years, and maintained family ownership I think they qualify as having had a very inspiring independent hospitality adventure.
Topic wise Jonathan is clearly well informed on all that is going on in the pub sector. We touch on navigating the pandemic and at least seeing some growth in the grocery and off sales side of the business, the responsibility of taking over a multi generational family businesses, how to navigate out of the pandemic and how different that may be in London compared to a proper community pub. Changing beer trends, sourcing hops, rents as both a tenant and landlord, future support to enable the sector to bounce back and even Brexit all crops up in our wide ranging chat.
Read more on the Shepherd Neame website, or follow Jonathan Neame on twitter, or find the brewery on instagram.
From honing his skills in hotels on an employed basis, to learning the art of the restauranteur with his own venues, to taking all of that knowledge and finally getting to apply it in his very own hotel with his partner Rob, Tim has been on a great hospitality journey.
And the captains club is a special kind of place. Wether simply attracting the locals for a light lunch, or a few cocktails as the sun sets on the river, or mingling with famous guests such as Hugh Grant or the Gallagher brothers, they’ve really found a way of becoming the heart of their local community. Tim is very humble and easy to chat to about his journey. He makes it all sound too easy, with a detail here, and the right team member there. But Tim and Robert have an attention for detail and a genuine love for their crazy hospitality adventure, no matter how challenging it gets. And they’ve had their challenges, from planning permission impacting the business model leaving them just £1 million pounds short in enough money to open up. And then having finally got the doors open wondering if they’d run out of cashflow before they could turn their dream into a success.
But 14 years later they are still going strong, or at least they were until the pandemic struck. But in typical Tim style he’s taking it in his stride and whilst nervous about the future, he and Rob are investing in the property and more than hoping, they are planning on re-opening for a busy summer. I hope you enjoy this chat about perseverance and the meandering journey life can take sometimes, but how, if you simply take the first step, then the adventure can be pretty rewarding and exciting.
Michel Roux Jr is a true 'Human of Hospitality' who was practically born in a kitchen when his Mum went into labour whilst working in his Dad 'Albert Roux's' restaurant. Michel is well known, partly simply through the recognition of his Dad and Uncle opening Le Gavroche in 1967 and becoming the first British restaurant to be awarded 3 Michelin stars, but also via his extensive work on television through shows such as Masterchef the professionals, and most recently 'remarkable places to eat'.
Michel has also been on his own impressive culinary adventure working throughout Europe and even Hong Kong before taking over the helm at Le Gavroche in 1991.
In this conversation we get to touch on Michel’s family connections and following in the family legacy, we’ll chat about the business side of being a chef and the importance of knowing your numbers and that successful restaurants are rarely only about the quality of the food. We explore what else it takes and how you need to make a customer 'feel' to really enjoy their visit and want to return regularly. And we explore some of the cultural differences between France and the UK, as well as the differences in the casual dining sector, and even the street food scene, and wether we’ll ever see Michel in his own street food truck. And of course we cover the pandemic and Michel’s hopes for the future, both in business, but perhaps more importantly with his daughter and grandson.
You can follow Michel Roux Jr on twitter, or visit his online shop and read more about Le Gavroche on the website or via instagram.
Richard is a great example of a 'Human of Hospitality' having worked in the sector almost all of his working life. Richard started the business with his Dad and his family, and recognises all that his family risked, even selling grandmas house to purchase a run down manor, covered in vines and a somewhat dilapidated air. They started small with only 7 bedrooms, but had a vision and a yearning to create something special and to look after people. That journey was tough in those earlier years and he very nearly lost it all before the adventure had really even properly started. But the stars aligned and through working hard and never losing site of the vision, and in many ways fulfilling his destiny through partnership, investment, continual improvement and not being in a hurry to expand, Richard and his team have created something beautiful.
Regular listeners will know that I have a love of the independent side of the sector. What Richard has created would not be of interest to the global brands of the world. It’s too small and eclectic and complicated and challenging to run. A number of properties, arguably with not enough rooms to make operations easier in the traditional sense of operating hotels and restaurants. But the properties look stunning and it takes people like Richard to create and operate such miniature beauties. I hope his story, along with the those of the likes of Robin Hutson and Gerrard Basset sleeping on the sofa in the bar because they could not afford to employ people overnight, will inspire others to know that you don’t have to start a business with unlimited resources to invest.
We touch on re-wilding land, the early benefits of naivety, 18% mortgage rates, the dangers of michelin stars, running venues as satellites, wider challenges and opportunities for the sector in 2021 and our mutual hope that people will strive for a more simple, perhaps less luxurious life, where time with other humans is the greatest priority over and above material items.
See more on the Calcot website, or on instagram or twitter and find the Sally Beck podcast we mention here.
Emma has had a fascinating career working in the heart of government in the EU, in part negotiating trade deals. Great timing for a chat that starts with Emma’s thoughts on the EU and our opportunities and risks as we hurtle towards departure. You’ll be pleased to hear Emmas is pretty optimistic on post EU trade, particularly where the export of exceptional British beer is concerned of course.
We also chat about Emma’s experience liaising directly with the government on the behalf of the BBPA’s members, representing over half of the pubs in the UK (that’s 20k) and 90% of the brewing industry. They are an important voice, and we discuss how it felt like as the relationship between government and the sector was very strong in spring, but really broke down over the summer recess period.
We also touch on wether a minister for hospitality would make the ear of government better or worse, why on earth the government is being so slow in extending support into next year as is happening in Europe, and some of the longer term issues such as Beer Duty and business rates that have been negatively skewing the sector long before COVID appeared on the scene.
You can read more about the BBPA here, follow Emma on twitter or join her community here with LinkedIn.
A very different style of episode this week. Rather than a detailed conversation with one awesome human of hospitality we have 9 great humans, most of whom have been previous guests. And we have just one topic of conversation. Why they are supporting the campaign for a Minister for Hospitality.
This campaign was launched by Claire Bosi but had been sat languishing at around 38k signatures on the government petition website. To be debated in parliament 100k signatures are required. Robin Hutson, CEO of Home Grown Hotels organised a call last week with over 100 very well connected hospitality professionals, and working with some of his graduate trainees as well as some well known faces of the hospitality sector such as Tom Kerridge and Angela Hartnett, launched the ‘seat at the table’ campaign.
These nine people, who between them employ tens of thousands of people, but represent an industry of millions, will give you their perspectives on why they want a better seat at the table. Whilst recognising the great work that Kate Nichols and UK Hospitality have achieved, we’d like someone on the inside, as well as the outside of government. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing their perspectives and I hope you will be motivated to visit www.seatatthetable.org.uk where you can find a link to the petition and support the other social media accounts around this campaign.
Whilst the petition has now exceeded 100k we want to significantly exceed this target to give every chance of this being successful and a senior minister, rather than token gesture being appointed.
4 min 50 sec - Robin Hutson - CEO The Pig Hotel & Limewood Hotel Visit
12 min 20 sec - Simon Potts - CEO The Alchemist Visit
23 min 20 sec - Danny Pecorelli - MD Exclusive Collection Visit
30 min 20 sec - Juliane Caillouette-Noble - Acting MD of Sustainable Restaurant Association Visit
38 min 50 sec - Sally Beck - GM Royal Lancaster London Visit
47 min 10 sec - Andrew Stembridge - Executive Director Iconic Luxury Hotels Visit
56 min 20 sec - Robin Sheppard - President Bespoke Hotels Visit
1hr 5 min 20 sec - Peter Ducker - Chief Executive Institute of Hospitality Visit
1hr 5 min 25 sec - Gary Jones - Executive Head Chef - Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons Visit
Surely schools are the place to improve knowledge on food, on what we should eat, to inspire a life long love for whole food and to understand the difference between real food and processed food. To understand that food is essential for life, and that in the modern world nobody should be going hungry. To try and fathom how on earth it is possible for the same areas struck be food poverty and lack of access to food to at the same time be suffering from diabetes and obesity due to the shocking quality of the food that may be available. It’s just so bloody obvious. How on earth have we allowed ourselves to have an education system that spends so little time on the one thing we put in our bodies every single day that nourishes us. That gives us energy, that fuels our bodies and our minds. We cannot achieve our potential either individually or as a collective unless we fuel ourselves efficiently.
Naomi Duncan and the charity Chefs in Schools are right at the beating heart of this debate and trailblazing some of the improvements that can be made. They will soon be working with over 70 schools, predominantly in London, but with grand plans to work with, or inspire a transformation across thousands, if not tens of thousands of schools.
In this chat we dive into understanding what the problem with school food is, how have we ended up here, what should be done, what can be done and what is being done. The impact that Naomi and the Chefs in Schools team are having is exceptional and very exciting. Wether helping get fully trained restaurant style chefs into schools, or working with existing teams, they are focused not only on providing better food in canteens, but working with the curriculum in educating children and inspiring them around what good food can look like. But whatever you do, don’t call the food healthy, since they have learnt the hard hard way, that can turn the average teenager off.
I hope many of you listening will be inspired to speak to your local schools. If you are a parent perhaps you can ask better questions of your kids school. But if you work in the sector, why not reach out to your local school and see if you can help. I’ve personally found working with my local primary school in inspiring and teaching children about real food and seasonality and presentation and the ethics of food has been hugely entertaining and exceptionally rewarding.
Read about the School Food Plan and visit Chefs In Schools online or follow them on instagram or twitter
I love Carly’s story and her energy and ethos and her general hospitality adventure. As you will hear Carly went from a small wooden hut, to an expensive hobby, to raising 1/2 a million pounds and building a beautiful cafe in the park. Along this journey Carly realised that people were the key to all that she was achieving. Carly, her husband 'Ian' and their team won multiple awards for their cafe. Particularly around employing disabled team members and looking after the local community, who treated the cafe as their own.
But, Carly is only too aware of how tough a sector hospitality can be, and eventually sold her beloved cafe to start a new life deep in Devon. But as is too often the case, the hospitality itch kept coming back, and Carly and Ian have been busy developing a new concept OPOP. One price, one plate, with ethics and people and shared success deep rooted in it’s DNA. Carly has even become a B-Leader, both for her own business, but also to tell others about the opportunity becoming a B-Corp presents.
I learnt a great deal talking to Carly, and really enjoyed her perspectives and positivity. I can’t wait to continue to watch Carly's hospitality adventure unfold in her new found corner of the country. Our conversation talks about B- Corps, Carly’s journey, values and how they evolved, eating meat, pay what you can afford, fundraising and so much more. I’m sure you’ll find some nuggets of wisdom in here and be inspired to continue to care about the type of business you operate, or the type of business you buy from.
Follow OPOP on instagram, or read about them on the website, or follow Carly on twitter
Set in 58 acres of parkland at the end of a magnificent sea loch, The Torridon has one of the most spectacular and idyllic locations in the country.
What Dan, his wife Rohaise and the team have created in the Torridon is awesome. So remote with the challenges of staffing and weather and access and much more, yet they have an incredible reputation. As treasurer of the Master Innholders, Chairman of Pride of Britain Hotels and Director of Luxury Scotland Consortium Dan’s also got a pretty broad perspective and some great nuggets of wisdom for all in hospitality. Not bad for a city trader with no desire to work anywhere near hospitality when he first set off on his career.
Dan and I touch on creative thinking when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff in such remote locations, sustainability and kitchen gardens, diversifying styles of accommodation, rapidly switching target markets, the visit from the BBC team and the subsequent incredible exposure, as well as setting up an outdoor pursuits business in a beautiful and remote part of the countryside.
I loved chatting with Dan and have a huge amount of respect for his business acumen and generally just being a great example of another awesome Human of Hospitality. As so many of us do, Dan is working in the industry for the right reasons. Yes, absolutely a good businessmen, but more than that a good human, with a desire to serve not only his guests, but the industry at large, whilst developing a team that can go off out into the broader world of hospitality.
Check out the Torridon on the BBC show via the Iplayer
Learn more via the Torridon website, follow Dan himself on Twitter or see some beautiful photos via their instagram page. And don't forget to sign up for the weekly newsletter via the podcast website.
Zoe is from the 'ecological land cooperative' (ELC) - a 'Not For Profit' trying to solve some of the problems of excessively large farms, often mono-culture dominated and using too many chemicals, having a very detrimental impact on the land and ecosystem.
I speak to many people being inspired to enter the world of hospitality, not only to sell better quality more ethical food to the consumer, but also interested in how to grow this food and actually produce it in the first place. If you're interested in how to have a positive impact on the food you buy, or how it is grown, you will enjoy this weeks conversation.
The ELC want to see a living, working countryside where land is valued as a way to enhance the good of community, countryside and the natural world. Revitalising rural economies.
They want to see low-impact, land-based livelihoods flourish. The stewardship of land to create healthful, wholesome and ecologically sound food and land-based products that benefit people and the biosphere.
And they do this in a number of ways, that starts with buying land and finding stewards who want to set up their own business. They help spread the cost of this land over a number of years and help the new stewards with planning to actually be allowed to live on the land whilst they regenerate and farm it.
I think ELC is great NFP. Not only does it have great aspirations, but it already has a number of successful farms up and running and actually making a difference. But it is early days and so much more can be done. I hope some of you listening to this conversation will be inspired to want to set up your own small scale business on a piece of land. But many of you will want to support the incredible work this charity does. And even more of you will think about where you are buying your food and where you can support a local veg box scheme.
For further inspiration check out the movie 'the biggest little farm' or 'kiss the ground'.
Read more about the ELC on the web. And here are a couple of other great sources of info that crops up in our chat:
https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/ https://communitysupportedagriculture.org.uk/
Rocco Bova is living quite the hospitality adventure. I wanted to catch up with him for a few reasons.
Firstly he’s running a health resort in Mexico, a fascinating country. Sometimes a reputation for drug cartels, kidnapping and more recently a catastrophic impact of COVID-19. But Rocco loves Mexico, and he’s lived in enough countries to be able to make an objective decision.
Secondly, with people maybe questioning why they work in hospitality and wondering what the future might hold, Rocco demonstrates just what an exciting and varied career it can provide. He’s worked in all the corners of the globe, really getting to know local cultures and people as he lives in, rather than travels through, so many different countries. It’s one of the great opportunities a career in hospitality can provide. But I wanted to chat realistically about the pros and cons. Is a family life still possible, is managing different cultures a challenge, does he miss the comforts of a regular home life. I won’t spoil the conversation, but safe to say Rocco absolutely LOVES hospitality and all the adventurous opportunities it has created for him.
Finally Rocco runs a wellness resort, and has some strong views on the vortex of negative thinking and what we should all be doing, both mentally and physically to maintain a positive outlook and make the most of our limited time on earth.
We also chat through some practical tips on social media management, how to make guests feel like they are staying with their mother for their vacations, how excited he is that his kids are following in his footsteps and studying hospitality and the global human values of respect love and trust and so much more.
Find out more about Chable resorts on the website or follow Rocco himself on instagram or linkedIn
If you don’t know his name, you’ll certainly know some of the venues Nicholas has worked and some of the businesses he’s developed. Nicholas without a doubt is a bona fide 'human of hospitality'. It’s been his life’s work. From cutting his teeth at the Chewton Glen working for the likes of Robin Hutson, to becoming the MD at Le Manoir and being Raymond Blanc’s right hand, man whilst working in partnership with Richard Branson and the virgin group. And having learnt from some of the most inspirational leaders in our sector it was time to go it alone when Nicholas co-founded Luxury Family Hotels. Along with a few others at the time creating a new genre of hotels that many have replicated. I’ll let Nicholas tell the story of how the purchase of a hotel in Liverpool led to the need to start considering a sale and how Von Essen’s offer was just too good to turn down.
Now Nicholas has found his happy place back on the coal face of hospitality with just one beautiful country house ‘Congham Hall’. Nicholas has some strong views around the challenges of the governments approach to COVID in the rural hotel space and how ridiculous the implementation of some of the rules are. But overall he’s busy, still in love with hospitality, tells the story of his adventures very well and still has ambitions to continue to develop and add rooms to what will be his last hotel.
Nicholas was warm and generous with his time and has been good enough to introduce me to some great future guests too. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing first hand about his interesting career that once again demonstrates just how much fun and how much can be achieved in a life of hospitality.
Check the website or twitter or instagram.
David Begg is one of those hospitality obsessives regular listeners will know I love to meet. Another one of those humans that has a little tiny seedling of an idea, that turns into an obsession that turns into an utterly awesome product that then enhances all of our worlds of food, drink and hospitality.
And this time I’m talking about Kombucha. But not just any Kombucha, but the sort that is now sitting on the menus of many of the finest Michelin starred restaurants around the country proudly sitting along side Prosecco and champagne as an alcohol free alternative. You see it transpires that if you ferment some of the finest tea leaves, picked young in some of the worlds best tea gardens, with some Mother cultures, a little bit of magic and a whole heap of David’s obsession, you can create something beautiful and complex and light and delicious.
We’ll chat to David about alcohol eating bacteria, DNA tested cultures that could be hundreds of years old, 150 different types of tea, don’t worry, we won’t go into detail on all of them, picking tea leaves whilst their young and different days picks and how rubbing the leaves around a hot wok can transform the end result. But as well as a great product, this is also a great story of David the businessmen and how a chance over dinner drink with yoga and wellness guru Howard Napper sent David off on a journey. And David has an entrepreneurial brain having previously been involved in the technology that later became booking.com and selling furniture in over 62 countries through the business ‘Tom Dixon’ that he co-founded.
I’m confident you’ll enjoy this chat and by the end of it have a whole heap of knew knowledge, be desperate to try David’s Real Kombucha and be inspired by another business story.
Follow them on instagram or twitter or check out the website.
I love the Pig Hotels and their obsession on the best local produce. This extends to their beautiful kitchen gardens where group chef James Golding gave me a tour in a previous podcast episode. After a recent chat with Ollie's Dad and CEO Robin Hutson, I was excited to arrange to go to the Pig nursery in the New Forest and meet Ollie face to face and get to peruse his mother of seed planning spreadsheets.
You’re going to learn just how much work goes into creating a kitchen garden for a hotel or restaurant. The balance between productive space and a show garden space. How to ensure those spaces always look great, but are genuinely used for a seed to plate menu. I love Ollie’s annual planning meeting with the chefs, where they are only allowed to say on of four things. ‘More, Less, the same or not at all’.
We also touch on Ollie’s childhood and the pros and cons of living in an entrepreneurial house and his first hand witnessing of Hotel Du Vin being built around family life. Ollie was generous with his time and an utter gentleman to spend a couple of hours with. I hope you enjoy the results and next time you wander though a kitchen garden appreciate just how much graft is going on behind the scenes.
To follow Ollie's adventures head over to his twitter page or visit the website .
Finally, we are doing a sustainability episode. And I say finally because regular listeners will know that sustainability comes up alot in my conversations when we think about farming and plant based diets and the impact on the environment of what we eat and drink. But what I’d not touched on thus far was the sustainability deep rooted into the actual design of venues and the business itself. Because surely it all starts there. If the restaurant itself is smashing its way through unnecessary fossil fuels or using poisonous materials, or chopping down virgin rain forest to make the furniture then clearly that would be pretty outrageous.
David Chenery, today’s guest has been deeply buried in cogitating on what sustainable design means for a number of years. David is not an activist, but wants to find a way to live on planet earth and ideally leave it better, or at the very least not make it worse. David has spent a number of years as an interior architect and design consultant at Object Space Place and has had a career specialising in commercial interiors in a varied range of international and UK based retail stores, hair salons, restaurant concepts and luxury fashion department stores. But more recently he's doubled down and focused on sustainable hospitality and what that might mean.
David has been working on a RESTORATIVE RESTAURANT FRAMEWORK, built on the principles of a circular economy and designing with end of life in mid. Within that are some fascinating perspectives and I’m confident you’re going to enjoy this chat and it’s certainly going to get you to think.
We chat about the importance of the stories of sustainability, or the accreditation of sustainability. And how for me personally, in an industry where we are so use to chatting to customers about the journey their food or drink has been on, who produced it, or caught it, or made it, or how many miles it has travelled, naturally extending that to where the recycled bar top has come from, or how the furniture has been reclaimed from an old church or school rather than ending up in landfill, feels like an easy extension of what we do.
You can find David on LinkedIn or check out his website and don't forget you can donate to the podcast via PayPal
Gregorie, from Blackthorn knows an incredible amount about salt. His family have been involved in salt for over 140 years. His Dad’s Dad Dad set up the business, but this latest venture is their first foray into the actual production of salt. You should probably pause this episode at this point and go to blackthornsalt.co.uk and take a look at this crazy big tower of thorns they have built on the edge of the ocean in Scotland. It will help you visualise what we are about to chat about.
This incredible wooden structure, dribbles sea water through 54 wooden taps releasing the water to trickle down a tower of blackthorn exposed to the Scottish winds and sun, evaporating the water and leaving an ever increasing saline solution. There is something beautifully romantic and nostalgic about harnessing nature right on the waters edge in Scotland.
I learnt so much chatting to Gregorie. Not just about salt, but about how to run a business for multiple generations and how being curious and embarking on adventures just because they are fun, rather than financially proven, is such a wonderful part of so many hospitality journeys.
But yourself some salt on the website here
Follow Blackthorn Salt here instagram and twitter
A link to the video we mention here
José and I recorded this remotely and I really wish I’d gone to actually sit with him in his restaurant since he oozes hospitality out of every pore. José is famous for his 3 London restaurants and championing Spanish produce for many decades.
José touches on his books and extensive travels through Spain and just how much he loves meeting other great humans and ensuring that their recipes are recorded and handed on to the next generations. We chat about his upbringing and some lovely memories about the smell of coffee and churros from his mum in the kitchen, who is now 87 years of age and still going strong.
We talk about food culture in Spain and the UK and how we can try and improve our connection to food, particularly when you think of things like childhood obesity. I also find out that Jose’s middle name is Manuel and with a restaurant already called José, Pizzaro and José Pizaro I for one think it’s time he used his middle name for the next one. Oh yes, and then there is Olive Oil. We definitely learn a few things about that.
Enjoy the chat and please do leave a review and click on subscribe. You can find out more about Jose on his website or follow him on Instagram or twitter.
For over 20 years, Hugh Lambert travelled the world as a TV cameraman, director of photography and editor. Often he’d find himself in some of the remotest parts of the world, perhaps living with a local tribe. On each trip he’d try different foods. Some of them were quite out there, in terms of taste combinations and ingredients. (I’ll let Hugh reveal what the roasted figs he ate one day in the jungle really were.)
With that broad-minded approach, it isn’t surprising that Hugh has created a drink with unusual ingredients: Shanty Spirit, a seaweed botanical vodka.
This isn’t a gimmick. As you’ll hear, Hugh falls into my beloved category of brilliant – and possibly slightly bonkers – obsessive. Someone who describes his spirit as ‘4 years of research driven by a lifetime’s passion for being by the sea’. They really were years of intense focus: macerating countless seaweeds, then working through a long list of botanicals until he got to a point where he could collaborate with a distillery and see his idea bottled up.
As you know, if you’ve listened to Vince Noyce at Portsmouth Distillery and Alex Kammerling at Kamm & Sons, I love these stories of dedication – particularly when they bring something new and authentically different to the market.
Hugh’s venture is still young, but, when it comes to his future success, I’m excited to say that you will have heard it here first, on this podcast.
Follow Hugh on Twitter or Instagram or order a bottle via his Website.
I think most people with a keen interest in incredible food and hospitality are aware of Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir and its reputation. They’ve churned out over 30 michelin starred chefs, had two Michelin stars themselves since 1981 and their organic certified kitchen gardens are legendary. I was very excited to finally get to go and visit. Helped by a sunny day the hotel and grounds looked stunning. Executive Chef 'Gary Jones' was generous with his time, chatting freely and took the time to take me on a tour of the gardens and poly tunnels where his enthusiasm and knowledge and happiness to share his thoughts and experiences typified the generosity of so many who work in hospitality.
Gary has had a fascinating history, from working at Le Manoir on two separate occasions, most recently for 21 years, to working for Richard Branson on Necker Island and having received Michelin Star accolades from scratch at two other venues. He’s also a black belt in karate, practises yoga and is a busy Dad to 3 teenage daughters.
Our chat meanders from Gary’s own kitchen garden hunting snails by torch light at 1am, to the symbiotic relationship with his team and the garden team at le Manoir, to the change in diets and using less butter and cream in the kitchens, a great story about how Gary ended up working on Necker Island and even the ‘genius’ of Raymond Blanc, or RB as he’s known, and the contrasting skills they both bring to the kitchen and development of so many of the world’s best chefs.
Follow Gary on twitter or instagram
Follow Le Manoir on twitter or instagram or via the website
Back to learning this week as we are off to discover the wonderful world of bacon production from someone whose family have been producing it since the early 1990's.
Whether you eat meat or not, there is something about bacon. Perhaps it’s the smell as it cooks, or the fact that it’s an integral part of the full English. But has our long-term familiarity of this staple grown a bit of contempt?
Sausages seem to have a higher status: more and more breakfast menus mention the provenance of their Cumberland and chipolatas. But all too often, bacon is just categorised as ‘bacon’, so you have no idea where it’s come from, how it’s been produced and whether or not it’s been plumped up with salt and water.
Then there are concerns around nitrites, with the NHS reminding us that ‘eating a lot of red and processed meat probably increases your risk of colorectal cancer’ and the market is currently being disrupted by a nitrite-free newcomer.
Ellen Streatfeild is well aware of how bacon falls in and out of favour. Since 1994 her family’s farm has stuck to their principles of giving bacon the care and attention it deserves, whilst growing their weekly production from 50-100 kg to 10 to 12 tonnes!
This programme explores how you find the sweet spot between maintaining your standards and surviving commercially, in the face of some very tough competition.
Find out more about Denhay via the website or follow them on twitter
I wanted to chat to Simon because the Alchemist has such an exceptional reputation and I wanted to find out more about what makes them and Simon tick, but also because with 20 cocktail bars and restaurants dotted around the UK I knew he would be a good barometer of what is happening in different geographical pockets.
We touch a little bit on lockdown and the subsequent closure of one of their venues, we discuss some of the fast tracking of initiatives, particularly around technology such as ordering at the table and the nuances of wether that should be app or web based and how it integrates with existing tech.
We touch on some of the design elements of their venues since I’m always personally fascinated by spaces that can transition from breakfast to lunch to dinner and then late evening drinkers. It’s a tough art to get right and Simon explains how much work they put into things such as natural light and street level entrances to try and get this right.
With so many landlords Simon also has some useful perspectives on the shared burden of the accrued rental overhead that so many operators now need to either pay, or negotiate fast.
Follow the Alchemist on Twitter or Instagram and check out their website. Or follow Simon himself on Twitter
Although originally from Skegness, Ben is more captivated with Sicily and one day would like to move there. Sicily has had a huge influence on his favourite style of food and he’s even written an awesome book called ‘moorish'.
Ben is actually only a chef because of fellow Skegness buddy Jason Atherton who got Ben his first chef job at the Ritz.
We touch on Ben’s time at the Salt Yard and how a big influx of cash that he hoped would sort out his financial and restaurant dreams ended up ruining his love for the business and lead to him planning on heading out on his own.
But now he’s found the best of both worlds. A good level of investment and the chance to open restaurants serving his style of food. Including his latest venture into the world of dark kitchens and delivery through Gallio, a Mediterranean pizza idea he’s been working on.
Follow Ben on Instagram or Twitter and check our his restaurant Norma
You have to be impressed with today’s guests energy levels. Adam Handling works hard, has achieved a lot and is not short of an opinion or two that he’s quite happy to share. Adam joined me just 48 hours after re-opening The Frog, his flagship restaurant in Covent Garden. He’d been through a particularly traumatic closure period where he’d lost four of his venues and learnt a great deal about the business side of running restaurants.
Adam speaks openly and honestly about the financial, physical and mental aspects of what he has been through, but he’s kept a huge number of his team, despite 57% payroll costs on re-opening, and he’s keen to find another venue before the year is out to accommodate his talented crew and try and ensure they keep their jobs.
He’s working hard, is thinking about michelin stars and is one of the most driven people I’ve chatted to. His enthusiasm for all things sustainable and what he learnt through his now closed restaurants the Ugly Butterfly and Bean and Wheat is very infectious. Personally I wish Adam the very best for the future, and like many of us, he may well end up with a much stronger business as a result of all he has learnt in the past few months.
Follow Adam on instagram or twitter and order some dinner from HAME
For my 100th episode I really wanted to get a bit of an industry super star in my eyes. Robin Hutson has been on my list of people I’ve wanted to chat to since day one of launch.
I live within a pretty easy cycle of two of Robin’s PIG hotels - Pig on the Beach in Studland and Pig in the Forest in Brockenhurst. I LOVE what Robin has created.
I’ve seen Robin talk at a couple of hotel events and in essence he just knows his stuff. He oozes common sense and his attention to detail is exemplary. His venues have plenty of open grounds, an awesome kitchen garden supplying the kitchen with exceptional seasonal produce, relaxed ambience and surroundings, good food and wonderfully designed venues, but not pretentious. It really is just a great business and his occupancy figures and margins are the envy of many a competitor.
They say never meet your heroes, and I was worried having finally organised a meeting I’d be disappointed. But Robin was generous with his time, enthusiastic with his stories and I felt privileged to get to poke and prod at one of our hospitality greats in his own venue.
So there could not really be a more fitting person for my 100th show. A genuine human of hospitality.
Follow Robin on twitter
Follow the Pig on instagram
Or check out their website
Robin Shephard is the Chairman and co-founder of Bespoke Hotels. Bespoke look after over 5000 hotel rooms, 6000 team members and £500 million pounds worth of assets. But they particularly interested me, because many of you will know I love the independent hospitality sector.
Bespoke are fascinating, because although they’ve become a significant player, they keep their personal brand and business very much behind the scenes. Most of their venues are independently owned, and bespoke simply provide some of the benefit of brand, with consistency of service, some centralised professional team members and some of the benefits that come at scale. But at the same time none of the venues are forced into a one size fits all box. They are genuinely venues that have a hospitality soul, and many of the venues you would know in their own right, purposely having no idea that bespoke are involved.
Robin has a wealth of experience pre-bespoke, from GM positions throughout some fine establishments, to launching a British Bottled water brand and even writing a book about his time being bed bound and paralysed. Robin is well known in the hospitality sector and I’m sure you will enjoy hearing his views.
Robin does not hold back on his political appraisals, we touch on the impact of OTA’s and turning them from foe to friend, Brexit crops up, who the VAT cut is for, which venues have re-opened and why, how that’s going and Robin’s predictions for the future.
Follow Robin on Twitter
Find out more about Bespoke Hotels
Find out more about Blue Badge Access Awards
Exclusive is a superb example of what can be achieved in the genuine world of hospitality when not dominated by venture capitalists or short term city demands. Exclusive is family owned. They take a long term view, are not hugely leveraged and as you’ll hear in this conversation Danny is a genuine human with a sincere love of the hospitality sector.
Danny has also been very helpful in helping England win the Rugby Wold cup, but I’ll let him tell that story.
We touch on Danny’s role as the Chair of Master Innholders and what that has meant to him, UK Hospitality comes up again and we get into the details of the operational changes Exclusive have made in re-opening after Pandemic lockdown. The customer and team response to those changes has been positive, but Danny and I also chew the fat on our expectations of trade as we flip from leisure to business in autumn. Even Christmas comes up in this wide ranging and enjoyable conversation with one of the good eggs.
Follow Danny on Instagram or Twitter
Find out more about Exclusive Collection here
This episode was recorded just before COVID lockdown, so is not referred to in the episode, but it's a great chat, so I wanted to finally get round to releasing it. Thanks.
By the time Tim Maddams had reached the end of his first year as a professional chef, working in a restaurant kitchen, he came to a crazy realisation: he had cooked more meals in those 12 months than most people prepare in an entire life time.
For a while, working hard with luminaries like Alastair Little and Marco Pierre White and appearing on TV with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, gave Tim a constant buzz. But after one family holiday, he realised that if he continued on that 70-hour-a-week path, he would find himself in a ‘destructive spiral of doom’.
That is why, in 2012, he turned himself into what he calls a ‘free-range foodie’, offering a variety of services which draw on his life-long love of foraging, game and field sports, as well as his considerable culinary experience.
I’m fascinated by the plethora of jobs and opportunities linked loosely under the ‘hospitality’ genre. I’ve employed hundreds of chefs over the last 17 years and seen many look for a career change, when the reality of working every weekend starts to have an impact on family life. So, when the opportunity to interview Tim cropped up, looking at just how diverse his income streams are, I was excited to find out more.
This edition gives you a snapshot of what it’s like to have a varied freelance career, from running a Chef’s Shed, created from old telegraph poles and palettes, to organising ethical, small-bag foodie shoot days and more. Incidentally, these small days are supporting a much bigger movement: helping to feed 600,000 people in the last 4 years, through Tim’s work with The Country Food Trust
This episode was recorded just before COVID-19. At the time we had no idea what was about to come. During the pandemic I’ve been focusing on time specific conversations, but now as hospitality re-opens I want to release a few great conversations that have been patiently waiting for their time.
Tim knows a great deal about coffee, but rather than being a roaster or venue, he’s got a unique slant on trying to get better coffee in the places many of us spend time, but generally have low expectations. Tim correctly points out that many ‘value led’ businesses have absolutely no idea that the commodity coffee they are supplying their clients is contradicting their ethics, disappointing their clients and costing planet earth and the coffee farmers more than is necessary.
In this conversation Tim takes us through his journey. Starting with a child free Sunday morning, reading the paper and sipping on a cup of Jamaican Blue coffee. Off then to discover about the volcanic soil, the hand picked beans, losing up to 30% of the crop through the finest hand check standards, through to the blue mist on the mountain slowing down the ripening process. And then across the globe to the artisan coffee roasters, with so much knowledge and passion, but some spare capacity that Tim and his team can symbiotically help with.
I learnt a lot and really enjoyed an hour inside Tim’s head. And if he can get to the point where every garage, solicitor, accountant and other society touch points serve well informed speciality coffee, then I for one will be happy.
Andrea is a walking philosopher with some very strong opinions on the ethics of business and the community around food and drink. I’ve interviewed Andrea before about his business and journey, but today we focus on the recent opening of his latest venue in an absolutely stunning old church in Mayfair. I’ll let you listen to andrea’s eloquent description of that stunning space.
Andrea stayed open in some guise throughout the lockdown since their business is pretty diverse from a deli, bakery and shop through to street trade units. Andrea’s philosophy is that entrepreneurship means sometimes you make money and sometimes you lose money, but all the way through you must focus on and serve your community.
We touch on the dream incubator campaign that they shifted to online due to coronavirus and how the success of that has motivated Andrea to try and expand it to overseas markets. And I explore Andreas thoughts on why small is beautiful, and in some ways how that can even be translated to how countries are managing the pandemic, including his home country of Italy.
We end on the Agricultural bill and the necessity to at least keep moving forwards with food standards and ethics, and not to see leaving the EU as a chance to make any backward steps.
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Learn more about Mercato on the website
Now whilst to your average human Restaurant Associates is not particularly a consumer facing brand, you will certainly know many of the venues that David Simms and his team operate, from Somerset House, to Edinburgh zoo, to Michelin starred restaurants like Jason Atherton’s City Social and Michelle Roux’s Parliament Square.
I chat about David’s history in the podcast, so I’m not going to list it here, but fundamentally just be reassured that I was really excited to get to chat to David because I knew the diversity and depth of his experience across the hospitality sector.
We touch on chef development and training, the changes in kitchen culture, both positive and negative, and how to get the best out of a brigade.
David has some great advice about the complexity of re-opening the doors, why to keep the offering simple, and some of the operational considerations of having less people to do tasks. That leads us on to the impact of supply and the need to be clever and efficient to stand any chance of making a post covid profit.
David has some great thoughts on sustainability and the supply chain and our obligation as an industry to help educate, but not lecture the consumer on food, where it comes from and its environmental impact. We may even start a joint campaign to making eating strawberries in December a criminal offence!
After a rollercoaster of a chat with many highs and lows, we try to end positively around the nature of such a creative sector and where it may end up on the other side of the pandemic.
Connect with David on Instagram
Learn more about Restaurant Associates
I first saw Karl speak at an event in March where I was impressed by some of the insights and data that he and the CGA team had collated. It was nice to see so many of the thoughts and impressions that I had of the sector backed up by some scientific data and commentary.
Now seemed like the perfect time to put some data behind the theory of what re-opening may look like.
Karl and I go on a bit of a journey in this conversation, and it is worth noting that it was recorded about a week before Boris confirmed the 4th of July opening date.
We start with some analysis of what was going on in hospitality pre covid. As a result of coming out of the period of political stalemate and uncertainty with regards brexit, and a decisive election result, executive confidence levels in hospitality were the highest they had been for many years.
Ironically 77 percent of the sector were concerned about labour shortages, not the potential layoff of 2 million colleagues.
We then touch on some of the data around consumer behaviour during lockdown and move on to what Karl and his team have seen in both the USA, china and other countries who are starting to re-open their doors.
And then it’s post covid and are there any clues as to what we can expect and what we should be focusing on as a sector. I personally was pleased that the consumer does not seem to be wanting a sterile operating theatre with everyone behind screens and masks. Personally for me that is not hospitality.
Karl gives out some advice on what he thinks operators should focus on and and we agree to touch base again in a few months and see what we’ve all learnt.
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And find out more about CGA here
Kris is a very experienced operator who has had both a successful corporate, as well as more entrepreneurial career in hospitality. We briefly touched on Kris’s early career but spent more time chewing the fat on a broad range of hospitality topics. From EIS funding schemes and some great perspectives on why debt is quite often not the answer.
We also have a great conversation around hospitality as part of the rejuvenation and placemaking of towns and cities. Quite often they are the vibrancy and life-blood an area needs as a catalyst for investment and regeneration, yet all too often with high rents and taxes such important businesses are often marginally viable.
Kris has some excellent and creative thoughts on rent negotiations and how thinking outside the box and looking for win win opportunities between two parties can often lead to some interesting solutions.
Kris is also planning a slow and steady post Covid re-opening, testing and learning as he and the team go with some of their larger, more spacious garden venues.
You can follow Kris on LinkedIn or find out more about Brewhouse and Kitchen.
I’ve spoken to Griff Holland from Friska before in episode 47 and I love his love of food and drink and humans.
After a crazy couple of months of lockdown I thought it was a great time for a follow up. We touch on how trade had been in the 6 months before lockdown and how he’d been navigating Brexit indecision, multiple elections and a stormy winter. We look at the rollercoaster of shut down itself and how Griff pretty much nailed his plans in one emergency covid meeting, rather than every day. And then in his ever positive manner we switch to his pivots to deliver Friska at home, why he’s not a huge fan of deliveroo and wether his sweet spot will still be busy lunches near glass fronted office blocks, or if he’s having to rethink his strategy.
I’m sure you’ll get a nugget or two and enjoy the conversation.
This weeks guest is yet another true inspiration of hospitality. Sally is the General Manager of the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London and the 2019 hotelier of the year, joining some legendary predecessors of the award.
We have a pretty wide ranging conversation all the way from chickens, to my relief that Sally was not actually born in a pub, to how a 40 million pound refurbishment actually turned into an 85 million pound refurbishment, as well as Sally’s desire to create the happiest hotel in London, and what that actually means.
Sally is very principled when it comes to the integrity of our industry and how we should be treating apprenticeships, and in-fact all members of our teams. Sally is much more about the team and asking for opinions, than demanding results. And with consecutive years in the Times Employer of Choice awards her approach is paying huge dividends, both culturally and financially.
Well, it was before the pandemic arrived at least, so we also chat on it’s impact, complexities and Sally’s thoughts on how and when to re-open, as well as some exceptionally creative thoughts on how to come out trading on the other side.
Sally’s cv is awesome and she deserves her reputation as one of the best in class. I’m confident you’re going to enjoy this conversation and learn a few nuggets of wisdom on the way.
For Sally’s Hoteliers Charter that we chat about please do check out the Patreon Page where you can also support the podcast as well as sign up for our weekly newsletter keeping you informed of our latest guests here.
David from Grind London, a collection of coffee shops, cocktail bars and restaurants, started his hospitality journey by inheriting a mobile phone shop, where he loved the building but not the business.
Fast forward and David has managed to walk that tricky operational and design tightrope where his venues are both a great stop off for a daytime coffee, but also a sit down meal, and by night transform into a busy cocktail bar. Not an easy feat, but something that feels so effortless when right, but in reality is a real challenge.
I personally remember GRIND for some memorable crowd funding videos and how early in its development it managed to attract significant levels of investment and expanded into some high profile sites as a result.
We touch on the cycle of raising money and investing that money and how useful it is that they’d just raised funds prior to the pandemic, and had not yet spent them, albeit it is now very frustrating to have to burn through some of that cash just to keep heads above water rather than opening new venues.
We also touch on how the diversification into online retail has been helpful in keeping the business and some of the team ticking over.
David also touches on his thoughts on TRONC and the furlough scheme, as well as having some great perspectives on when to re-open, rental issues, distancing, blunt instruments, targeted measures and more.
Robert has an MBE, is a Restauranteur, a patron of Hospitality Action, president of the Restaurant Association, founder of the Nth Degree Global, and has even been covered in the FT as a power dresser with his very dapper suit collection. He’s also got a very active instagram account where he also interviews a number of other great humans of hospitality.
We have a fantastic chat about his past experiences in hospitality, which have been many and varied. Robert gushes about London’s place as the hospitality and tourism world champion, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
We discuss the recently launched young chef young waiter competition and Robert really has done an incredible job of revitalising this event. Some of the best known industry greats have won this award in the past, but it needed a revamp to stay relevant. Robert, the Restaurant Association and UK Hospitality have really upped the stakes to the point where you can win a Mercedes Benz and a night in a top London hotel, with a much more glitzy award ceremony and competition finals.
We also touch on all things pandemic and the wider implications for hospitality.
We are looking to china for some inspiration as they are running a good couple of months ahead of us from a pandemic timeline perspective. Nat is from London, but has been living in Shanghai for a number of years and runs Homeslice Pizza across 3 local outlets. He was therefore very well place to discuss the operational aspects of coming out of the other other side of lockdown in the hospitality sector.
I found Nat’s descriptions of the challenges of acquiring PPE in china fascinating, in part due to the timing of the crisis around Chinese New Year and everyone being on holiday and factories shut. I guess if it was hard to get hold of equipment in China, it is no surprise that the international community was also struggling.
We also touch on how technology was used to help release lockdown, such as a compulsory app on everyones phone that showed either a green or red qr code that had to be scanned to enter a venue. Getting a green code depended on where you had been, who you had been with and your temperature.
Nat’s insight into why china has been so good at managing the virus with it’s very big to very small approach to government was fascinating, but you really need to listen to his explanation to get the gist of that one.
We also touch on how long it’s taking for any semblance of normality to return to visitor numbers, even 8 weeks since lockdown release, and some interesting comparative KPI’s around employee %, rental charges and VAT, which has been reduced from only 6% to nothing by the Chinese government to help stimulate the economy.
Charlie sold his group ‘Draft House’ to Brew Dog and now operates as a chairman and investor through his business ‘Bunker Projects’. Charlie is currently chairman of the Breakfast Club and Butchies fried chicken in London.
We chat about 'project pint', what it stands for and how it evolved. Project Pint is a fun and inclusive way of helping Britain shift from a FOGO, to a FOMO mentality as soon possible, when it is safe, falling back in love with the Great British pint and going out with a mate.
I also take the opportunity to get his wider perspective on a few issues including his warm up for the lockdown post the sale of his business and the 3 key things currently effecting hospitality ‘CASH / DISTANCING AND FOGO’
We talk about how anyone in hospitality should probably be seeking the advice of an insolvency lawyer just in case, our thoughts for the future of the industry from both an independent and chain perspective and Charlie even gives me some well needed business advice on not being a purist when it comes to craft beer.
In this weeks conversation I catch up with Peter from the Institute of Hospitality.
Now I have to confess to not knowing a huge amount about the IOH but I thoroughly enjoyed this chat with Peter. Clearly he's been in the industry long enough to know what he's talking about and have a very rounded and objective perspective on quite a diverse range of topics that cropped up.
We touch on OTA's, graduate training, VAT, the opportunity for independent hospitality, the impact of the pandemic and how we can find a way to trade through. As Peter points out, we've been through wars and many other challenges as a sector and we will bounce back, in time.
The IOH are the professional body for hospitality and have members in every sector in over 100 countries. An impressive achievement. Their primary purpose is to promote professionalism through lifelong learning with hospitality educators around the world. They have an exceptional knowledge library and resources and a programme of professional development events.
I implore you to take a listen, and guarantee that you'll learn something new from Peter.
I really enjoyed meeting Phillip Eeles from Honest Burgers on a previous episode back in December 2019 with co-founder Tom Barton.
This time it was just Phillip and he was equally as enthralling and honest and happy to speak the truth. We touch on his role of late, looking after the out of London venues and his 180 degree turn on how those out of London venues should be managed.
We then get into the impact of the pandemic from charity and longterm integrity where Phillip tries desperately hard to walk the fine line between honesty and political correctness, but comes out with his personal integrity and diplomacy intact.
We chat about the #NationalTimeOut campaign and Phillip has an eloquent way of explaining the need for an open and symbiotic conversation with landlords and how the whole economy, not just hospitality in essence needs a period of hibernation for all, but a fast re-birth afterwards.
Honest are out of the pits pretty early with the shift to takeaway, and we look at the financial viability of that, as well as the operational changes such as PPE required to operate in this new space.
With all of that, a few tangents and how we see the future of our industry, I very much hope you enjoy the chat.
Lots has changed since I last caught up with JD. Hospitality Union has become more grown up from its early WhatsApp group days and now has a website, brand and a more disciplined and structured voice representing over 3000 independent hospitality owners and senior operators.
Through Hospitality Union JD has been campaigning for a number of national support measures to help the sector navigate the pandemic, and fundamentally save as many jobs as possible. Next to the JRS and furloughing scheme some sort of plan on rent is essential to save the industry and jobs. #NationalTimeOut has gained national support from many leaders of the industry and some of our best and most famous chefs and operators.
JD and I chat the latest development on this and his confidence that some sort of framework support will be agreed nationally soon.
We also touch on more general structure and flexibility on our re-opening such as what happens with terraces and outdoor spaces and the debate on 2 metres to 0 metres and how sometimes less regulation and common sense is better than over-regulation.
As always please head over to the website to support via our Patreon page.
Logan is from Logan's Punch and tacolicious, venues of varying size in Shanghai. As a prior F & B consultant from San Francisco, Logan has been living in China for ten years and has had a ring side view of the pandemic roll out from there and across the globe.
I was fascinated during this chat to hear the importance of the timing around Chinese New Year and the impact that had on how the virus was transmitted across China. Interestingly their has also been some government business support, as in Europe, but not to the same scale, with tax and rent relief.
In many ways it appears their very strict shutdown has meant they have been able to re-open faster than parts of Europe. And when I say strict how about a 14,000 dollar fine for breaking the seal on your restaurant door!
The lack of travel into the country for many months means that the population feels much safer that the virus has not spread, and bars and restaurants are returning to some level of business, albeit the ex pat population are no longer around.
I also found it interesting about 1 metre, rather than 2 metre distancing rules, and imagined the difference that would make to UK covers once hospitality is allowed to re-open. Who has decided 1 metre in china, 1.5 mitres in Belgium and 2 metres in England?
I very much hope you enjoy this global chat, and a glimpse further down the pandemic timeline.
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This is the first post pandemic episode I’ve done representing what is such a vibrant, energised, important and all too neglected part of the incredible hospitality sector - the street food traders. And when I say neglected I mean that so many of them are small, independent operators with no premises and no staff, so generally don’t qualify for grants or furloughing cash. It’s heart breaking to imagine the hardship that some of these incredible hospitality humans are facing during this crisis.
As well as their members we touch on some of the Kerb challenges such as rents and the #nationaltimeout campaign and what that would mean for their Seven Dials site, as well as the rest of the industry. Simon and kerb were heavily in negotiations over rents and their CBILS application literally pre and post this recording.
Despite the chaos of our sector, there was plenty of positivity to chat about too, such as the opportunities for street food to be one of the first sectors to rebound with its natural al fresco credentials.
It was also great to hear about some of the initiatives simon and his team are working on to support their members along with your chance to check out some free resources via the spinout onto YouTube of some of their inkerbator information.
This is the week where Rishi has given much of the industry a further life line by extending the furlough scheme through to October. Though we wait nervously for the details of the ‘joint’ funding he mentioned from August onwards and wether our sector may qualify for further support once the scheme is removed for much of the country.
Today’s guest is Rupert from Conker Spirit, a gin distiller in Bournemouth. I’ve seen a number of distilleries moving into the sanitiser market and I really wanted to find out more about how and why. I think it demonstrates again the creative versatility of people in hospitality and is a great example of another business pivot.
Rupert and I chat about some of the technicalities of shifting from booze to sanitiser, such as how to get the HMRC onboard so you don’t have to pay £25 in duty per litre of sanitiser produced, and actually the speed the HMRC moved on that I think reflects further positive efforts behind the scenes from the government to try and get the private sector to support the public sector as much as possible, through things like sanitiser as well as PPE and feeding our key workers.
We also touch on the very crowded space of craft distillers and who will and will not survive this crisis and what trade may look like on the other side, as well as a couple of other positive pivots Rupert has seen, such as sleep packs for nurses.
Another week and something is clearly in the air with more and more restaurants or hospitality venues trying to re-open in some guise. Maybe it’s the frustration of sitting idle, maybe it’s the recognition that the industry is very broken and some sort of pivot for survival is going to be essential for those businesses that can do so. And many cannot.
I’ve seen a number of posts from the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) offering practical support, not only for members, but for anyone visiting their website. Whilst much of this is really useful and detailed, I particularly enjoyed chewing the fat with Andrew on some of the sustainable opportunities that we would be foolish to waste as we look at what our industry could look like moving forwards. As we inevitably reduce our menus to simplify production, both to have fewer chefs in the kitchen for distancing purposes, but also to reduce costs and waste, is now the chance more than ever to look at buying local, purchasing from people rather than brands and caring more about the impact of what we purchase on the land and the environment.
I certainly hope so and Andrew is well placed to talk about what this could look like. Could government support even be tailored and focused to offer additional support to those doing the right thing and trading more ethically in the food and drink space. Complicated, but a great concept. Enjoy the conversation.
With the continuing backdrop of hospitality recognising just how hard it is going to be to open up post lockdown I’m catching up with Steven Lamb. Steven is particularly well known for having worked with River Cottage right from it’s foundation years, and now makes a living consulting, presenting, training, writing and more.
As a freelancer falling between the gaps of all personal and business support in this crisis I wanted to see what Steven was doing to try and navigate a way through the challenges. Particularly his moves into the online world trying to run virtual food festivals, online training, and a health and well being site ‘slow life good life’.
I love this sector for it’s speed of creativity, optimism and can do attitude to pivot and find a way through whatever it takes. I hope conversations with the likes of Steve provide a bit of inspiration on standing up and thinking outside the box so that we don’t all just end up sobbing and rocking in a corner. Enjoy the conversation.
There seems to have been a bit of recognition this week in just how long the hospitality sector is going to be effected by this crisis. First in and last out seems to pretty much be the case. That’s tough news to process for many operators, but we are a resilient and creative bunch. Much of people’s headspace is now moving from how do we close, minimise outgoings, furlough and pay the team, to what on earth does re-opening look like. And if we can’t re-open how do we pivot and do something to pay both the personal mortgages and business costs until we can re-open viably.
This weeks guest is Michael Bremner. Chef and winner of Great British menu, and owner of two restaurants in Brighton. Michael was incredibly honest and reflective in our chat.
It can be tricky as a business leader to walk the tight rope of staying positive and motivated and wanting to say the right things for our team and our customers, whilst also being realistic enough to understand that we are not instantaneously going to return to normal when lockdown is over.
I think overall Michael and I believe we will ultimately keep and open our businesses in some guise…it’s just the time period that is the variable. And that’s some of what we chat about.
Our most unusual episode yet in that I am going from host to interviewee. I recorded an episode last week with a friend, accountant and fellow podcast host 'Warren Munson' from Evolve.
Warren interviewed me about the impact of the Coronavirus closure on my personal hotel and restaurants. Having interviewed many people on similar topics in the past few weeks Warren was happy for me to share this story on my own podcast. A number of listeners and contacts have been in touch recently asking how things are going at Urban Guild, so this seemed the ideal way to provide an update.
I touch on the transition period from opening my most recent restaurant about 10 months ago, ramping up ready for summer and then the shock, both mentally and financially of being closed by the government. I also discuss some early thoughts on ongoing government support as we try and find a way to trade out of this disaster, once we are allowed to open, and what that may look like.
Please do check out Warren's other episodes and my thanks to him for letting me share this audio. I hope you find it interesting.
in this Coronavirus special I'm catching up with Andrew, Executive Director of some incredible hotels under the Iconic Luxury Hotels group. I first met Andrew on this very only podcast a few months ago.
Since then so much has changed in both of our lives that I wanted to catch up and discuss how he and the business are navigating through the pandemic. Initially it was thought that the country hotels may ride out the storm as guests looked for long term stays away from the city. But soon all venues were closed, over 800 of the team are furloughed and Andrew is back to answering phones and walking the corridors of deserted venues.
We discuss how this may end and what it will take to trade out the other side, as well as some of the fun ways they are keeping their team engaged during the extended shutdown. Andrew is a calm and rational chap who shares some good perspectives on what all this means for both his business and the wider industry.
In this episode I'm joined by Guy from Riverford Organic Farmers chatting about the surge in demand for their vegetable boxes. Guy is always good for an opinion or two and I thought it would be interesting to chat to someone incredibly busy, rather than quiet, as a result of the Coronavirus impact.
We chat about how Guy and his team are simplifying their offering, going back to their original roots as a veg box delivery company. Guy in many ways hopes this will be a long term move since he has always wanted to sell more seasonal produce, rather than adding complexity due to the demands of the customer. The environmental implications of a less consumer driven supply chain could be a long term benefit to the wider farming wold, and society in general.
We also touch on the potential 'land army' being recruited from the UK, rather than Eastern Europe, to help farmers with picking and the longer term implications that could have on wages, working standards and the price of food.
Whilst Riverford is currently closed to new customers they are working hard on getting back to 'normal' and looking after the loyal, regular customers who Guy and this team have always so enjoyed serving.
I think Riverford are a great company with a great ethos and give us hope about the balance between our human impact, demands and potential change in our relationship to the food we eat.
In this episode I catch up with Chef Director Jack Stein at his family's Rick Stein restaurant Group.
Whilst Rick Stein is locked down in Australia I'd seen alot in the past ten days with Jack defending a pretty negative article in the Daily Mail. Jack has been very honest with his team and customers about the financial challenges the business is facing as a result of it's current coronavirus related shut down. We discuss the challenges of meeting £300k a week in payroll costs with £0 revenue coming through the door, and some of the unfair accusations around how his Dad should simply 'put his hand in his pocket' and pay people.
We chat about the challenges specifically of operating in tourist towns in seasonal hotspots and the further complexity that is going to add to re-establishing their business. We touch on a potential insurance claim and the issues around the insurance industry thus far managing to wiggle out of claims.
We finish off with some of the great ways the industry is responding including a 'virtual food festival' running Easter Monday 13th April with details via Jack's Instagram page.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how Giles Henschel is trying to pivot his business during the coronavirus challenge.
Giles has been in business for many years and has a background in the military so I was very keen to see if he had any wise words on how to navigate his business through the crisis. Many of us in hospitality have been advised to offer home delivery, either of produce or finished products. But this has its complexities and I've felt that the wholesalers are better placed to offer this than the restaurants.
Giles has done just that re-establishing his B to C brand Loaf and Larder and complimenting what the supermarkets are trying to offer with home delivery. His primary motivation, rather than profit, simply to keep his team employed and ensure he is in the best position to be able to trade out of the other side.
We also touch on the balance of keeping entrepreneurial and recognising we must some day re-establish the economy, whilst we all have a desire to keep the team and community safe.
Enjoy the conversation, and if you can please support the podcast via our page on Patreon.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how Kate and UK Hospitality are working hard to represent the UK hospitality industry, with a direct ear to the UK Government.
Kate and I have a wide ranging chat covering their early involvement in keeping the government abreast of how quickly the hospitality sector was being impacted as the coronavirus travelled at pace around the world. The sector was an early warning barometer of what was about to come to others, as occupancy rates and visitors to bars and restaurants dropped, long before they were told to close.
We also chat about the benefits of grants over loans speeding up the potential recovery once this is over, but how the lifting of a lockdown is not likely to be instantaneous, but a staggered release and what the impact of that may look like.
The potential impact of landlords working better with tenants to share responsibility for our recovery also crops up, and a of course a celebration of the incredible response of the hospitality sector in trying to help the NHS and local communities on a national level.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how some humans in the hospitality sector are coping with changes as a result of the coronavirus.
Mitch is an utter gentleman of our industry who has created a small group of restaurants that have an exceptional reputation for being part of the local community, generally in seaside resorts of South West England. Along with his chairman Will from Hawksmoor, they are a couple of wise brains who really understand the hospitality sector, and operate for the right reasons with strong values and a passion for service.
In this conversation we chat about how events unfolded and when Mitch decided to close his venues, before being told to by the government. We then focus on quite probably the more challenging aspect of how we re-establish our businesses and how much support may be required to trade again.
We touch on business interruption loans, the job retention scheme and even wether the government could step in as 'an insurer of last resort'.
Typically Mitch ends on a positive note confident that he will rebuild and see us all with business intact on the other side.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how some humans in the hospitality sector are coping with changes as a result of the coronavirus.
Hospitality Action are a charity established in 1837 that has since offered vital assistance to all who work, or have worked within hospitality in the UK.
They are there for the chefs, waiters, housekeepers, managers, concierges, receptionists, kitchen porters, sommeliers, bartenders, catering assistants and cooks across the UK.
They also launched an emergency appeal just after Boris Johnson's announcement in mid March asking the public to stop visiting restaurants, bars and cafes across the country. As hundreds of thousands of incredible hospitality professionals started to be laid off, it was clear that perhaps more than ever, the charity was going to be in demand.
Raising over £250,000 in less than two weeks they have been inundated for help. Mark Lewis chats about how they are responding and how the public or larger companies can donate.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how some businesses in the hospitality sector are coping with changes as a result of the coronavirus.
In this chat I catch up with Kirsty who I first spoke with about her story back in September 2019. Kirsty's company 'Love Drinks' represents some incredible high end drinks brands with genuine authentic stories behind their stunning products.
Kirsty provides another example of the ripple effects back up the supply chain as bars and restaurants across the country closed. As entrepreneurs Kirsty points out that we are used to volatile and challenging working lives, but we need to remember the impact on those around us who are use to a more stable and secure lifestyle. We also explore the potential for Kirsty to pivot her business with a direct to consumer, rather than wholesaler model, and the longer term challenges that could present.
From her own challenges around mental and physical health Kirsty is also good at reminding us of the need to stay healthy and positive, despite the uncertainty of when hospitality will be back up and running as we once knew it.
This is a shorter special edition of the podcast looking at how some businesses in the hospitality sector are coping with changes as a result of the coronavirus.
In this episode Jennifer from Canton Tea explains how her normal customer has completely disappeared almost overnight and her entire team have been furloughed. However, Jennifer and her team have pivoted the business fast, both to help them service the crisis, but also to support both Hospitality Action and frontline hospitality teams directly.
Jennifer is the kind of human that reassures me we will come out of this the other side, and together we will trade and support each other again.
A great human and great business, enjoy the show and do check out cantonsocial.cantontea.com as we discuss in the show.
A bonus episode and new idea to release shorter regular podcasts specifically around what people in the hospitality sector are doing, or some advice around some of the fast paced legislation changes.
These CORONAVIRUS special podcasts are slanted towards people in hospitality or who are interested in hospitality, but will overlap with business people in general and what they are doing in the current crisis.
Other episodes you can find and more orientated around everyone interested in food and drink.
In this episode, Will Beckett from Hawksmoor chats about the journey in the past two weeks and how they navigated the difficulty between holding onto their values, whilst making tough decisions for the business. We discuss the implications of the government support strategy that has been launched, and some thoughts on the future and how and when things may change.
I hope it’s useful.
A bonus episode and new idea to release shorter regular podcasts specifically around what people in the hospitality sector are doing, or some advice around some of the fast paced legislation changes.
These CORONAVIRUS special podcasts are slanted towards people in hospitality or who are interested in hospitality, but will overlap with business people in general and what they are doing in the current crisis.
Other episodes you can find and more orientated around everyone interested in food and drink.
In this episode, JD who has a background as a corporate lawyer, is particularly good at keeping abreast of some of the support from government and what it means in the real world. We cover Forfeiture Moratorium, employee rescue plan, eligibility to loans, HRMC and what you should and could be doing in your business now.
I hope it's useful.
This week’s guest has a brilliant way of describing his striking career change in 2008, when he went from ‘birdless flight to flightless birds’. I’ll explain!
For more than a decade, Ben Jackson had been the MD of the London Beach Store – a business he loved, because it focussed on his fascination for kite surfing, which had begun when he was 3 years old.
Then, just over a decade ago, he got involved in running his family’s farm and has never looked back. Fluffetts specialises in what it calls ‘genuinely free range eggs’ and Ben has built up encyclopaedic knowledge about every aspect of hen behaviour and egg laying.
For instance, the ‘pecking order’ really does exist and most flocks have a hard-core escape committee: birds who work out how to fly over any barrier and into the woods, never to return.
And if you’ve ever wondered why egg yolks vary in colour from pale yellow to orange or why the shells of larger eggs tend to be more brittle than those of smaller ones, Ben has the answers. Some of them will make your mind boggle.
I’ve wanted to dive deep into eggs for a long time. We consume millions of them a day across the country. But with battery farming, organic and free range, I think there is a great deal of confusion around such an everyday product. So it’s time to get myth busting and get some actual facts. Enjoy the conversation.
Craft beers and gins have come into their own in the last few years – alongside artisanal bakeries and independent coffee roasters. So what’s going to be the next big thing amongst small, specialist food and drink businesses?
If you listened to my podcast with Keterina Albanese at the Pub Show, it could be cider, English whisky or rum. If it’s rum, then Giles Collighan, Vince Noyce and Dich Oatley will be leading the way.
I caught up with Vince and Dich at the Portsmouth Distillery, where I discovered that the word ‘rum’ is really an umbrella term for a drink that comes in different guises, from the floral French ‘agricole’ which uses sugar cane juice to the molasses-based rum associated with the British Navy.
Regular listeners will know that I love meeting people who do things properly. Who really research and understand their craft and don’t take shortcuts. This edition is yet another tale of dedication and patience, with Vince in particular devoting hours to researching different rums across the Caribbean, from the Dominican Republic in the North down to Trinidad in the South. It’s a tough gig, but someone’s got to do it…
And now, they have to impatiently wait 3 years for some of their barrel aged rum to mature, hidden in a casement of a fort built in 1785, providing perfect temperature controlled ageing conditions.
I’ve waited a very long time to interview this weeks guest. But patience paid off, and I’m utterly sure this programme will blow, or at least open your mind just a little bit more.
It’s about those tiny little creatures without whom this podcast would not exist, in the sense that so much of the food and drink we eat is dependent on this insect’s ability to pollinate plants.
Mark Rogers, owner of Twinways Orchard, has immersed himself in the world of bees for years. Whilst I knew bees were important, and I knew they were being threatened, for a very long time I’ve wanted to speak to an expert about what exactly is going on and why we should be concerned.
Mark will reveal parts of bees lives that sound like they belong to science fiction – and yet they’re happening all around us, without us noticing.
For instance, I thought being Queen Bee was a nice gig. It turns out she’s not the boss at all but the hive’s egg slave, being herded around by her inferiors.
And did you know that honeybees are greedy vandals? Give them half a chance and they will rip a hole in the bottom of a flower to get to the nectar, leaving nothing for other types of insect whose tongues were designed specifically for that plant and will pollinate it properly.
And we haven’t got onto the figure-of-eight dance that bees do, and the amazing things it tells other bees, or how long bees can survive in the post.
When you listen, I hope you learn as much as I did, and I hope that you will never want to spray your roses, or any other plant, again.
I always wanted this podcast to be pretty eclectic in it’s range of guests, all hung under this idea of hospitality in its broadest sense, where food and drink is the common denominator. This weeks guest, Sue Quinn is a food writer and cookbook author. I wanted to chat to Sue about the importance of the written word in hospitality, and I guess life in general. The reviewers, the critics and the influencers are all having an impact on our venues and our daily lives.
From the ghee butter in Olivia Coleman’s Oscar-winning goody bag, and the rise of ultra-processed vegan food to the eery beauty of cacao pods that look like alien lanterns: this gives you a flavour of the range of topics that Sue explores in her writing life.
But her early career was far removed from food and drink. Sue was a political journalist in Australia before moving the UK as London correspondent. After a stint at the Guardian as a home news reporter, she went freelance, and began editing and then writing cookbooks.
Sue’s now an award-winning food writer, journalist and cookbook author. Her articles and recipes regularly appear in the Telegraph, the Sunday Times and the Guardian and her books range from Easy Vegan to Cocoa, her most recent encyclopaedic work on chocolate. In the interests of research, Sue even travelled to Mexico, where she sampled gorgeous artisanal hot chocolate – something she was well qualified to do because she has accreditations in both chocolate and cheese tasting.
As you’ll hear, variety really is the spice of this writer’s life – and Sue’s ability to turn her pen to a range of projects is an advantage in a sector which has seen a huge amount of change in the last few years.
I love the challenges of operating hotels... well, even if I don’t necessarily love them, because it’s really hard, I do at least find them utterly fascinating. We’ve not been to a hotel for a while, but I so enjoyed chatting to Gareth Banner from The Ned a fair few episodes ago, I thought it was time to return. This time, instead of one super huge hotel in the city, we’re taking a look at a few stunning properties spread over a somewhat larger area.
And If you want examples of how hotels can evolve with the times, and bring in new types of guests, without alienating their traditional following, this is the episode for you.
Andrew Stembridge is Executive Director of Iconic Luxury Hotels. They are a small and impressive collection, including The Lygon Arms, a coaching inn that dates back to the 1600s; Cliveden House, a stately home and Chewton Glen, an 18th Century manor house which has enjoyed half a century of award-winning 5 star-hospitality.
As you’ll hear, Chewton Glen has led the way over the decades. It was one of the first hotels in the country to open a spa, in 1990. Under Andrew’s leadership, it has also become very family-friendly, with wonderful tree house lodges (more on those in a moment), the Beehive Kids’ Club, and classes at the hotel’s cookery school, The Kitchen. And by hosting Chris Evans’ Children in Need events, it's broadened its fanbase even more, and helped to raise millions of pounds along the way.
So how do you introduce so much change, and still maintain the historical spirit of a place? Keep listening, and you’ll find out.
There is no getting away from the fact that James Cochran is a dude. He’s the chef with no name and his restaurant is named after a song from The Strokes, and if that’s not cool enough, he also happens to be an epic chef, and an all-round entertaining chap.
If you look at James Cochran’s sample menus – from pheasant sausage to buttermilk jerk spiced chicken – you can see the influences that shape his brilliant cooking: Scottish from his dad; Vincentian from his mum.
When James was honing his chef’s skills alongside Brett Graham at the famous The Ledbury, he couldn’t bring these influences to the fore – great though his time with the Michelin-starred chef was. (He really does mean ‘great’, despite the 18-hour days when he never saw daylight and despite regularly missing his tube stop, because he was so exhausted).
James came into his own when he was named ‘Champion of Champions’ on the Great British Menu in 2018 and his Goat Sharing Board and legendary Scotch Bonnet Jam reached the attention of millions.
Now, as the owner of 12:51, he has the freedom to work creatively with the ingredients from his childhood. He says he ‘feels honest every day about the food he does and is happy to carry on his parents’ legacy’.
Mushrooms, who knew? Well, some people do, but most us will be doing some intensive learning in this episode. Mushrooms do some amazing things and cover miles and miles of the forest floor without us even knowing.
By the time you finish listening to this interview with John, you’ll be wondering why on earth we don’t do more of what he does, and why restaurants and cafes don’t feature more food sourced in this way.
I’m talking about foraging.
To me, foraging is a no brainer. The foods you come across, whether they are roots, berries, leaves, mushrooms, seaweeds or flowers, are true super foods. The act of searching for them also helps your wellbeing, either because you’re enjoying it with family and friends, or, if you’re on your own, it’s like a form of meditation.
You might have ruled out this activity, because you live in a town or city. Think again! John discovered the rewards of foraging in London, as he explored his local park in Stoke Newington. You won’t believe how many different species of plant he has eaten from that square mile, but you’ll find out later.
Now that his home is in Dorset, John’s foraging patch extends to woods and the seashore, as well as different green spaces in the capital. Through his foraging walks, workshops and book, he’s doing his bit to spread the word about wild foods and just how fascinating they are.
If there is one restaurant on this planet that embodies purity of intent and an obsessive eye for detail, it’s Hawksmoor.
Whether you’re in London, Manchester, Edinburgh or New York (which will, or has opened, depending on when you listen) you know you’ll be given exceptional food, but with none of the stuffiness that used to come with such wonderful dining.
As regular listeners will know, I have the privilege of interviewing dozens of hospitality legends. Without fail, whenever the Hawskmoor name crops up, people express their appreciation for the awesome, well deserved, and exceptionally consistent reputation.
Hawksmoor’s founders, Will Beckett and Huw Gott, have stuck to their original vision, doing simple things really well and delivering them in beautifully relaxed settings, which feel like they’ve been there forever.
But doing simple things brilliantly takes a lot of time and effort. My conversation with Will gives you an insight into the incredible amount of thought that goes into every tiny detail – from sourcing ingredients from the best ethical producers to calibrating the level of smoky grit on the grills used to cook the famous Hawksmoor steaks…. To even rummaging through second-hand shops to find the right architectural features for each of their venues.
Hawksmoor is an inspiring example of how you can build your business with integrity, on both sides of the Atlantic. And if you’re wondering why Hawksmoor dares to bring its offering to the USA, home to the steak restaurant, start listening now to find out…
Here’s a cheeky little bonus episode for you this week. The quintessential British pub is changing. Is that good, bad, or just necessary? Well, pause a minute and let’s imagine that you’re sitting in a pub, and on the drinks menu you find a delightful rose cider, served by the wine glass; a fine small batch English whisky, described as having notes of cherry; and an impressive selection of mocktails and botanical-based soft drinks and cordials.
Then you notice that the pub isn’t just open at lunch time and in the evenings: it offers art and floristry classes in the afternoons and a mum and toddler’s coffee morning between 9 and 12 on weekdays.
Maybe your local organises these sorts of things already. If it does, it falls into what my guest today describes as the ‘hybrid pub’ category. They include pubs which use their buildings in different ways or partner up with local breweries, distilleries and chefs, to offer their customers new drink and food experiences – from supper clubs to gin safaris.
Keterina Albanese is the Content Director of The Pub Show, also known as ‘Pub 20’. It opens its doors on the 4th and 5th February at Olympia in London, and as you’ll hear now, it’s the place to learn about the latest trends and be inspired on how to make a pub a success…
People often say, in an off-the-cuff way, that something they organised was ‘like a military operation’. Well, this week’s guest, Harry Lomas, really does know what it’s like to run a kitchen as a huge, well-oiled military machine.
Harry’s strategic skills have been honed by the 34 years he spent with the British Army. His amazing career included a stint with The Royal Household; the position of Master Chef with the Parachute Regiment in Cyprus and, to round off, being responsible for feeding troops around the world, including Afghanistan. There he was involved in rebuilding the kitchen at Camp Bastion, which had to serve 25,000 troops at each sitting.
The statistics become more eye-watering with Harry’s next role, overseeing the catering for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. As you’ll hear, the prospect of serving 147,000 people a day, never seemed to daunt Harry. That’s probably why he’s the perfect fit for the title he holds now: Head of Culinary at Wembley Stadium.
At which point, I’ll hand over to the great strategist himself. Only Harry can explain the complexities of cooking different meals for thousands of football fans – and making sure they’re back in their seats before kick-off.
Two things come up regularly on the podcast. Firstly, quite a few of my podcast guests have gone through significant career changes to become food, drink and hospitality entrepreneurs. I’m thinking Rupert Holloway at Conker Gin, who gave up surveying to set up his own distillery, or Claire Burnet at Chococo who swapped marketing for freshly made chocolates.
As the winner of the 1979 Formula One world championship this weeks guest, Jody Scheckter certainly knows a thing or two about a second career, and in fact even a third!
Secondly, obsession, maybe William Curley creating the very best chocolates or Jethro Tenant and his quest to make the best sea salt. Jody certainly takes things to the extreme. He started with such a simple idea. How to provide the very best, tastiest, food for his family. That simple seed of an idea has taken Jody on an incredible adventure, learning the most phenomenal amount about every stage of food production, from seed to plate. In fact, before the seed, Jody and his team of chemists and biologists spent eight years just researching the soil! As he says, everything we eat, that does not come from the sea, comes from the soil at some point. So if you have an obsessive nature, are use to winning and always want the best, that is the natural place to start.
Nowadays, as the founder of Laverstoke Park Farm, Jody Scheckter is better known for his commitment to biodynamic and organic farming, and his herd of water buffalo, which provide the milk for award-winning mozzarella and ice cream.
Laverstoke Park Farm has also diversified into hops and ale; sparkling wine and black pudding. While these products are varied, the vision underpinning them is always the same: to be the ‘best-tasting and healthiest, without compromise’.
As the casual dining sector in general continues to navigate through turbulent times, it is fascinating to see the continued growth of the street food scene. There seems to be a trend in specialising in one or two dishes and being great, rather than big. But whilst the consumer is loving the informality, quality, regularly changing dishes, a keen price point and an ethical impassioned owner, they still desire a space to sit, somewhere to enjoy some drinks with friends and spend a couple of hours on a night out, or a longer lunch, rather than just a few minutes refuelling on the street.
So, curating spaces, communal eating, and easy-access, energised environments for street food vendors to congregate on mass, makes a lot of sense. Add to that an artisan food market, education programme, social conscience and much more, and you start to get into the head space of this week’s guest – Andrea Rasca.
Andrea says that on paper, his venture – Mercato Metropolitano or ‘MM’ – should not exist. He doesn’t advertise; he doesn’t use sponsors or banks; and he certainly doesn’t worry about footfall. That’s because the first two sites of his ‘City Markets’, in London’s Elephant & Castle and Mayfair, welcome thousands of people each week. They’re drawn to MM, not only for the deliciously nutritious food and drink, but also the live music, cookery classes and, at the time I recorded this conversation, a travelling circus!
As he builds his MM movement through word of mouth, Andrea wants each of his mercatos to become a thriving community. Here, the simple act of sharing a tasty meal will help to combat social isolation and food inequality – and, at the same time, encourage talented men and women to turn their cooking skills into successful enterprises.
With interest from cities like Berlin, Paris, New York and Boston, Mercato Metropolitano could well be the next business model in hospitality and food retail, challenging the traditional high street of big brands and formulaic dining.
Enjoy this thought-provoking conversation, with a man who describes himself as ‘Chief Executive Dreamer’ and who also has the drive to make those dreams come true.
I think it’s fair to say that, from a global perspective, we’re living through uncertain times. In particular I hope as a listener of this podcast you are asking questions about what to eat, where to purchase our food and how our food choices are impacting the environment and world around us.
Whilst sometimes these are complicated questions, what’s been inspirational about many of the podcast conversations I’ve now had, is how – despite the politics and complexity – many food and drink producers are just getting on with it, and making a big difference to their local communities. As this weeks guest, Andrew Parry-Norton puts it, ‘What’s on your doorstep is the most important thing. Once you get that right, it spreads from there’.
Andrew’s lucky. He happens to have the beautiful landscape of the New Forest literally, on his doorstep. As a Commoner, as well as a farmer, his animals can truly range free, through heathland and ancient woods. (Sometimes they range a bit too freely, as you’ll hear!)
In this programme we explore the peculiarities of Commoning history. We also discover how, and even more fascinatingly, why, we are seeing the return of regional native breeds such as Ruby Red cattle and Saddleback pigs, rather than the influx of larger continental breeds. It makes good business and environmental sense, especially now that the Commoners have their own shared brand, the ‘New Forest Marque’. In essence, to support a more artisan, kinder, traditional approach to farming, Andrew needs to charge around 10% more and supply more directly to the end consumer.
Is this the way other regions could go?
Is it possible to change the world, simply by changing where you buy your coffee?
This was just one of many questions discussed at Alex Chisnall’s Entrepreneurs’ Summit in Bournemouth. It brought together a group of inspirational speakers, including Cemal Ezel, founder of the award-winning social enterprise, Change Please.
If you’ve not yet come across Change Please coffee, you soon will. It’s stocked in Sainsbury’s nationwide and it is Virgin Trains’ beverage of choice. If you live in London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester or Edinburgh, you might have spotted its distinctive grey carts with a bright yellow circle on the side.
What you might not know is that all the baristas at Change Please have experienced periods of homelessness – but with the right training and support, they’re able to make sleeping rough a thing of the past.
Perhaps the most inspirational aspect to Cemal’s work, is his conviction that businesses with a genuine social conscience will be leading the way, commercially and morally, over the next few years. It’s a point he makes powerfully, first in his presentation, and then in the conversation I had with him afterwards, on stage.
There’s a feeling in hospitality that when an independent restaurant is successful and starts replicating itself, it’s in danger of losing its soul – especially when it reaches 20 sites.
That’s why I was keen to chat to this weeks guests, the co-founders of Honest Burgers, Tom Barton and Philip Eeles. I’d heard a few times that they are living proof that this doesn’t have to be the case.
Regular listeners will know that I am passionate about the little guy, and the humans, rather than the brands of hospitality. So with 36 venues and a team of 777, Honest Burgers are – in terms of numbers – a chain. But I wanted to find out how they absolutely, and genuinely, don’t act like one. Have they found the eutopia of the benefits, rather than disbenefits of scale.
What was apparent from our very wide ranging conversation is that they are obsessive about the details and refuse to compromise. They still make all their own chips, and wouldn’t give a frozen version the time of day.
They also have their own butchery which produces chopped – not minced – beef, to deliver the satisfying texture that fine medium-rare burgers deserve. And they encourage the managers of each venue to go out and discover independent food and drink producers to collaborate with.
As you listen, you’ll hear many more examples of how to grow a company and remain true to your principles.
We’re diving deep into the wonderful world of restaurant kitchens this week. Watching this chef’s career take off has been an inspiring experience for me, not least because Steve Groves started his culinary life working by the sea in Dorset, where we shared a town, and even a seafront some time ago.
If Steve’s name doesn’t ring an immediate bell, maybe the fact that he was a winner of ‘MasterChef: The Professionals’, will nudge your memory. It also gives you an idea of the exacting standards he works to, and why Michel Roux Jr snapped him up as a sous-chef, to join the team at The Roux at Parliament Square.
For the last six years Steve has been Head Chef at this prestigious restaurant, giving its French classical heritage a modern twist and impressing yet more judges, most recently at The Craft Guild’s National Chef of the Year competition, that Steve impressively won.
But as you’ll hear, Steve is not one for blowing his own trumpet. He’s more interested in developing the talent of his colleagues, making sure the whole team gels, and that they get to see their families at the weekends. Yes, every weekend.
And as it’s nearly Christmas, he reveals what’s replacing the traditional turkey on his festive dinner table.
Imagine buying a fresh loaf of bread, cutting it in two and immediately throwing half of it in the bin. You eat what’s left and then you buy another loaf the next day and do exactly the same thing again.
It sounds crazy, doesn’t it – and not something any of us would do deliberately. But, across the world, that is what the human race is doing.
OK, it’s not quite half. It’s actually 44%, which is still an eye-watering proportion. 44% of all the bread we produce is not eaten, at all.
That is why Toast Ale was born. Set up in 2016, it sells delicious, award-winning beer using surplus bread and its open-source recipe has inspired brewers from South Africa and Iceland to Brazil and New York. Its BHAG – its Big Hairy Audacious Goal – is to convert the whole of the UK’s brewing industry to its way of thinking in the next 15 years. So, whenever we raise our glass, we’ll all be helping to save the planet.
Rob Wilson is Toast Ale’s CEO. Before he joined the Toast team, he’d already got a serious track record in social entrepreneurship. This includes spending his ‘mega-moon-honey-moon’ in Africa, gathering stories about other inspirational entrepreneurs with his wife.
Get ready for a life-enhancing conversation, which encourages us all to have fun as we help build a better future for planet earth.
James Mansfield, is a master at learning on the job. When he and James Flower, a friend from agricultural college, decided to set up their meat box business, both of them had to perfect the art of butchery from a standing start. They also had to scale up their culinary skills very rapidly, so they could serve mouth-watering dishes to 2,000 VIP guests at Richard Branson’s V Festival.
I was excited to chat to James since with alot of press recently about eating less meat for the sake of planet earth, I was intrigued to explore some issues around what good and bad practise looks like. Is it a case of eating no meat, or eating better meat. Caring more about animal welfare and recognising that how the animals we eat are cared for, what they eat and what drugs they take must surely be part of the informed conversation. These could be tricky things to ask a butcher, but as expected James was engaging, knowledgeable and happy to educate.
This willingness to jump in at the deep end and learn on the go partly explains why ‘field&flower’ is so successful today. It’s also because they’ve stuck to their principles: only supplying traditionally reared grass-fed beef, along with free range poultry, pork and lamb. It won’t surprise you to know that they’ve designed their own box packaging too, which is more environmentally friendly than the traditional poly box.
As you’ll hear now, James’ hospitality career began in the same 'nought-to-sixty’ vein, front of house at one of London’s most famous restaurants.
Griff Holland, co founder of Friska, epitomises the enthusiasm and energy you all too often find in some of the awesome humans of hospitality. Spending a couple of ours in Griff’s company was an utter pleasure. His level of obsession about just the right amount of avocado that should be any one bite of a sandwich reminded me of why a life of hospitality is so all consuming and almost impossible to nail. So many details to obsess about.
One of the great things about setting up a food or drink business is that you have the perfect reason to test – and taste – lots of edible things, in the name of market research.
Griff, took the work of testing and tasting to impressive (possibly obsessive) extremes. Whether it was offering samples of five different types of chai to fellow diners in India or quizzing American tourists in Vietnam about their lunch habits back home, Griff was relentless in his quest to work out what makes us feel really good when we go out to eat.
And his research paid off, because, right from the start the ‘Feel Good Food’ vision of Friska has impressed a succession of funders and has gained a loyal following in Bristol and Manchester.
But, as you’ll hear, Griff, and his co-founder Ed Brown, have learned hard lessons too – including the importance of serving great coffee and having something familiar, like a chicken sandwich, on the menu.
When, in the 1990s, Guy Singh-Watson started delivering boxes of organic veg to neighbours and friends, he realised he was onto a winner. People loved the fact that the vegetables tasted great and were grown locally.
He probably didn’t realise just how big a winner it was. Today Riverford Organic Farmers supply boxes to between 50 and 60 thousand households a week and have a team of 700.
I was very excited to get to speak with Guy since I've read a number of his blogs about the impact of modern farming and monoculture. Guy really brings to life the impact such approaches of mass production are having on the soil, and how important soil is for all of us to be able to continue to live on planet earth. Fundamentally I wanted to learn whether ‘organic’ is really important and how much work should we, as the hospitality industry and the general public, be putting in to thinking about not only where, but how our fruits and vegetables are grown. To say Guy has an opinion or two on this is an understatement. But he makes the case eloquently and enthusiastically for change.
While the business has scaled up, the guiding principle behind it has not shifted, as you’ll know if you’ve ever watched Guy’s YouTube series, ‘Guy’s Rants’. For him, respecting the health of our soil, through traditional mixed farming rather than rigid specialisation, is vital for the health of us all.
Whether you agree with Guy or not, this programme will definitely make you think about consumer choice, and whether the world has gone mad in allowing us to choose delivery times to within 20 minutes or having little gem lettuces flown over from the States.
Should the era of getting what we want, when we want it, come to an end?
Let’s discuss…
At 75 years old, when most people are thinking about taking their foot off the gas, this week’s guest has plans to shake up the school curriculum.
Forget ‘Home Economics’ or ‘Food Technology’. Rosalind Rathouse’s vision is to offer every child aged between 5 and 15 the chance to go on an annual week-long intensive cookery course. She believes immersing the younger generation in the delights of baking bread or preparing a roast, would set them up for the rest of their lives – and give them real insight into nutrition and sustainability.
Rosalind knows what she’s talking about. Her teaching experience spans five decades, starting in South Africa in the late 1960s, with a bit of culinary bribery. And in the 16 years since her Cookery School at Little Portland Street opened, she has welcomed tens of thousands of students through its doors.
They include senior figures from all over Africa, taking part in Desmond Tutu’s African Leadership Institute Training Programme. And if you’re wondering what cookery has to do with executive coaching, all will become clear.
If you think ‘pop-up’ is a cheap and cheerful way of testing a business idea, then this week’s guest, Matt Grech-Smith, might just challenge that.
Matt is the co-founder of ‘Swingers, The Crazy Golf Club’. Their pop-up covered 7,000 square feet and took the best part of half a million pounds of investment. Luckily, their genius combination of crazy golf, cocktails and street food has led to two even bigger, and permanent sites, in the City and West End of London. New York is next on the list.
But, as you’ll hear, Matt and his co-founder Jeremy, have had several roller-coaster, ‘do or die’ moments. This includes a ‘slightly anguished’ conference call discussing whether or not to sign a hefty lease before they’d got planning permission on a 18,000 square foot site.
All this from a man who doesn’t see himself as an entrepreneur, but is obviously great at grabbing opportunities, particularly in immersive, experiential hospitality.
In the last 15 years, the way we drink coffee has gone through a revolution: from an instant brew in polystyrene cups to beans with known provenance, carefully selected and lovingly roasted.
Could tea soon follow in coffee’s footsteps? Yes, if this week’s guest, Jennifer Wood, founder of Canton Tea, has anything to do with it.
To build her business, Jennifer has travelled to remote mountainous regions like the ‘wild, wild Yunnan’, where tea bushes live to a thousand years and grow 40 feet high. The tea producers and masters she works with take the ritual of growing, harvesting and ageing the tea as seriously as leading vineyard owners do their prize wines.
When you hear how much hard work and knowledge goes into each cup of Canton’s artisanal tea – whether it’s black, green, oolong or the mind-blowing pu’erh – you’ll understand why Jennifer thinks that even the most basic cuppa is worth much, much more than 2p a bag. Her enthusiasm is so infectious, you’ll also want a ‘Cantonista’, championing quality, loose leaf tea, in your neck of the woods.
Bring on the tea revolution!
If I say ‘River Cottage’ to you, what comes to mind? Perhaps one of its campaigns: Fish Fight, or Chicken Out or War on Waste. Or maybe you’ve got one of the River Cottage handbooks, diving deep into foodie topics, from cheese to charcuterie.
That’s the striking thing about River Cottage and its team: the variety of what they do. What started as a docu-drama, following Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s attempts to set up his own smallholding 20 years ago, has now grown into a cookery and chefs’ school; three award-winning kitchens and the base for amazing banquet-style get-togethers.
Steven Lamb has been part of that journey, pretty much from the beginning. He arrived as the team’s new media expert, helping to build its presence online. But nowadays he’s better known as the Cottage’s curing and smoking guru, as well as its expert on cheese and dairy.
This is the second part of our two part conversation, so if you've not listened to part one yet, maybe start there.
If I say ‘River Cottage’ to you, what comes to mind? Perhaps one of its campaigns: Fish Fight, or Chicken Out or War on Waste. Or maybe you’ve got one of the River Cottage handbooks, diving deep into foodie topics, from cheese to charcuterie.
That’s the striking thing about River Cottage and its team: the variety of what they do. What started as a docu-drama, following Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s attempts to set up his own smallholding 20 years ago, has now grown into a cookery and chefs’ school; three award-winning kitchens and the base for amazing banquet-style get-togethers.
Steven Lamb has been part of that journey, pretty much from the beginning. He arrived as the team’s new media expert, helping to build its presence online. But nowadays he’s better known as the Cottage’s curing and smoking guru, as well as its expert on cheese and dairy.
In this, the first part of our conversation, we’ll explore the evolution of River Cottage and Steven’s own career, leaving Big Brother behind to embrace hospitality ‘from a standing start’.
On a massive rock that juts out into the English Channel, there’s a young man who cleverly mimics the salt lakes of the Camargue. Ok, what Jethro Tennant has created in the last two years is actually a mini version of these salt plains: carefully extracting the salt from the pristine water around Dorset’s Chesil Beach, and drying it in artificial heat which is powered by solar, wind and biomass energy.
And in just 24 months, demand for his product – Dorset Sea Salt – is growing steadily, from discerning delicatessens, farm shops and restaurants to big names like Selfridges.
Not bad for a start-up that began life with Jethro heaving jerry cans of sea water from the beach to his parent’s house, and experimenting with the evaporation process on his mum’s hob… for hours, and hours. (Don’t mention the gas bill!)
Perhaps the most intriguing thing is what triggered Jethro’s fascination for sea salt in the first place. I doubt if you’ll guess. You’ll just have to listen to find out.
Before we start, I wanted to let you know that we had a smidgen of a sound problem with this recording, so the audio quality is not where I usually like it to be... but I think the sheer determination of this week's guest will see us through.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again, for good reason: the world of food and drink would be a much duller place without the dogged perseverance and amazing palate of people like Alex Kammerling.
For around 3 years, the flat he shared became home to countless little bottles, each filled with different flowers, roots, bark, berries and spices...all gently macerating in alcohol.
Why? Because Alex was determined to create Britain's first ever stand-alone aperitif, in the tradition of an Aperol or Campari, but with a unique flavour of its own. He started with 100 different botanicals and spent months and months whittling them down… Hence lots of little bottles….
Most of us would never go down this alchemy route: we'd just sit back and order another G&T or Pimms. So what drove Alex? And did it work out the way he wanted?
Find out now...
MIDWEEK BONUS EPISODE - Although this podcast is aimed at anyone who loves food and drink it has a natural slant towards people who work in or around hospitality.
And If you listen to these conversations regularly, you’ll have noticed that certain issues keep cropping up. So as well as chatting about these issues, and trying to get people to think about them when choosing where to spend there money, it’s pretty awesome to also be able to give some advice as to how as an industry we work together. One way we do this is to meet up at shows and listen to speakers or brainstorm situations.
So In this episode we’re going to look at some of those issues and touch on what topics are going to be discussed at the Independent Hotel show this month.
So for example, words like ‘craft’, ‘artisan’ and ‘boutique’ have been borrowed by bigger brands, giving the impression that they are as bespoke as the little guy. But actually, if you listen to my chats with Joel from Bad Hand Coffee, or Pete from Bakehouse 24 or Claire from Chococo, you’ll realise they really aren’t.
Online Travel Agencies – known as OTAs in the trade – are another one. They’re great when you want to book a trip or room within a couple of clicks, but tough for the small hotels at the other end, who pay big in commission.
Oh, and then there’s Trip Adviser. Don’t get me started!
Instead let’s meet Miranda Martin, who runs The Independent Hotel Show, which takes place in Olympia, London on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th October. And if your inspired or irritated by any of the topics in this conversation, you can dive deeper by popping along to the show yourself, or I’m sure we’ll be touching on many of these topics again in future episodes of the podcast. Sign up for my weekly newsletter at humans of hospitality .co.uk.
This week you meet a champion of the sea and of preparing seafood simply and sustainably. Whether you’ve got one of his cookery books, visited his award-winning Seahorse and Rockfish restaurants or watched him on TV with world class rugby player Matt Dawson, you’ll know that Mitch Tonks is one of the country’s most fervent ambassadors for fish
You’ll hear just how fervent, when he talks about the planetary benefits of freezing fish; whether prawns should be on or off the menu and what he’s doing to make sure that the rubbish his trawlerman collects from the sea isn’t dumped straight back into the ocean.
He’s also great on the difference between real hospitality and the stage set version and why the willingness to chat is a must if you want to become a restaurant owner.
I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Mitch, and I'm confident you'll enjoy this weeks conversation.
A cheeky little mid week bonus episode this week from the lovely Jane and Dave who left the NHS and the MET Police to show hospitality makes a great choice of career change...
So, have you heard the one about the nurse, the police officer and the award-winning pies? You’re about to.
Dave and Jane’s journey to what they now call ‘Pie Land’ was not conventional. It began when they bought a convenience store in Worcester, thinking it would be a nice retirement project after busy careers in the Met and NHS. But with 600 customers a day, and a hungry demand for Dave’s pork rolls and Jane’s chocolate Tiffin, retirement was put on hold. And a good thing too, because without that foundation, Hampshire would not be enjoying what is a growing selection of delicious pies – from steak and kidney to gluten-free egg, bacon and chorizo, which earned the couple the accolade of ‘Supreme Champion’ in the 2019 Great Hampshire Sausage and Pie Competition.
Not bad for an operation that began, and has stayed, in the cellar of their home in South Sea. And that’s where I join them, at the end of a busy week producing 1000 pies….
I think it’s fair to say that over the last decade, we’re all trying to do our bit to help the planet. Whether it’s getting rid of single-use plastic or recycling, we know what we should be doing.
But actually, there’s one area of our lives that trumps all that effort: what we eat. As you’ll hear in this week’s conversation with Andrew Stephen, the CEO of the Sustainable Restaurant Association, the power of your appetite is phenomenal. As an individual, what you choose to eat, and where and when you choose to eat it, represent your biggest impact on the natural world.
As you’ll also hear, nothing is straightforward about the choices you make. For instance, soy is praised by many for replacing dairy products, but criticised by others for its part in the deforestation of the Amazon.
That is why the SRA is such a brilliant organisation. It helps restaurants and diners to find their way through the maze and understand how they can become more sustainable in a range of practical, achievable ways.
This week we’re learning about how to move food around planet earth via just the power of the wind. Awesome produce, better for the environment, direct from the producer to the consumer, delivered by the wind. I'm going to take you back in time, when beautiful tall ships criss-crossed the sea to deliver foods we couldn't grow ourselves.
You might think I'm describing the 18th or 19th century. Actually, I'm only turning the clock back by a few months, when a former herring logger called The Gallant sailed serenely into Newhaven, with a cargo of olive oil, almonds and sea salt.
This programme is about the amazing groups that have an impressive vision: to transport food and drink across oceans(and to our plates) in a way that is not only kinder to the planet, but - in the case of Sail Cargo South East - also supports community groups who benefit from being out on the sea.... Plus they give hospitality businesses like The Herb Kitchen brilliant stories to share about their wind-powered ingredients.
You’ll hear from Dan Cuss, co-founder of The Herb Kitchen later in the programme. But first we meet Dhara Thompson, co-founder of Sail Cargo Southeast and the Sail Boat Project based in Sussex...
Getting to chat to Michael was awesome, like meeting my brother from another mother. But he has a way cooler accent! I share Michael's views on a great deal of issues around hospitality...not least his thoughts around reviews, tripadvisor and the like. This really was an utterly delightful conversation.
You may already know Michael from the BBC's Great British Menu programme. In 2016 he did pretty well, getting to the finals. A year later, he went one better, winning the entire competition and the chance to prepare a banquet for Wimbledon Tennis Club.
Actually, Michael Bremner wasn't a stranger to preparing great food under the watchful gaze of the people just about to eat it. When he opened his first restaurant, 64 Degrees, in Brighton in 2013, he designed the restaurant so diners were just an arm's stretch away from the chefs. They could see the dishes coming together right in front of them. (The same early design also forgot about a bar: you'll hear how that turned out later!)
In the next hour you'll also discover how avoiding food envy has shaped Michael's award-winning menu...and how he and his partner Carla (who gets legendary status in this edition) had the wherewithal to open a second, very different restaurant only months after his marathon at Great British Menu.
In this episode we're going to learn alot about dairy farming, milk and happy cows. Grab a notebook, there is a lot to learn!
Tom Foot and Neil Grigg are too humble to say this, but in building up their Open Air Dairy, they've become true pioneers in their industry. What they do is awesome. Cows that live 13 years instead of 3 in intensive farming, less antibiotics, happier cows, happier humans, happier fields, awesome milk and cheese...what they've achieved is exciting for the future of farming.
Like many tenant farmers, they didn't have hundreds of thousands of pounds to build conventional sheds and indoor milking systems. So when a fantastic farm came their way, they had to think outside the box. Or as one observer put it, they took the box, ripped it up completely and threw it away!
Inspired by a farmer in the 1920s, they've transformed second-hand trailers and bails into mobile milking parlours. Instead of herding their cattle to a shed every day, they take the sheds direct to the cows. Everything really is done in the open air, all year round!
What started as a cost-saving exercise - and the figures will astound you - has thrown up so many more benefits: great tasting milk; family-friendly working hours and super-relaxed cattle. I should know. A few of them enjoyed rubbing themselves against me as I recorded this conversation with Tom.
Enjoy my nervousness as I work out whether they are bulls or heffers.
Love Drinks, has two clear strands to it: first, to share the amazing stories behind the spirits portfolio Kirsty has built up since 2007. Whether it’s an organic cachaca or a cold-brew coffee cut with wheat vodka, all the independent brands distributed by Love Drinks are created with dedication and craftsmanship – and they all feed into Kirsty’s philosophy of drinking less and better.
The second – Love Well - goes back to when Kirsty was in her early 20s. The late nights and long hours triggered a series of panic attacks and a realisation that she had to look after herself. As you’ll hear, she’s applied the look-after-your-wellbeing principle to the whole of her team and to bartenders in general.
No wonder Kirsty’s been given a British Empire Medal for services to the drinks industry.
In this episode we're going to learn about farmed fish. When Hugo Hardman and Arthur Voelcker launched ChalkStream® in 2015, people tended to dismiss farmed trout as small, bony and muddy; salmon's much poorer cousin.
That's why, in the early days, they had to get right in front of chefs, and show them what farmed trout could really become - if it was grown in fast-flowing clear waters that mimic the conditions of the fish's natural habitat: the Test and Itchen chalk stream rivers in Hampshire.
As you'll hear, their so-called 'power point presentation' of a framed photograph and a large glistening trout on ice, worked wonders. Now ChalkStream clients include big names such as P&O Ferries, British Airways and Wimbledon, as well as top restaurants all over the UK... and the trout farmers Hugo and Arthur work with face a much more secure future.
Discover how, in the space of a few years, this partnership has managed to shake up trout farming in an impressively sustainable way.
https://www.chalkstreamfoods.co.uk
James Golding’s impressive chef career has come full circle. Yes, he’s worked with some very big names in London and New York. He learned his craft under Anton Edelmann at The Savoy and then moved to Le Caprice, working for Mark Hix. And as Head Chef at Soho House in New York, his team cooked for A list actors, music stars and royalty.
But he began his culinary journey in and around the New Forest, foraging for mushrooms with his dad, and getting ‘bored out of his mind’ at Mr Bartlett’s, the butchers, when his parents were having nice chats about cuts of meat. Fast forward around 20 years and James is back in his childhood stomping ground of Hampshire and Dorset.
And as Group Chef Director of THE PIG, he makes sure that all the restaurants source their ingredients either from their own kitchen gardens or from producers within a 25 mile radius. That includes beautiful cuts of meat, which James turns into British charcuterie with – wait for it – Mr Bartlett’s son!
Passion has definitely replaced boyhood boredom, as you’ll hear…
Simon Tolson has had his fair share of highs and lows to get to where he is now in hospitality.
An early high point was his first paid day as a fisherman. Since the age of 3 he’d wanted to fish and he felt like an astronaut when he stepped onto the deck…. But several years later, now married and with a mortgage, he had to switch careers. He left the sea for a surprisingly different job - selling printers and photocopiers for Pitney Bowes.
That led to a new high, because the sales skills Simon developed not only worked for office equipment. They came in handy when he turned his attention to holiday homes. It was the early noughties, and there were generous tax breaks if you were renovating a property as a holiday let. Simon and a colleague began to build a new business, offering holiday homes as promising investments.
So far, so good. But then in 2007, everything changed….
In this programme you’ll hear how Simon worked his way out of the prolonged low that followed… And how, despite challenging odds, he’s now the proud owner of Rumsey Holiday Homes, with beautiful views of the sea and the occasional chance to fish...
If you decided to open a restaurant that focussed on oysters and meat- on-the bone, you probably wouldn’t have done it in 2008. First there was the financial crisis and credit crunch. Then there was a lingering memory of the meat-on-the-bone ban, triggered by BSE several decades before.
Mark Hix’s decision was perhaps all the more surprising because the job he was leaving – Executive Head Chef of Le Caprice restaurant group, which included famous venues like The Ivy and J Sheekey – was the sort of plum role other chefs would give their eye teeth for.
But it turned out very well in the end: his ‘HIX Oyster and Chop House’ marked the start of an award-winning family of HIX restaurants, in London and in Dorset…and put Mark in the forefront of the modern British food movement, celebrating farmers, food producers and fisherman in his menus and in his annual Food Rocks Festival in Lyme Regis.
Discover how it all happened for a boy who was more interested in golf than food…and then discovered he was rather good at cooking after all…
For someone who had no business plan, but thought he’d be alright because there was a Waitrose round the corner, Pete Joy, at Bakehouse 24 is doing pretty well.
Pete’s love of mixing and kneading emerged out of the blue, one night, when his housemates were at band practice. Having the place to himself, he decided not to do a normal thing like ordering Chinese, but to make a cake instead. This wasn’t a one-off: Pete soon developed a serious baking habit, which led to a 3am-to-midday job at a pioneering sourdough bakery under a Hackney railway arch.
In this episode you’ll hear how the man with no plan is successfully building a team of sourdough bakers (one of whom is also a potter) across two sites in Dorset...and why he gets a bit ranty on the topics of gluten intolerance and interpretations of the word ‘sourdough’.... You’ll probably sympathise by the end of the conversation. Enjoy.
My guest this week, Jason Barber, puts it like this: if you’ve been sitting behind a cow for 15 to 20 years, your mind has time to wonder about the best way to use the milk you’re producing.
The Barbers are the world’s oldest surviving family of cheddar makers. They’ve been making cheese and producing milk for over 200 years – and up until recently, conventional dairy products had done them proud. But then, in 2012, Jason launched something very different: the world’s first and only vodka to be made entirely out of milk.
In the last 7 years since it arrived on the scene, Jason’s farm has had to ramp up production of its unique Black Cow Vodka from a couple of thousand bottles a year to between 120 and 130 thousand. Its fans include local delis, farm shops and bars, as well as major supermarkets and – as you’ll hear – a clutch of A-list Hollywood stars.
Discover how a piece of yeast, the size of a flea, was the start of this incredible story…and how Jason and his talented business partner Archie turned Black Cow into a global brand.
There has never, ever, been anything quite like The Ned in the UK before. Created from the former headquarters of the Midland Bank, in the heart of the City Of London, the Grade I listed building is now home to 10 restaurants, 250 bedrooms, 6 private event spaces, a spa, a gym and a club with over 3000 members…
In any given week, 30,000 meals are served on the ground floor alone. As its managing director, Gareth Banner, says modestly, ‘for a single address there are a lot of moving parts….’
Just three years ago, when he was looking through the dust and the scaffolding at what was the final phase of five years of renovation, he knew it would be special. As you’ll hear, his career – which takes in stints with global brand The Marriott as well as iconic boutique hotel, The Hempel – is also impressive. It went some way to prepare him for this amazing project. But actually, as you’ll hear, the biggest learning has happened since The Ned opened its doors to the public two years ago.
‘Unique’ is often misused as a word, but this week you’ll hear about a delicious food product that really is one of a kind. In the early 1980s, dairy farmer Michael Davies resurrected a 300 year-old recipe for Dorset Blue Vinny – a subtly veined cheese which is much more delicate than Stilton, its nearest relative.
Nowadays, Michael’s daughter Emily is in charge of production – overseeing the only farm in the world that has the legal right to produce this type of blue cheese.
Today you’ll hear how the patient Davies family had to put up with blue mould on their cornflakes, in the early days of Michael’s cheese experiments…and why Emily describes beta versions as ‘nuclear’!
You’ll also discover how a disappointing trip to a farmers’ market led to a whole new branch of the Blue Vinny business…and why wonky cucumbers and misshapen cheese off-cuts have a special place in Emily’s heart…
Enjoy the conversation…
The world’s disused car parks, markets and office blocks need Jonathan Downey. In Street Feast he’s taken the idea of street food to a whole new level. At night, what were neglected sites come alive with tantalising smells of pizza, steamed buns, tacos and chicken wings ...along with the buzz of conversation and glowing light boxes of all shapes and sizes.
JD's hospitality journey over 20 YEARS is exceptional. Match Bar, Sosho, Milk and Honey, Street Feasts, 2 million visitors a year, Dinerama, Giant Robot, Hawker House...hold on tight...it's quite the adventure!
The four very different Street Feasts bring together speciality bars and food traders who each do just one thing, and do it really, really well... And it was because London in the 1990s wasn’t doing nightlife well, that Jonathan decided to combine his corporate lawyer role with a new career as a bar and club operator. It was a crazy thing to do – suited and booted by day, scrubbing walls by night – but it worked for a while.... until the inevitable ‘ouch’ moment arrived. But when that came, Jonathan freed himself up to work on more amazing hospitality ideas.
Imagine. You’re about to open your first restaurant to the public. Your wife, who’s front of house, is 8 ½ months pregnant. You’re the chef –and you’ve never cooked professionally before. But you buy a couple of recipe books and some chef whites, and off you go. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Yet this is what Alex Aitken did in 1983.
It was the start of a Michelin-starred career which has evolved in incredible ways and is still going strong. Today, Alex is spreading his love of locally sourced food – whether foraged, fished or farmed –through a growing number of award-winning restaurants, carrying ‘The Jetty’ name.
As you will hear, his passion for sourcing food sustainably harks back to his teenage years as a deck hand on North Sea trawlers. He’s got hair-raising tales of mistaking World War II mines for bumper catches... and a mischievous tale about why he likes fiddling with the music volume while you’re eating your meal in his hotel restaurants. It’s only a bit of fun... Enjoy
Michael and Joy Michaud at Sea Spring Seeds are chilli growing experts who took the world by surprise one April 1st, when they revealed they’d developed the world’s hottest chilli plant, the Dorset Naga. It wasn’t an April fool, even though it seemed absurd that this world record-breaking chilli had been reared in a lush, damp corner of Dorset, far removed from its original Bangladeshi home.
The patience and dedication it takes to develop a unique and world first type of chilli was a real eye opener. The Dorset Naga is just one of many wonderful chillis grown by the couple – along with a wide range of vegetable seeds, carefully selected for their productivity and flavour, like the tender sweet roots of the Primo carrot!
In this programme I get some great chilli-culinary tips from Joy… as well as an insight into the huge dedication and patience that goes into creating those tiny miracles: seeds….
When it comes to chocolatier-patissiers, William Curley is a world-class player. He’s one of only 7 chefs in the UK to have achieved ‘Master of Culinary Arts’. The chance to earn this accolade – which is the culinary equivalent of a Nobel Prize – only comes round every 4 years…and it took William three attempts. Gruelling, as you’ll hear…
Perhaps it’s not surprising that William has done so brilliantly. As well as having natural talent, he’s fostered that talent by working with the best, from the moment he became an apprentice at Gleneagles, followed by stints with acclaimed chefs such as Pierre Koffmann, Anton Edelmann, Raymond Blanc and Marco Pierre White.
You might think that working with big personalities and big brands (Harrods, Claridges, The Savoy …I could go on) would have gone to his head. Not a bit of it. As you’ll hear, William is delightful, down-to-earth and humbled by the fact he was able to crowd-fund his latest venture: his own shop in the heart of Soho. This means he can continue to be hands-on, creating amazing chocolates and chocolate patisserie. Be warned, your mouth will water during the course of this conversation… Enjoy.
British wine use to have a reputation, but not one we wanted. Now it's taking on the French at their own game with some of the best sparkling in the world. As chair of Wine GB Simon is the perfect guest to chat to to find out why and how.
If you’d said to Simon Robinson in 2008 that his Hattingley Valley vineyards would have the capacity – in a really good year – to produce 580,000 bottles of wine…or that his sparkling rose would be crowned a world champion, he would have said you were crackers.
And yet, in just over a decade, Hattingley and other GB newcomers have done brilliantly in what is a very old industry…even though in the early days our efforts were written off as being poor copies of German varieties like Riesling and Muller-Thergau.
In this conversation you’ll discover why our sparkling wines are now doing so well and why Simon calls his sector ‘agriculture on steroids’: it will make your eyes water when you do and you’ll wonder why on earth he gave up his partner position at a city law firm to go on such a rollercoaster...
Michael Stoate is a fifth generation miller in Dorset, whose family have been producing stoneground flour since 1832. That means he knows a lot about flour. It was the era when sailing ketches would carry the flour across the Severn to Swansea and return with coal for the mills. As a teenager he thought he’d be an engineer but he had so much fun getting his hands dirty in the holidays he couldn’t help but join the family business. In this conversation you’ll learn about the wonder of wheat germ – the embryo of life, which gives bread its gorgeous flavour – and what really happens to it in modern mechanised milling… That might help you work out how bread now can last for days, but when you were a kid, or in France, it lasted just a few hours. And you’ll see how Michael has adapted to the ever-changing bread scene: from the lows of the late 80s and 90s, when his whole-food shop market disappeared to brighter times, with our growing interest in continental breads, artisanal baking and sourdough. I learnt a lot, and I hope you do too. Enjoy x
When David Richards was made redundant from his sales director role, finding a new one at 50 was very hard. Luckily, he had always loved cooking and smoking cuts of meat in the garden, so when his wife Karen suggested that there might be a business in curing, they gave it a shot.
10 years later their company, Capreolus, has won countless awards for its ever-increasing range of mouth-watering charcuterie and smoked foods, from pancetta and air-dried pork loin to the magnificently named Rampisham Tingler Salami.
In this edition you’ll discover why it’s so important to get the right sort of business funding – if you can; why the fat of rare breed animals is the star of good charcuterie… and what it’s like dealing with restaurant food crazes, where smoked venison might suddenly replace air-dried beef, and you realise, with a sinking heart, that you have no venison on the premises and a six month lead time…
In terms of career variety, I doubt if many can match Nick Leach’s 4 decades in hospitality. One of his first jobs was working as the King of Saudi Arabia’s personal chef on a £9 million motor yacht. After that he found himself ‘catering to excess’, for merchant bankers in London, where £25,000 a week was set aside for caviar alone – served in huge swan ice carvings.
This was in stark contrast to his next role as General Manager at Kings College Hospital, where his daily budget per patient was £1.76 – and that had to cover 7 hot drinks a day, in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner.
For the last 18 years he’s been drawing on this wealth experience to manage the catering at the University of Portsmouth. In any one week he has a potential 29,000 hungry students and staff to feed…and he still makes time to take his chefs to see local food producers – from the organic dairy and flour mill to the free-range chicken farm.
Amazing man, amazing stories. Enjoy!
In 1910 Ceri Cryer’s great-grandfather established the country’s first ever pedigree Friesian herd of cows, in a beautiful corner of Wiltshire.
A hundred years later, Ceri is doing her family’s farming history proud: the Friesian descendants produce the milk which Ceri turns into award-winning cheeses – from the traditional Wiltshire Loaf to newcomers, such as the oozilyunctiuous Royal Bassett Blue.
In this conversation we discover where Wiltshire cheeses feature in Jane Austin’s novels…and how each batch of Ceri’s cheese is influenced by a mind-blowing number of factors, starting from the herbs her cows nibble in the fields…
That’s in addition to exploring the real cost of milk and yoghurt, and why Ceri is unlikely to give you a discount, but her husband Chad might …
Plus you’ll get Ceri’s top tips on how not to waste a crumb of food. This includes feeding leftover home-made mead to the pigs, with some interesting results….
Enjoy the conversation
Travel is what makes Barefaced Brewing tick: Nick Horne and Tom Cooper have been friends since they were 3. But in their 20s they were working in bars and breweries at opposite sides of the world – Tom in Edinburgh, Nick in Sydney. When Tom sent a Facebook message saying he was really keen to set up an indie brewery, Nick flew across the globe a few days later, rocked up in the bar where Tom was working and said, ‘Let’s do it’.
And they have. They choose their hops not only for their distinctive taste but because they conjure up the atmosphere of a particular place, from resinous and refreshing Canada to super-bold, tropical Australia. And trust me, they know their hops: they reckon they’ve each tasted 6,000 different beers over the last decade or so. Tough research, but someone has to do it…
In this programme you’ll discover that the lads owe a lot to Tom’s super-patient mum and sussed grandfather… but (in the nicest possible way) slightly less to his dad…how they crowd-funded a mad dash to Italy and back… and how they have set up their partnership very neatly so, should they ever fall-out (hopefully not as childhood friends) their business will survive…
Cabrito’s mission is to put all billy goats born in to the dairy industry into the meat industry. Ex-chef James Whetlor knew he could something about the plight of the male billy goats, who are historically euthanised at birth in the dairy industry.
James realised that goat meat had potential when his roast goat leg with lentils, salsa verde and chive flowers flew off the menu at the River Cottage Canteen around 8 years ago. Soon after, James sold his first kids to one of the Great British Chefs, Jeremy Lee at Quo Vadis. Since then his customer base has grown to include more award-winning restaurants... and with Goatober, he wants hundreds of other venues to include goat on the menu.
In fact, Cabrito has a global vision: to inspire every meat-eater – from Europe to India and Australia to America – to put goat meat on their shopping list at least once a month. Why don’t we do that now? As you’ll hear it’s down to a very strange quirk of history, which has led to millions of billies needlessly disappearing.
James is International Director of Goatober working with partners in America, Europe and Australia and is consultant for the European ‘Food Heroes’ project, which aims to end food waste in farming across the EU. James’ first book GOAT: Cooking and Eatinghas been widely acclaimed as genre-defining and is nominated for a James Beard award 2019.
This episode is a must listen. Enjoy.
For Emma Goss-Custard, baking without flour came naturally to her as a student in the 90s. She much preferred the luxurious texture and taste of cakes made from ground almonds and polenta. And she kept going – even when well-meaning friends said her approach of replacing wheat with premium ingredients would never work. People wanted cheap cakes with a long shelf-life, didn’t they?
Luckily, her friends were wrong. In this conversation you’ll hear how Emma managed to win over customers like John Lewis and Harvey Nichols early on in her business career… and how, 20 years on, her gluten-free bakery Honeybuns, is still thriving, even though the cake world has become amazingly competitive.
You’ll also learn how challenging it is to create dairy-free bakes that survive being jostled around in delivery vans…. And how Emma has turned old farm buildings into, arguably, the prettiest office-spaces in the UK. It’s like walking into a fairy land, with bunting and twinkly lights. That’s where you join us now…
Oli Perron, founder of Lunch’d, which delivers beautifully put-together salads, stroganoffs, stir-fries and more to your office…. Zingy, punchy flavours packed into a handy box. Hear how the early days were, in his words, ‘a bit of a car crash’, preparing 65 lunches in the kitchen which he shared with his long-suffering flatmate, Tom… AND he was having problems paying the rent. Find out how he survived that car crash: he’s now successfully delivered 24,000 lunches. He is confident that people love his food enough to subscribe to his lunchboxes… and that he can give Uber Eats and Deliveroo a run for their money.
Teenage memories of choosing individual mouth-watering chocolates in Belgium, France and Holland are behind Claire Burnet’s jokey suggestion that she and her husband Andy leave their London jobs and make chocolates in Dorset instead.
Soon after, they’d converted a small hairdressing salon in Swanage into a chocolate kitchen, complete with viewing window… and a tiny shop upstairs. Yes, that’s right: upstairs!
It was 2002, and Chococo found itself in the vanguard of pioneering chocolate makers: only using fresh ingredients from local producers and sourcing chocolate with a clear provenance from countries like Madagascar, Venezuela and Grenada.
Find out why Claire and Andy use Raisetrade chocolate (it’s different to Fairtrade) … and how the mantra ‘spend a little, learn a lot’ has helped the couple grow their business from that tiny kitchen to four buzzing Chocolate Houses in Hampshire, Devon and Sussex, as well as Dorset…
When Giles and his wife Annie took a late gap year and went on a 38,000 mile motorbike trip round the Mediterranean basin, they had no idea it would be the start of a successful business.
26 years later, Olives Et Al has created 400 products and they still use recipes given to them by the families they met on that original trip: generations of history that span 6000 years, harvesting olives from trees that are two and a half thousand years old.
As we chat you’ll discover why it’s a good idea not to tick off a customer when they dip their fingers into your olive taster bowl, why our attitudes towards food quality would do well to mirror our attitudes to luxury cars and the importance of how you exit your car at the office!
Find out why looking at a builder’s backside was the catalyst that led to Jimmy's version of iced coffee, now stocked in pretty much every UK supermarket… and with its sights set much further afield, including Ireland, Sweden and Dubai. Hear the crazy things Jimmy does to spread the word about his drink, including talking to audiences of 300, dressed as a carton… and orchestrating what’s known as a ‘massive activation’ at a mainline railway station. (Sounds like a security alert, but actually it’s a neat way to promote your products). Find out how he felt about stepping away from the role of MD, and handing it over to someone who hadn’t seen his company grow up…
This week I talk to Helen Browning, OBE: Chief Executive of the Soil
Association, visionary organic farmer and, with her partner Tim, owner of The Royal Oak and Chop House. An uplifting, thought-provoking conversation exploring Helen’s journey. As you’ll learn, being ahead of the curve is not always an easy place to be. We also try to put the world to rights, so we can solve the problem of feeding 10 billion humans and keeping the planet intact. I LOVED this conversation. Enjoy x
Andy Lennox started his career as a ‘KP’, a kitchen porter, peeling potatoes. When he was 21, he teamed up with two friends to create Koh Thai, a restaurant in Dorset, offering authentic Thai cooking with a South of France style of service. As Andy put it, they ‘knew nothing and learned on the trot’ – only realising 6 months in that they needed tills, rather than paper to relay orders to the kitchen and the bar.
Soon the pace picked up to a gallop, as the Koh Thai concept took off and 11 more Kohs opened in Dorset, Hampshire and Somerset… It was great, but there were growing pains, as you’ll discover - like the fact that a deal is never sealed until the signature’s on the dotted line…
10 years on, Andy is onto his next concept, ‘Zim Braai’: the earthy, smokey slow cooked oxtail and wild boar potjies…bunny chows, curries in a bun…and ‘braais’ – barbeques that bring people together.
Rupert Holloway, founder of Conker Gin was a successful (and miserable) chartered surveyor who wanted to change direction, dramatically. Luckily he had Emily, his understanding girlfriend, now wife. Find out how a series of weird texts helped to create an enticing brand for their gin, which is now served at Marco Pierre White’s establishments, among many other places!
In this episode we chat to Joe Lovett from Bad Hand coffee roasters in Bournemouth, Dorset. The conversation is very much in two halves, initially regaling Joe's journey and story and how an abandoned stable, brothel and crack den became his perfect home. We touch on plant powered diets, low commitment dining and confusing roasts with Sunday lunch! The 2nd half is more industry specific as Joe nails the reason for this podcasts existence and emphasises the financial challenges of hospitality and going in with your eyes wide open! Enjoy the conversation.
In this trailer Mark Cribb, your host, introduces the concept of Humans of Hospitality, why he's set it up, a few sample clips from guests, what he's hoping to achieve from these conversations and even why a pineapple is in the logo. It's a great place to start before diving into an episode.
David Sax left his safe career in finance to invest in his first venture, The Cow. It was an overnight success, later winning the highest pub accolade (think Oscar/Olympic Gold Medal rolled into one), National Pub of the Year. Then he had the likes of Guy Ritchie, Madonna and Jeremy Clarkson as his customers, when he took over another amazing pub, The Museum Inn.
Eventually David had to sell both, because up-to-18-hour days were taking their toll on his bank balance and his family. So why, oh why, is he coming back after a six-year break? Creating a café-bar-bistro hybrid, open from early morning to late at night? (More 18 hour days??) David says he might have a screw loose. You decide when you hear the rollercoaster story behind his latest venture Maison Sax…
The post Episode 2
David Sax – Maison Sax appeared first on Humans Of Hospitality.
David Sax left his safe career in finance to invest in his first venture, The Cow. It was an overnight success, later winning the highest pub accolade (think Oscar/Olympic Gold Medal rolled into one), National Pub of the Year. Then he had the likes of Guy Ritchie, Madonna and Jeremy Clarkson as his customers, when he took over another amazing pub, The Museum Inn.
Eventually David had to sell both, because up-to-18-hour days were taking their toll on his bank balance and his family. So why, oh why, is he coming back after a six-year break? Creating a café-bar-bistro hybrid, open from early morning to late at night? (More 18 hour days??) David says he might have a screw loose. You decide when you hear the rollercoaster story behind his latest venture Maison Sax…
In this trailer Mark Cribb, your host, introduces the concept of Humans of Hospitality, why he's set it up, a few sample clips from guests, what he's hoping to achieve from these conversations and even why a pineapple is in the logo. It's a great place to start before diving into an episode.
The post Humans of Hospitality Trailer appeared first on Humans Of Hospitality.
In this episode we chat to Steve Farrell from Eight arch brewery in Wimborne, Dorset. We talk a little about the beer making process but more about about big brands, small brands and how Steve went from terrible home-brew all the way to his award winning beers available across the County and Country. Enjoy the conversation.