Future Food Stars? What needs to change?

This weekend, after an enjoyable trek to the rather excellent Couch in Stirchley, followed by a pizza upon our return to the JQ at the ever convenient and dangerously-close-to-my-house Otto, I was in dire need of some sofa and TV time. To be horizontal is to return to my happiest state.  A sluggish flick of the channel changer happened upon Ramsay’s latest show.  It is, to all intents and purposes, a caggie-handed rip-off of The Apprentice – with Ramsay as similarly wooden as the orange-tinged tech behemoth, Alan Sugar.  It is also a timely and worrying reminder that – even in a day and age where hospitality staffing is publicly and demonstrably in crisis – the establishment hasn’t got a fucking clue how to nurture or encourage willing talent.

We watched as contestants were sent potholing for vintage cheddar.  In a later task, they were judged on the speed with which they could harvest oysters.  Now I need to be clear that on both these tasks I would have failed miserably.  Be that claustrophobia leading to an inevitable panic attack in a poky cave with a bit of cheese, or, as an oyster fiend, for Gordon to find me off-camera with several oysters as I sob uncontrollably, “I’m so-so-sorry Gordon, I couldn’t help myself,” and a single oyster slides out of my little frown. 

The point I make, aside my own degeneracy, is that for a show with candidates from variously a food manufacturing business, a cake shop, a restaurant, and a health food brand, these tasks are borderline irrelevant to their career aspiration.  A cynic may presume tasks are selected on the basis of what makes good TV, not on any fair reflection of talent or potential. Ex-contestants have certainly said enough to suggest the show is liberal on the edit, scant on the support. 

Now this isn’t just fucking Gordon’s fucking problem – this is true to degrees to nearly all food TV.  Even my beloved GBM is not immune to a little of the ole artifice.  Creative license. I get it, making TV is hard work, but then most shows don’t proclaim with such authority to be the platform to launch new talent into the stratosphere.

So, what, in all seriousness, would represent a fair shot for the real future stars of food?  A miscellany of thoughts:

1.     Better financial literacy

Business is business and cash is, regrettably, king.  Most restaurants will crash due to cash flow issues way sooner than inherent issues with the business model, cooking, service, etc. (paging Nocturnal Animals) and yet most chefs work through kitchens with little to no financial literacy only to then tumble into doing it for themself.  I began my unorthodox career as an accountant and even with that working knowledge, I’ve fucked this one up. 

We need to find a way to make finance sexy, or at the very least palatable.  We share data and results openly with team of all levels – including, if they’re interested, template documents for all the key systems that we run our business on.  I think we are mostly alone in that.  If we want to set talent up to one day have their own venue we can enjoy, there needs to be a culture of levelling up all skills not just chiffonade, brunoise, or any other number of culinary specific “tekkers.” 

2.     A property revolution

Property is the biggest obstacle for most budding restaurateurs.  It is a minefield unlike any other and the single biggest headache.  Some will find a lucrative backer (I, myself, am always on the look-out for a Sugar Daddy) or have family money, but many of our future food stars won’t.  They will be staring down £25-30k minimum rental per year for a modest unit that will fit a kitchen and a sensible number of covers.  Legal costs will eat a few more grand, Stamp Duty potentially another chunk.  You’ll need to have a license, which will cost you just under a grand.  And this is before you touch a fit-out or hit any obstacles.  My best estimate is £10k minimum before you even get the keys.  Do we really believe in present economic times we can expect that sort of cash at the disposal of young chefs, bartenders, somms, and co.?

As above, nobody prepares you and it is a world full of acronyms and terms that make zero fucking sense and all sound the same.  There needs to be a property revolution – with engaged landlords willing to bear the brunt of costs and to take on a fair share of mentorship.  It is everyone’s mutual interest to see leaseholders succeed, so it is a mind boggler that so few do anything to aid this.  Instead, you end up with businesses crashing, a conveyor belt of leaseholders and, ultimately, dead spaces with vacant units.  Think on your nearest high street and tell me what you see.  I know of one landlord in this city making efforts to change how the system works – we need more.  Or we can just board up the high streets now and send wannabe restaurateurs down a small hole to fish for cheese.

3.     Fair and transparent access to finance for start-ups

So, for those who don’t have the wealth to really do this, how do we enable a fair shot?  Perhaps they could fight to the death in a gladiator ring with only locally-grown asparagus as weapons, whilst Gino di Campo judges from an ivory tower.  No? Ok, so we need something fair and based on merit.  Killjoy.

Hospitality is, quite rightly, seen as a risky industry.  The complexities of it make it a higher risk sector to raise funding in. Especially given it can take some years to achieve profitability. 

Most government and bank options won’t help – I’ve tried – leaving it as a primarily private equity route. Private equity can be great – I have (now) some brilliant business partners – and can also be the wild west leaving operators fucked, under-funded, and effectively impotent in their own business.

There ought to be a third route that allows for modest investment with a repayment mechanism that speaks to individual business.  A system that takes a holistic view on business – from business plan, individual talent and – of course – data.  Having the option to create your own hospitality business shouldn’t be gamified.  Future food stars will rely on us taking it far more seriously than that.

4.     Better Role Models

Now gentle reader, firstly, I don’t mean me.  I am a rogue attempting to be better, and a veteran of stupid mistakes.  But I also object to the chefs we platform, let alone put in a pseudo-mentorship role.  Those of us running restaurants now are un-doing a decade of kitchen nightmares, which turned into prime-time entertainment the trope of aggressive chef.  The media see no contradiction and, from what I’ve heard, Ramsay really amps it up for TV.  Part-pantomime villain, part once a genuinely godly chef. That said, I can’t agree with any narrative that re-enforces the idea that success and anger come hand in hand.  I’ve had enough pans lobbed at me on the way up to know there is a new narrative, I think, at play for the next generation. 

There are lots of bad ideas out there – business ideas that aren’t good enough – but I want to see a culture where it’s okay to have them, and where those of us who have served our time want to sincerely help shape them. An idea may not be good enough yet, or it may need more work, more experience, whatever, but most incredible restaurants stem from what was once an improbable dream.  Or nightmare, sometimes.

The sensationalism of the business TV genre is, frankly, a load of shit. Wouldn’t it be more encouraging for the brave dreamers who will be the business owners of tomorrow to see a roadmap for genuine support, encouragement, and practical steps to get there. 

5.     The End of Competition

Not just the competition that spurred me in my cranky disgust to write this post, but genuinely the end of the idea that success in hospitality rests on the failure or absence of others in the arena.  Perhaps more than any other sector, we benefit from a vibrant scene full of others with similar aspirations to our own.  I, for example, want a Jewellery Quarter with street after street filled with places I want to visit when I’m off.  I recognise too that a better dining and bar scene makes for better business.  More reasons to visit an area, more reasons to stay in an area (that’s what we call dwell time, baby). 

My prediction at the start of this year was that hospitality would begin to see much more collaboration.  We’re already looking at several exciting partnerships, takeovers, and shared projects.  Let’s fast-track this change and, yep, you guessed it, refuse to indulge in the dog-eat-dog politics of old.  We’ve already seen other sectors (fashion, notably) reinvent as genre-bending, with previously impossible crossovers of disparate worlds.  This will be the future of food and we need to do more to hasten it’s coming.

Now, if anyone needs me, I’ll be eating oysters in my cave, and telling myself off for being an idiot sandwich in the hope that Gordon will release me. Save me.