The Rousset interview
the ones that make it most personal. There’s a company in Manchester called Almost Famous who are more than half-crazy and that comes across on their Twitter feed. They are now incredibly popular for what started off as a small burger joint with about 50,000 followers.
XR Why did you call them all Hawksmoor, rather than, say, Chez Will? WB Chez Will! If Huw was here he’d be in hysterics about the idea of me doing a restau- rant on my own. There’d be a load of nice people standing around, but the food would be terri- ble. Whereas if Huw was doing one, there’d be really nice food that would never make it to the table because it would be so disorganised. When we had four different restaurants – cocktail bar Redchurch, a Mexican bar and res- taurant, a gastropub and Hawksmoor – it was so hard. If there was a problem, you had to find four different solutions. We always liked the idea that you could do something that wasn’t a chain – I think peo- ple use that term quite pejoratively – but more like a brand. With a brand in, say, the fashion world, you know what you are going to get and are excited about it.
XR How do you change the angle for each site? WB One of the things I think we do well is that we are not assuming. We don’t open some- where and say, ‘You are going to like this, trust me – it’s worked in other places’. We work out how we can take the core of what we do and adapt it to a local area. We’ve just opened our first restaurant out- side London, in Manchester, and we decided to take longer over opening it because we wanted to get to know the city and work out how Hawksmoor could adapt so it feels like part of the area.
XR For a non chef-led restaurant serving good food, do you think the future is in good food or good service? WB For Hawksmoor, both those things are very important. Ask Huw and he will say the number one thing that will bring Hawks- moor down is a dip in the food quality. We’ve been going to New York on and off since 2009. Back then it was streets ahead – the service was incredible, the design was incredible, the food was incredible. When I went back a few weeks ago, I thought that in a few of those areas we had at the very least caught up.
The food is amazing in London at the moment – the design in some restaurants is very good – but I think the service has a lot of catching up to do. In some it blows you away, but in others they don’t seem like they are there to help you have a good time; they know the menu, but don’t have passion for it.
XR Why do you think that is the case? My theory is that it’s because front of house is not taken seriously as a job yet in the UK. WB I think we are on that path. If I compare it to when we started, so many more people, especially in their mid-20s, see this as a career.
32 | The Caterer | 20 March 2015
And restaurants like ours take their develop- ment seriously. We’re getting there. I was talking to one of our managers about how his parents saw his job, and he said it wasn’t until he started at Hawksmoor and they came in that they realised that this is a com- pany that can offer you a future and they were happy. That’s missing in a lot of companies.
XR My view is that if the food is good the people will come back, but if the service is bad they won’t. WB I’ve heard someone say that good food won’t rescue bad service, but good service can rescue bad food – I think there is some- thing in that. Outside of London especially, you have to get the service right. My restau- rant hero is Danny Meyer. His service teams have an amazing culture – they are all really interested. I love the fact that he has built a big company without selling out any of the things that made him a successful small company.
XR What are your and Huw’s specific skills? WB I can’t think of any other restaurateurs apart from Huw and me who genuinely don’t know how to run service in a restaurant. If you put either of us anywhere near service in our restaurants, it would be a disaster. We’ve got a good understanding of what
makes a good restaurant and how to run one, but we can’t cook, can’t make cocktails, aren’t good waiters and have never been managers in a restaurant. We are good at surrounding ourselves with skilled people – that is our skill.
XR How do you view skill levels in the industry? WB The pool of really good staff is growing as more people come into it and more peo- ple stay. But it is not growing at the same rate as the pool of good restaurants. When things calm down a bit, I think those two things will catch up with each other. Something we have worked on for years is working out how we can give people really good careers, train them and pay them a good amount of money. And going back to your first question about what makes a good restaurant – if you get good people through the door, that matters. You could have the best menu in the world, but if no good chefs want to cook it, then you’re nowhere. Or you could have a place built around great service, but if you can’t attract and keep good people, then it’s not going to work. The restaurant industry stands and falls on who works for you.
Next month
Xavier Rousset speaks to legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and Shake Shack
www.thecaterer.com
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