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most nights, which was part of the success story. I’m not saying the team couldn’t do the job without me – quite the contrary – but if I wasn’t there I would actually feel guilty. I always wanted everything to be absolutely perfect and how I wanted it to be.


How did you tell the staff about the closure? I told them at 4pm and the press release went out at 5pm. Their phones went bonkers with job offers, and I had 25,000 requests for covers that I couldn’t fill. It’s reassuring in a way that their phones went wild at one minute past five, but also shows how unscrupulous some bosses are, trying to tempt them away before closure. I sat them all down the following week indi- vidually and went through the due process and asked each of them what they intended to do: whether they would go or stay until the last service. Every single person stayed until the end, which was magnificent. Those last five months were extraordinary. We were busy, but if anything it gave a huge boost to the team. It felt like we were achieving something spe- cial, particularly with the atmosphere and the buzz every day.


You’ve found a home for almost everything that was in the restaurant. Was it a wrench to part with some of the artwork and memorabilia? It hurt a little. I mean, it was a practical thing to do and there was no way I was going to find room for all that artwork and silverware and everything else. Funnily enough, I spoke to Pierre Koffmann just before I signed off on a deal with Christie’s on the auction and he said to me, ‘you know what? Just sell everything’. He said that when he closed Le Tante Claire. He put everything he had collected into stor- age for six years. He wished he’d just sold it. He was right.


July 2024 | The Caterer | 5


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