Ravneet Gill: How To Successfully Open a Restaurant in 2026, Kitchen Bullying, David Blaine PR Stunts, Loving Horrific Customer Complaints

0:00Ravneet Gill:70 to 80 % of the people that walk through the door are amazing human beings, but then you have some of the most bizarre interactions with people and you realize that people can be f***s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of power playing hierarchy and dynamics in kitchens, often unspoken. My boss was really mean, angry Italian guy. He was gross, yeah? He was using dirty plates to plate food as a joke. I remember like buying a chef how to win friends and influence people because he was just such a not. Anyway, I got fired. It was great for me. Becoming an employer, it's like you suddenly realize why things can't happen the way you think they should as an employee.

0:41Ravneet Gill:I made loads of mistakes. We had this interior designer. She stitched us up and cost me 14 grand. She sent me wallpapers. I had loads of different fish. Some of them were wearing hats. Just went to The minute we open the door, I started the sub stack because I was like, this doesn't exist. I can't find anything anywhere that's giving me a manual on how to open a restaurant. So why don't I write it? So, yeah. So tell me about, so as I say, your son Donnie is two, right? Restaurant is, how else? It's not yet one. Not yet one. Yeah. And I think there's almost like a mama rav to both the restaurant and to your actual, your son Donnie.

1:20and I'd love to know how, like I've read your newsletter and I love just the raw, brutal honesty of what it's like to open a restaurant and it's kind of given me new eyes into this. What I've never really heard you talk about is being a mum. I know you said sort of Saturdays are for Donny, but how do you deal with the mum guilt of Donny and versus the restaurant guilt of Gina? Like, explore that please.

1:45Ravneet Gill:In hospitality, I don't think people are as aware of the lifestyle I don't know like the connect between having a restaurant and having a kid and a family lots of people do it obviously but I feel like if you are so deep in hospitality and you want a family you might never get there because I was that person I was like oh I'm never going to have kids I'm not really interested in it I'm very career focused and also when am I going to have time to even be pregnant in a kitchen because that seems impossible to work physically and be pregnant and having Donnie was not on my like list of things that was going to happen in my life but it happened and it's the best thing that's ever happened in my life not and everyone it's so funny people thought I would I'm not a kid person right a baby person yeah kids yes babies no and I feel like it completely railroaded my life I'm a quite control freak perfectionist I work all hours of the day non-stop from morning till night don't sleep that much but then having Donnie it's forced me to let go of so many things and there's so many things here that are not perfect and I don't really care the old me would have been hyper fixated on that and I would have wouldn't have stopped until it was perfect whereas here I'm so okay with the fact that some things are just not there yet what's what so what surprising things have you let go of well when we opened the pastry menu wasn't what I wanted it to be it was it was doable but it wasn't my dream opening pastry menu but I couldn't do it I couldn't open the restaurant I was I think I had I had a month before I went off to bake off and have you know do child care and have a you know do all the things outside of this restaurant so I felt that the old me would have been would have slept here to make sure that the pastry menu was perfect yeah yeah yeah but the new me with a baby had to be like okay we'll just we'll whack a peach cobbler on and we'll just make a bit of this and it was fine And I know some people probably were like, that's for having a girl on her pastry menu is not amazing.

3:47Ravneet Gill:But it couldn't have been because I was raising a really young baby at that time. And my focus was making sure that he wasn't left out. And also that he, I'm his primary caregiver. My husband was here all the time. And I don't want to like sacrifice looking after my son over perfecting like the most perfect dessert you've ever seen. Is it delicious? Yes. Did people become obsessed with the peach cobbler? Yes. And I'll bring it back in the summer, but it wasn't what I had thought the pastry menu was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost allowing yourself to dance in the messy, messy middle a bit more.

4:19Ravneet Gill:Yeah, but it's just so funny because I've never been that person. No, it's come a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, it's all good. So the, so, and then what would you say the similarities and differences are between raising Donny and raising Gina, essentially? Well, having a baby teaches you immense patience and you're kind of letting go that not everything is in your control and not everything needs to be how you want it to be. Yeah. And when small things happen in a kitchen, like people get on your nerves or, you know, something hasn't gone quite right. The old me might have been quite angry about that.

4:56Ravneet Gill:But the new me, I'm just like, let's just go over it and fuck it kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like in the grand scheme of things, who cares? Also, Donnie is here most of the time. So I will do Monday to Friday in the, like sort of in the kitchen in here, nine till five. And then I pick him up from nursery or if he's at my friend's house or whatever, depending on the days and put him to bed. I always spend the evenings with him. And then on the weekends, I'm with him fully, Saturday and Sunday. But if I have to come in and check stuff, he's with me. He's on my hip. He's in the kitchen. He's everywhere.

5:27Ravneet Gill:Or one of the lovely like front of house will pick him up and cuddle him. And it's, you know, we have a small child running around causing chaos in here. it's fine yeah yeah yeah yeah it's beautiful the what i wanted i read your i've been reading sort of devouring and like a ravenous hurricane your your newsletter club gina which is beautiful it shows the the brutal honesty of opening a restaurant there was one which was like is it finding the soles of my feet or finding the fudge yeah something yeah yeah the um the the soft bit or something no there was yeah about my feet yeah something about that something about your feet um and i love that and i'd love to know like what was the fleshy part of my fleshy part of your feet bosh there we go um i'd love to know so you're at the stage in your career like it feels like you've picked the harder route of opening a restaurant you didn't necessarily have to do this you've got as you said you've got a newborn baby or a toddler kicking about Now, I think you literally said it's the worst time to open a restaurant.

6:31Every restaurant is fucking dying, just shutting all the time. Why did you choose to do this now? And in the second part of that, I think you learn a lot about yourself through doing hard things. How's the rav changed over the last year through going through this sort of passage of hard, if that makes sense?

6:53Ravneet Gill:um it's a hundred times harder than i would have ever imagined it to be yeah that's really shocked me i think i thought because i've opened restaurants for other people from a chef's side that i would be fine and i was like i don't know what to do i've done this i've done this a few times yeah yeah yeah but honestly the mental toll the financial burden it's so big that no one can prepare you for that nobody can prepare you for it and i think it's i think i constantly say to my husband I'm like there's easier ways to make money than doing this because you just can't leave it it's it's like another baby we were closed for a week in January and three of those days I felt the most at peace because I didn't have to come in here and check that things weren't like flooded or broken or someone was upset about something yeah yeah yeah and it just felt those three days were so golden and I was I don't know why I'm doing this I definitely question that it's a very hard career choice and i wonder i understand when owners step away from a business and let it run and it kind of goes downhill a bit i get it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because it's really hard it's all encompassing yeah it's a it's a it's not an occupation it's a preoccupation it's like constantly spinning on your mind because i mean i feel like this with this is not a restaurant but i'm always thinking about this in some capacity and um yeah just you can never really let it go what so so you said it's like you understand the owner's perspective what was the hardest sort of unforeseen obstacle in getting this to what to where it is now i mean yeah we had quite a few mistakes with the interiors and the just the general planning of getting it open but in the grand scheme of things like setting up the kitchen fine love the chef so much we've retained everybody from the opening and employed more and they are so cool the chefs like I really just like being around them I feel happy I would like to go to dinner with all of them you know and that's a good place to be to work for people that you like so much front of house are wonderful but I think that the hardest part has been the customers and I didn't I just didn't even think about that I don't know why but setting up kitchen fine setting up a restaurant kind of fine but then dealing with the people that walk through the door and the knock-on effect that that has on every other part has been really really challenging for me how so like going to that a bit more it's more like you know you open the door and anybody can walk in and i'm a real i love people yeah i'm one of those people stick me in a room and i'll know everything about all the people in the room and i'm like i love chatting and i know about your you know by the end of it i've learned about your history and where you're born and you know i really like talking to people yeah yeah yeah and um my I'm quite social so I just kind of thought maybe and I think social media you live in an echo chamber you think everybody's similar to you and this was a stark realization that that's just not true yeah like 70 to 80 percent of the people that walk through the door are amazing human beings and often I get sidetracked by having a chat with them and then I forget oh I'm actually at work and there's great people but then you have some of the most bizarre interactions with people and you realize that people can be cunts yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and you're and you i think i'm used to online trolling yeah i've had it loads yeah to the point where like it's pretty nasty but i'm so used to it i don't care three o 'clock in the morning i get the maddest messages from people it's okay i don't really care it doesn't touch me but then seeing the people in real life sit down eat at your restaurant and be rude to you and then go home and write something nasty that for me has been really challenging i can't wrap my head around it yeah yeah yeah i wouldn't i'm too sensitive i'm like yeah that would like blow me over like that because it's like you you were in that scenario i know how you were served i know what you ate i tasted that dish i know that this wasn't the way you said it was yeah yeah and then they go home and write and i just think god that that disconnect between the two i find very challenging what so what is what specifically if we can go there what were some of the i mean um but what what what had you served versus what was the reality versus what was the review because i feel like especially when this is like you basically create opened your dream and then someone can come and shatter that like that like i'd be i would i don't know if i could handle that person i overlooked it i just didn't even i was like we're doing a nice thing people will hopefully people will be like i like the food and it and you're yeah you're kind of not confident about the food always yes but you think that people will be aligned to understand that the produce is great and whatever but anyway i think that it was but something i have to say though is sometimes there's a small percentage though of customers that do complain that teach you a lot they are amazing don't get me wrong like you need to have criticism and you have to face it and i'm good at facing criticism that i believe is something that we need to learn from but when it's just straight up nasty that's what i'm talking about straight up nasty and invalid no but when it's constructive and they actually have a point some of those things will really make us rethink stuff so some of them can be amazing yes yes yeah I think I've discussed this I think with Tom Brown before it's like you need to listen hear all feedback yeah you only listen to some of it like hear it but like you know you have to actually take it on board what are some of the sort of negi or not nagi but like constructive bits of feedback you've kind of cherished and has really improved um the restaurant what you're doing well we you know we do listen like quite a few customers at the beginning complained about the noise levels in here and then yeah it took it took like six months to fix that because it's not something that you can just immediately just fix so we had to find the material that we liked we had to source it we had to get someone in to measure the sound and then order that material so those we would definitely listen to when people have feed nettles on that note of acoustics people who say things like i come in all the time and today it didn't taste how it normally does that's really helpful for us and we go oh hold on a minute yeah like like sometimes our wing rib it's it might be too aged and then they'll say you know it's it's a little bit more chewy so then we'll have to rectify that speak to our supplier oh is there something different about the meat you're giving us and so that sort of feedback is fantastic but then sometimes it's just so stupid what are some of the stupid cunty-ish things people have said and how have you compartmentalized that because i get the same thing people like you haven't taken you're on cocaine haven't taken any hd pills i'm like mate chill out i'm just doing a podcast and i have to like just park it to the side yeah but The first time I read that, I was like, Jesus Christ.

13:45Ravneet Gill:Oh, yeah. But I suppose it's very different to someone actually saying it to you in person. What were the specific things? If you want to go there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Cheers. Well, I can give you so many examples. But the ones that really irk me are when I know that the person serving them is really good. And they would have offered them solutions to their anger. Like, for example, a lady came in with her husband and kids and they ordered the lamb chops. And he said, I want them rare. Firstly, psychopath. Why would you want that rare? Yeah. Secondly, like, I don't want it. Anyway, so she said, OK, I can ask the kitchen to do them rare for you.

14:31Ravneet Gill:And then he said, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, I'll just have them as they come, which is like medium, beautiful, cooked over charcoal with this green tea yogurt. They arrived. He ate them. He left that much. and then the waitress was like how was your meal he said well i wanted them rare so she said i can actually like make get them rare for you do you want another portion i'll get them for you no no i don't want anything else and then she said well can i get you another main course to make you like rectify this actually it was our gm who i trust even more and he he's brilliant he's so good at dealing with feedback and customers and i trust him so much and that he was like yeah i offered them another main they weren't interested so then when the desserts came i gave him an extra dessert and was like look i really hope that this is like smoothed over the lamb chops and like hope you're okay sort of thing and they ate all of it and then as they were leaving made a really nasty comment to him about you should have given that to us for free and it's like well not really because we know that the dish is good you ate 90 of it we offered you a replacement which you didn't want we offered you a replacement main which you didn't want we gave you a free dessert like what more do you want me to do like I don't understand then they went home and the wife sent me a really long uh message to my personal Instagram and and was basically like your manager stood and berated us at the table for 10 minutes and basically made up a whole story of what had happened and what annoys me about that is that she's saying that to fish for a free meal from me or for me to say oh my god like I'm so sorry please come back but instead I was like I looked at the cctv he was there for one minute at the table he did this this this goodbye yeah like i'm just not having it but people it's like but when people fish for a free meal and they're nasty about it to get there i don't want you back in here yeah if you send me a private email to the business and you just say maybe this this this i can understand this and you're truthful about what happened we were offered another dish we were this yes then i'll say well next time you come in let me know i'll give you i'll give you a drink or like you know that sort of stuff makes sense but to then make up lies and to not you know be truthful about what was offered to you yeah i think it's crazy and not nice it's mad but also it's from people who think that you're raking it in and you're in a position to just comp everything on a bill restaurants are not in that position anymore yeah yeah yeah that's a very small example they get crazier but no no it's interesting though So like, I feel like there's, if you line up 100 random people in a room, there's going to be a knob.

17:00Ravneet Gill:It just is. And it's just like, that is just part of life. And why I love restaurants and kitchens specifically, I think they're a really interesting context to like understand psychology, understand. I think Jeremy King says they're like a microcosm of humanity, which I think is a beautiful way of putting it. Because you do get all walks of life. You get lovely people, different cultures. It's just like a really interesting thing. You studied psychology, right? What have you sort of learned about through stuff like that, like about the psychology? I don't know, I feel like how psychology impact your learnings there, impact the way you run restaurants, and as restaurants, what do you think about psychology?

17:39Ravneet Gill:It's the best way of learning quickly about people. I think at first, my psychology degree helped me to learn how to deal with people in the kitchen and how to deal with certain personalities and how to navigate that. I remember like buying a chef how to win friends and influence people because he was just such a not and when I and then he actually a few years later messaged me it was like I read that book I quit kitchens and now I work in martial arts like it was and he was like thanks hope to see you again soon or something I was like wow that's good so you learn to deal with personalities and like why people are the way they are I find that really fascinating but then And from the customer point of view, it's, I always, I've always been told that you can't, people will come in with their own baggage of their day and their perceptions of life and things that have happened to them.

18:29Ravneet Gill:So like no one's walked the same path, right? So what they bring into every experience is going to be totally different. So that person who's coming in and maybe doesn't like the dish that you're making, that like 99 % of people have liked, it might just be because they've had an experience where they had it a certain way and it isn't that way. And you can't be so hung up on things like that because everybody has a different understanding of life. But then sometimes people will use that in a negative way and be horrible. And they maybe have had an argument with somebody or they're upset about something else and they're using it as an easy outlet.

19:06Ravneet Gill:Or sometimes it's, you know, comes out in another way. I think it's, as you say, even the people, do you think it's taught you more like empathy to even those dickheads or is it like because I think again in the Jeremy King book he says there's an example of the Wolves where there's two couples come in and they start getting aggy about I read this a while ago but like say the table's at 8pm they're like what are we on that fucking table and all the staff are like this guy's a dickhead he's kicking off blah blah blah blah I think Jeremy was like why don't we rewrite that story and be like okay so say they're two couples one's having an affair you know the other one's just lost his job and they're coming in as you said rav with this baggage and it's but they're coming to into the restaurant to expect all that to sort of vanish into the ether it's like that's not we're not a fucking therapist mate we're selling lamb chops like is there what have you learned about kind of that situation with that empathy and stuff like that yeah but i also think on that note like people do come into restaurants and they want every single thing to be perfect for them in that moment and people don't often have a lot of compassion to understand that that's just never going to happen when you've got human beings running something like it's never going to be totally perfect to exactly what it is that you want and it might not be exactly the same as last time you were here and you know things change so um yeah I've learned I've learned a lot about people I'm still learning a lot about people you get even thick I thought I had a thick skin it's getting it has to get thicker now but I used to be somebody who would fight and argue with people and I'm kind of letting go of that part of me right like honestly on the tube if you misbehave i'm gonna fight you i'm that person yeah yeah i'll stand up for somebody and i'll fight you yeah it happens all the time yeah since opening this restaurant i look at situations and i'm just like not today yes not worth it yeah not worth it not worth my time where did you like sort of go back in time where did you develop that like let's fucking have it like because i love that it's like we're on the tube like no mate yeah like where did you get that like talk me through your my my best friend knows that about me so we'll be in social situations where someone's misbehaving and she'll look at me she'll go raf chill don't don't go there so i i don't i lost that i it's not that i love i always stand up for people yes because i know what it's like to not be stood up for and i think that's been in ingrained in me for a long time that when you're the person that hasn't been stood up for and you and the thing that upsets you is that nobody did that and they watched what happened so now I'm that person that I'll stick up for the person who needs it because I have that in me of knowing what it's like to not be stood up for when when did you not get stood up for and what did that teach you like I think a lot of it is like yeah certain things in childhood or being in situations where you felt as though things were unjust I have a massive problem with things not being just and I have to really be okay with the fact that sometimes outcomes are not just you have to be okay with that i've had to a lot of situations i'll tell you off camera that have taught me that sometimes the bad people win yeah and uh sometimes people not nice people will win in situations i've had to really learn that yeah i've sort of reframed that as almost like um kind of almost the villains in your life are like anti-heroes in the sense that they can teach you through negative actions.

22:27They can teach you positive things, but only retrospectively. At the time, you're like, oh, why are you being a dick? I think the thing you said about being an employee

22:37Ravneet Gill:versus an employer, that's a really interesting thing. It's the same thing. I used to work for a couple of businesses, and you start getting aggy about, oh, why am I getting a pay rise? Yes. Why pay me some more money, please? But like, you know what I mean? And then they don't give it to you, and you're like, oh, you're a knob. Yeah. But actually now, you know, it's the other side of things. it's like we've got we've got stuff to manage and so I kind of I get that what's the only employee versus uh employer thing I love that so it's like you'd be a different employee now you're what would how would the rav change in those situations I think it's really funny being an employer of a brick and mortar business yep because it's taught me so much and yeah sometimes I was a self-righteous dickhead employee and maybe I needed to come down a few pegs and it's so funny looking at my personality then to now and I'm always I'm always like I'm very self-aware so I love like looking oh how did I behave in that situation I should have behaved like this and this is the perspective and blah blah blah yeah but um you know when when I was in kitchens and when you are an employee sometimes I was I was very entitled I thought that you know you're kind you kind of think you're irreplaceable you have a certain perception of the employer they're really rich they should give me a pay rise they should fix this thing that's broken immediately why wouldn't they fix that why haven't they sorted the solution out and i just think that becoming an employer it's like you suddenly realize the gravitas of of being in charge of all of these people but also why things can't happen the way you think they should as an employee the flip has been amazing for me to learn what are some of those things i think yeah things like pay rises yeah of course like you want i want to give everybody a pay rise all the time i want everyone to be happy and i want but like from a structural point of view if a certain amount of money is coming in a certain amount has to go out but it can't exceed that yeah unless you're you know i don't know i'm running at a loss or something but i've had to really learn that you have to be quite hot on things like that and you know i want everybody to i want to take everybody out to lovely restaurants all the time but i can't afford to do that now yeah yeah yeah it's great great steak make instead oh i really love this place should we all go together it's like maybe calm down a bit what about from a leadership perspective oh yeah massive um that you can't be hi hi mate you're right um some time the the boundary of friendship versus employer that's That's tough.

25:14Ravneet Gill:Like, that's really tough because I love being friends with people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And being silly. Yeah. And Matty's the head chef, like exec chef. Yeah. And sometimes he'll make something clear and then I will find it funny or I won't take it seriously, which isn't cool. I need to be better at that. And also, like, so then we'll argue about it. Okay, interesting. But then I need to, like, be a bit firmer sometimes. Yeah. I mean so me and me we do like these workshops off the back of the podcast we go into companies and me and my mate I've brought him on board to do it right and we were at this we were at this company I won't say it was yesterday yesterday morning and like beforehand it was almost like the David Brent I don't know if you've ever seen The Office but we were like pretending to be David Brent and I was like this is fucking stupid like we're about to go and present in front of those people and I was going like ooh and it's like that fine line between because it's tricky because you want to be mates because it keeps because this is fucking hard yeah like don't have that then you want to be the right people how do you separate those boundaries or put them sorry put the boundaries up i think from a professional point of view when it comes to getting something right i'm very firm like with a recipe that's gone wrong or a way that you do something or cleanliness like i'm always on them about cleanliness yeah they think i'm mad about that but sometimes then when it comes to you know you're having a laugh and a joke and then you have to realize oh actually maybe you're not excelling in this area and I should be telling you but I just want to keep friendship I need to really learn that definitely but then when it becomes I can be really firm but I'm not good at being firm all the time yes yes where did this like you know sort of standing up for people drive like take me to the rav from sort of 11 to 16 like what were you like as a kid growing up, like painting that picture for me?

27:09Ravneet Gill:I think I've always been quite creative. I always love like writing. I love doing anything with my hands. I used to bake a lot at home, but I wasn't very good at it. But I was quite academic. Not until I was about 14. I took it all as a joke. And then something in my brain flipped. and I remember I think it was like I got predicted I used to mess around a lot of school I was a kid that got told off all the time the tensions I wasn't allowed to sit with certain people I was always like a on the naughty side yeah but cheeky I was friends with the teachers but I was very cheeky kid yeah I would say it as it is could get away with murder though basically yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but um I remember doing quite badly in some of my exams my dad is extremely academic and he I think he gave me a talk about it and I could have gone one way where I decided to deliberately do badly and then something in my brain switched and I got predicted like D's, E's, F's and I went and got A's, A's, A's, A's and like 100 % in all my exams and all the teachers were like how the fuck did you do that because I was predict I honestly predicted really bad grades and then I went on this trajectory of being a bit more academic yeah because you're gonna do masters right I was gonna do a PhD PhD what's in what in in macular degeneration what the fuck is that so in my psychology degree I specialized in I did my dissertation in eye movements and um sort of like the way your eyes move in i can't even fully remember but i but i did the side of psychology that wasn't the social side um it was more the scientific side and we hooked people up to these machines to monitor where their eyes move to judge whether hi whether certain people have different perception basically so for example if you're dyslexic you might read a page differently if you're not dyslexic and what tools could you come up with to change pages to make people with dyslexia read easier stuff like that yeah yeah yeah yeah um it was all in that realm and like if you're autistic when you look at a picture what are you noticing compared to someone who's not autistic where are your eyes going like are you looking at are you hyper focusing on a small detail whereas someone who's not autistic might focus on somebody's eyes or somebody's facial expression so i did a lot of that then my phd was going to be in designing software for people who had macular degeneration it's where like as you get older parts of your eyesight deteriorates and whether we could come up with a software to improve your reading yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i love people who are in like their formidable foibles who are like into these really nice things how did you sort of get from psychology degree into down that rabbit hole like i don't know i think i've always quite liked um quite liked the data side of that and studying yeah why why things happen but with data yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting what were some of the principles you so in i love again i was sort of saying i think like kitchens and restaurants are great contexts to understand people understand psychology um what would you say are some of those uh principles you took from your degree your academic route that you've applied to to understanding restaurants i always say to people if you want to do it because a lot of people come to me and they're young and they say I want to I want to be a chef should I go to university on the one hand yes because you will learn so much about yourself you'll learn how to live independently you'll learn about budgeting and then you'll learn about uh how to how to pass exams in a like academic point of view I learned so much about having to gather data study research write I learned so much about that analysis but do I think it was worth the like 12 to 15 000 pounds maybe not yeah but it has taught me that in kitchens I've always been the person that would work a kitchen job and then take the learnings and like write them down and analyze a recipe put them in spreadsheets have like everything organized and I think if I didn't do the degree I probably wouldn't have worked that way so when it came to any of my book writing or I have files and files and files online of like all the things I've learned and how I can yeah yeah so it's almost like that because that's what I've done newsletter you I you feel like you're reading it because it's almost it's you learning as you go it's almost like what I've learned this week but then obviously you put it out to the public and there's this kind of full circle cathartic feeling what's the um so in terms of the kind of I think you said about the the lessons of you'd go do a service or something you'd analyze the situation that sort of self-awareness psychology brain and then write stuff down what were some of those things specifically i remember working in a kitchen and my boss was really mean that angry italian guy really really horrible and he would take pleasure in upsetting me he really didn't like me and i remember thinking he'd started slowly bringing in all of his friends to be in the pastry team and i remember thinking okay i'm gonna lose this job back when people were afraid to lose their job because there was not many jobs like I was always afraid of that and uh he was bringing in his own team and slowly I started to see the dynamics change and that one of them in particular was coming in an hour early and that was why he was ahead on certain things and why he looked like he was better than me so then I started coming in two hours early and like thinking okay I'm gonna do this and this and this and honestly Fabiano my boss at the time was like I've never seen such a 180 change in somebody because I went from being a bit of a mess about and someone who didn't take the job seriously to being like, hold on a minute, I'm going to be better at this.

33:09Ravneet Gill:And I always am that person. Like I can be quite shit at things at the beginning. I'm not the fastest, quickest learner. But then once I've like understood exactly what's going on, I can flip it and be like excellent at it. Yes. But it takes me time. So you almost need to be on the back foot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To get that kind of... But I'm always thinking about it. I'm always like, why couldn't I do that? why isn't that the way that that should be and how can i get there and i always like yeah yeah yeah i'm not mindlessly being bad at something yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting the with the sort of the good bad and ugly of of humans in kitchens like just describe what that is because i feel like it's what i find interesting and it's trying to get almost the the cycle of not to get into some sort of fucking like freudism terms or whatever it is but like the psychology behind why there's bullying in kitchens always fascinates me.

34:02Like, I'd love to sort of explore that with you because I know you've got the academic side being kind of a victim of it, then set up counter-talk. Like, what would you... How would you diagnose that? That's probably the best way of saying it.

34:17Ravneet Gill:I think it's totally plausible and understandable that that happens in a kitchen. Yeah. Not that it should happen, but I understand why it happens. Why? I think it's because you're in a high pressured environment and you're you're working physically and I think anywhere where you work physically rather than like on a you know laptop you have less time to think about your action in that moment and a lot of kitchen behavior is reactionary and it's very like situational and based on what's happening at that moment and there's a lot of power play in hierarchy and dynamics in kitchens that are often unspoken, right?

34:58Ravneet Gill:Because we don't have time to have sit downs and talk about your, you know, progress and how you're doing and give your, it just doesn't really happen. It's not like a one-on-one marriage for me. No, it's kind of as you go. And people are constantly, I think, analysing each other of what position they are in. And I'm better at this than that person. There's a lot of blaming that goes on in kitchens. It's a huge problem because what you're doing is physical and you produce it immediately you can see if something's good or bad whereas maybe if you work in an office doing a powerpoint presentation or doing something for a client that's weeks in advance you have time to look at it to fix it for it to be to come out whereas in a kitchen you make it and it's out so there's a lot of blame that happens which i think is a huge factor as to why there's a lot of bullying in kitchens because something might come out and then it's not how it should be and the person in charge has direct responsibility for that their go-to is either to be like oh i messed that up or to blame somebody else or you know so it's always like a it's so interesting it's almost like there's the there's a quote like in between stimulus and response is your your space which is your freedom to choose how you react in a kitchen there's there's none of that yeah in an office environment as you say you can go into board meeting like you can go to the water cooler like oh my god they're so annoying yeah like but then the other flip side of that creates a sort of bitchiness in big corporates yes yes but then i suppose it's just very different it's just very interesting so interesting like i remember one of the first kitchens i worked in my and i'd come from that sort of like doing a degree and working in a professional environment and then saying this chef had been awful to me and he was behaving so badly in this kitchen that i wrote an email and sent it to the head chef and i was like oh just so you know raf has done this this isn't it's like he was gross yeah he was using dirty plates to plate food as a joke to customers, the hiding source.

36:51Ravneet Gill:Oh, that's fine. I know, right? And I was like, I think this is kind of gross. And he's also lying about when he's here, he's never here. The head chef resolved that by just emailing that to the guy. And then my life just became really difficult in that kitchen. And at that moment, I learned, okay, behavior, this is a bit different. This world is a bit different. We deal with things differently. You have to be also like very good at taking criticism and feedback if you're not good at that you're not going to survive in a kitchen and I learned that quickly like you are being critiqued and given feedback all day like chop that again that's not good clean that wipe that why have you got this why is your chef white day like you and you have to be you have to be so okay with knowing that you are essentially wrong in that moment because you're learning from your superior and there's a lot of that and if you have a massive ego and you cannot take criticism and you've always got an answer back yeah there was a part of me for probably like a few years that was that person but as soon as your brain goes oh no actually they're doing it for the good of me and i need to be better and i'm gonna learn you become better but there's just so many things happening is what i'm what i'm saying it's what i love about it again if you look at like put it up hold that that up next to an office environment yeah there is actually really because it's because it's the speed of feedback yeah whereas in in offices they do this fucking 360 thing exactly and it's like why because we're so scared of telling you what it is yeah we're gonna do this thing it's anonymous you're gonna get a nice thing you're gonna we're gonna do like this yellow green blue thing yeah fuck that so i suppose there are strengths to it but it's if you've got the resilience to yes to take what was the hardest thing about building that thick skin from that you you have to really realize that you're just not that good at things yeah and that's sometimes a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people like maybe you're like i had just not that good and I'm being told off all the time because I'm shit yes I'm shit and I'm gonna get better good yes yeah it could have also made me um I don't know the opposite and maybe build up a bigger ego and think that I was amazing but I got fired from my dream job when I was probably after St John I got fired from my dream job I was opening a bakery for my idol chef who'd come from america and it was honestly like i thought i thought it was going to be the the thing that made me like really i was i was obsessed with this take this out but yeah it's dominic ansell yep and i was so and at that time you have to know the internet wasn't really massive i had his cookbooks this is 2016 yeah yeah i had his cookbooks you know that i had like bought on some bookstore online that took weeks to arrive from america um and the stuff he knew about people was very much like through a book um or through like a random tv interview and i idolized this man because he'd come up with this really cool thing and i was how's he done that it was kind of like the heston blumenthal of desserts really and um he was opening a bakery in london and i was to work for him like it's my dream oh it will be I'll learn everything and I can't wait to work with this person and I interviewed and I remember being so sad to leave St John for this job but even Jonathan my boss at the time was like no I think it's the right thing so I went and did it and it couldn't have been far from what I had imagined it to be it shattered my entire world view how sad it shattered your entire world view well I come from St John where everything was about like provenance of the ingredient and seasonality and you weren't allowed to use things like any powders you weren't allowed to use any uh like um things that were pre-bought if you know what i mean like you couldn't use fruit purees if it wasn't in season and it wasn't a fresh fruit you couldn't use it you couldn't even i think we even really used pistachios at the time like it was very um strict and i had changed a lot of my thinking to go that way and part of me going into this job was they wanted me to bring that learning in for their London flagship store and I remember like working there and I cancelled a holiday at that time remember I'd booked a holiday to Miami with all my girlfriends and this guy was like if you want to work for me you have to cancel that holiday and it was like a 1 ,700 pound holiday at the time for someone who was on like seven pounds an hour I cancelled it I didn't go yeah I like really was so committed to working for this person and lost my money on that.

41:17And then I remember, like, I was developing jams,

41:21Ravneet Gill:like, doing all the stuff before it opened and going to meet honey suppliers. And I was really excited about this and showing this chef London and whatever. And then when we started opening, all of the ingredients were, like, artificial. Oh, fuck. The freezers were huge. I wasn't used to working like that. and all the illusions that I thought were like really difficult and amazing were just not difficult or amazing or interesting what sort of uh yeah no it's when you it's when you peel behind the curtain if you yeah so what were some of those because obviously I'd never tasted his things right because I it was all in it was in books and it was all you know whispers and when I got I was like are you serious like this isn't nice yeah this isn't what you said it was going to be and uh also they were they were working everybody to the bone he was kind of he was a bit like dracula he had no emotion and i i think we were doing that 80 hour weeks all of the prep chefs were on about three pounds an hour right it was really bad it was a bad environment were they opening it uh victoria right and yeah it was miserable and i remember they'd employed this head chef guy to run it and he was clueless like totally clueless and I he couldn't make half of the things and I was like how am I going to respect this guy yeah yeah and I remember telling the other manager this guy's not very good he's also like trying it on with one of the other he ended up dating the demi-chef even though he was married with a baby like it was it was just so vulgar it was yeah it was yeah yeah yeah yeah and normally don't really get that in bakery settings but it was happening there and i just remember i was crying about it and this guy saw me cry dracula and i got fired the next day like immediately fired they're like you're not right for this position right but i stuck up for everybody there again and yeah yeah i was like you're not paying people properly nobody's getting a break everyone's exhausted I don't like like for the savory offering they were buying in little like pre-made stock in um in jars and I was like we should be making this ourselves because you are marketed as one of the best in the world and you're buying like fond eggs coming in a blue packet yeah and cheese that comes from a random place when I've just set you up with Nill's yard like it was really bizarre anyway I got fired yeah it was great for me how was it great for you so I believe like the obstacle is the way like there's that book which i love which is like when you've got an obstacle you just like run through it yeah it will be the way forward how did that obstacle or setback dream job being fired then like rocket shoot you imagine your idol that's my way of saying it your idol who you had built everything around and aspired to work with had fired you like that's that's pretty awful isn't it what did you do the day you got fired you walked out the restaurant i cried yeah and was it like your apprentice moment when i got i was so upset honestly i was i called jonathan moreway from sir john obviously immediately i've been fired he was like you can come back here i was like no girl i've got to find another job and i remember just saying well i failed at doing an opening of something and i because they in there when they find me they're like you know you're just not experienced in doing openings and openings are going to be really tough and whatever but also I do kind of understand now looking back yeah they were doing an opening in a new country like maybe I shouldn't have been so bold to point things out that were going wrong and may and they weren't going to fix it so who was I to do that and maybe I should have had different expectations of this so there's obviously I'm not 100 % correct in every situation and also I shouldn't have said to the head chef this is fucking disgusting which is what I did say on my last day and I got fired after that like I can't talk like that come on yeah you should have known that but also um so I have to take responsibility for that but also after that I plunged myself into three restaurant openings back to back to learn how those were I did uh Jamavol the Indian yep and I did Savory there I did Wild By Tart in Victoria Bang in place yeah and I was meant to do one that actually didn't open but i'll tell you later because yeah yeah yeah yeah all good all good it's um you know super interesting would you say like setbacks are good for your drive so good like what because i feel like that like if someone says me can't do something or we've had a bit of a response recently but i'm like fuck this like fuck this i'm just come going now um and i think it'll just be reassuring to people to listen to almost see the other side to kind of the you the not the because you don't paint a glossy extra way that's the wrong way of saying it but behind all this yeah like what happens like do you do you have a harsh voice in your head which is like you you fucked up or do you have like what's the voice in your head when these things happen yeah i'm i am quite harsh on myself but it's more of the point of like what am i going to learn and what am i going to do differently next time i'm always trying to learn and i think yeah you're going to be faced with difficult situations it's how you learn from that and I could have taken that situation could have really broken me yeah and made me not want to be in kitchens anymore and it could have made me complete become quite depressed it was really tough on me but I didn't let that happen because I'm somebody who just does not stop and I'll just keep going yeah yeah yeah and I remember taking jobs at that time because I'd committed to living somewhere in Dalston so to afford it i was working a full-time job and all my days off i was working doing random like event catering and private chefing and you know but through that i built up private chef clients i managed to learn make contacts in the catering world like it was great for me so yeah yeah yeah always trying to learn yeah yeah always learning talk to me because you i worked at black axe man gal yes yeah talk to me about that experience because i mean i feel like that restaurant sad it's kind of closed now but uh well not closed but kind of taking a bit of a pause that to me is like going into the mind of a beautiful like going into the mind of a beautiful psychopath in like the best way it's so just like so many juxtapositions it's like a beautiful head fuck in the best way possible like what did you learn there like what was that experience like well uh i remember jonathan will wavest john again i would talk about him was like what are you doing why are you working here rav because he knew me so well like i'm not an awful person And I'm also, I'm not really like, this penis is on the floor at Black Axe Man Girl.

47:55Ravneet Gill:Like, I'm not that girl. Like, I don't drink either. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would always be the chef that when everyone got rowdy at the end of a service, I'd be like, see ya. I'm going to the gym or I'm going home. Like, I would never indulge in any of the weird stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, yo, why are you working at Black Axe? Because it had a reputation of like being quite like boozy and everybody, but actually it wasn't really like that, to be fair. And Lee was great. and I really like Kate his partner yeah and you know she's an amazing woman you know she's got three kids and she was talking about having kids back then and I didn't get it now I get it but what they did was totally different I learned loads about like flatbreads there I went in to be to sort of design a dessert offering because they were going to open another one and then it didn't happen and I so I sort of stayed and did the other things but yeah working there was like plunging myself into a totally different environment that I wouldn't ever expect myself in yeah tiny kitchen yeah yeah yeah yeah almost like a different color swimming pool like you just go in there yeah so when you dunk yourself into that weird deep end and you come up to the surface how did that change your view or like the nuances of things well Lee was doing things I hadn't really seen people doing kitchens before and he was so open to ideas and changing things that that was really good for me to learn that oh i have got this really weird mad idea maybe it can happen at black axe hey mate you good and are you growing your hair yeah yeah i love it whoa um you know so i learned a lot from lee actually that yeah if you have got a mad idea there is a way you can make it work like he had foie gras ice cream on in in donuts and like you know he was interesting guy yeah yeah interesting really interesting ideas one thing i think i noticed you you and matty both have like impeccable and unique style like you're dressed incredibly well the restaurant's very unique has that amazing art i would love talking about the art and stuff but where do you like i believe that well i don't believe i'm nabbing this from some smart donnie i interviewed john sir john hegarty marketing yes yes yeah i interviewed him do you know he is yeah yeah yeah yeah and i saw some of that yeah he was really like he's amazing but he was like um what does he say originality comes from the obscurity of sources so it's like you've got to go and look at weird unique stuff absorb your inputs and then that's how you output like where do you what are the weird things you guys like to do like how does that inform your unique style and expression of self well matt if you met matt matt is a weird person he's an enigma of a person right that's kind of why i fell in love with him because he was so bizarre how is he so bizarre that you would look at him and think he's one way and he's totally a different way you know i don't know i remember me because when i met him in the kitchen he i looked at him and i was you know made a judgment yeah what you can make coffee yeah yeah of course um on that note he um he was a white guy that was like quite he used to wear his macintosh jackets well dressed I thought middle class you know I just was like boom boom boom judged him yeah but he's just the maddest weirdest person and like loads of his friendship group were like you know from all different cultures like he has a massive Iranian group of friends he's down with all the lingo I'm Punjabi and often to be honest when I date some guys who they're a bit novelty about it they don't really understand it what spices have you got in your cupboard whereas he's like he makes better curry than my mom and he's down with it all he knows all the places to go and eat he's like he's so well-versed and cultural in the world that i was quite surprised by that with matt you know yeah yeah yeah he knew some of the lingo he's just very comfortable around lots of different people yeah and i just looked him and i was like oh you're just a middle class guy and he's just gonna have no no spice about you but spicy interesting he's got a lot of culture to him he listens to like loads of different types of music that i wouldn't have expected yeah he yeah he's just a funny guy quirky yeah yeah yeah then he has this side of him that loves all this wonderful like art and can teach me about it but you know it hasn't really come from that it's just really interesting well that's it the originality of originality comes from obscurity of sources and weird different inputs and cultures and i think that's why on the night note of um Yeah, he drove a red beetle at that time.

52:28Ravneet Gill:Yeah. And I was like, you should be driving a cooler car than this. Everything about him was a bit weird, a bit off key. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? But those are the best people. That's why I love being these people, because it's you. Mate, honestly, I don't think I have to be around lunatics. Yeah. I can't really be around normal people. Yeah. It's banal. But the kitchen are constantly surprised by Matty's personality, because he's just an interesting character. Is he more chilled than you? Totally erratic. Totally erratic. Can't stand still, can't sit still. He's got an idea in his head immediately.

53:04Ravneet Gill:He has to buy 100 of that ingredient and then he has to make it and then he realises it's shit and then he's fucked it all up and then he's gone here and it's like working with a lunatic in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody has to rein him in. Yes, I love that. And what about you? What are some of the weird things outside the kitchen or food that you like to... explore or learn i know i think a common thing with you rave is like learning which i love yeah but where up what book do you read books films like what weird shit do you immerse yourself in i don't know i wouldn't say like uh i'm not really a book reader yeah i haven't i don't really have time but i'm i i spend a lot of time all my friends aren't in food i think that has made a big difference to where a lot of my inspiration comes from i think sometimes when you surround yourself with like a microcosm of people who are in the same thing you can get similar none of my friends work in food so I'm always like in their lives so what do they do so a lot of my really close friends what some of them work in teaching some of them work in corporate but I'm very close to my friends like they're family members like my two best friends like my brother and sister and like one of them is Gajrati and I'm always like learning about his culture and where he comes from and I know all his family I'm always at everything and I think that yeah I'll go to his religious uh ceremonies even though i'm not good hindu i learn loads about that and his mom is so interesting and she like you know she's very religious i learn a lot from her and then my other best friend is mauritian and she's got a huge family and i'm always submerged into what they're doing and the things that they're interested in and different food and different conversations and i never i'm not really talking about food outside of work interesting yeah yeah the food in Mauritius is fucking mad.

54:45Yeah. It's a big melting pot. Yeah, because it's like Indian Ocean, but then you're near South Africa. Fuck knows where it is specifically, but I went there and it was, like you're just most...

54:56Ravneet Gill:We love eating. We spend all our money eating, but we do, we're very like into the other things. Also, I think like I interviewed, well, I didn't interview, I went, one of our clients, his missus, used to work for GQ, now works for the London Fashion Council, or something like that. and she was saying that um in terms of fashion and sort of expression like literally you've got sort of new york tokyo london paris and i think milan but everyone looks at london as like where everything starts in terms of fashion styles and it's like we started talking about it and it's like london is so unique in the sense it's you've got a lot of massive diversity of cultures all in one place you've got like the juxtaposition of old architecture new architecture different class systems as rebellion all the punk stuff there's like and basically what she was saying is there was almost new york is like power milan's uh polish but london is not categorizable yeah and it creates this kind of yeah melting pot of like creativity and stuff like that i think it's really interesting especially when you're set when i'm like where did you get your unique style from it's like people from lauritia's yeah it's so super interesting but also at school i was the freak child i was voted i was like top three weirdest people in the year voted because Because I had lots of friends, but I was that girl that I loved snakes.

56:16Ravneet Gill:I had a weird thing about snakes. I used to, like, stitch all my fingers together. I used to collect... Stitch your fingers. You know, like, I was the kid who would stitch their fingers together, you know, with the little... In sewing class. Instead of sewing, I would, oh, my God, you know. And I would collect really random things and be obsessed with them, like buttons. It was buttons for ages. And I was the kid that just had a pocket full of buttons all the time. And, like, just strange, weird... I was obsessed with dust. I was obsessed with charcoal. charcoal i used to eat chalk i was a bit weird at school yeah still got some of those weird things about me but um i think that you have to be a bit odd you have to take risks and do you know yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know that's amazing in terms of bringing bring all what we've talked about this sort of expression of self erraticness with you and matty like this kind of creativity and expression of self through style like how's that sort of filtered into the menu making that like an extension of you guys the menu has changed we're gonna get like obviously we haven't eaten there yes um well i'd love you i just want you to look at the menu and just have a you know order as you would but the menus changed dramatically from when we first opened when we first opened we thought it was going to be a certain way and it's totally different from that we were like we're going to design a neighborhood restaurant really easy really simple plate of pasta, rotisserie chicken and chips.

57:36Ravneet Gill:There'll be like a burger. There'll be, it was very neighborhood in that sense. But then as we started experimenting on the board, because Matt's done like quite a bit of, Matt's got really good diverse cooking range and he would put specials up on the board and they would sell better than the menu. And then we found that the menu's completely changed. So the stuff we had on at the beginning isn't really on there anymore. No more burger, no more rotisserie chicken and chips. we're pushing it to now like our customers love what we've got on at the moment we've got a really beautiful chicken dish with like a mushroom velouté and mash and cow sots and romesco and it has changed but it's very much like they've realized in the kitchen that customers want more i think at the beginning we were like we're in chinkford maybe it's just going to be neighborhood style but people want more exciting things and that's been great for them because now joe did a dish the other day that was like this beautiful potato gnocchi with a cavolo nero sauce and a wensley del cheese over the top and black truffle and it was like that flew out so i think yeah we've been able to be a bit more brave about the menu but really take take leadership on like the suppliers that we get we're really close to all the suppliers matt's on the phone to them all the time so it's always about like seeing what's coming in and trying it and i know a lot of chefs say that but we really do yeah yeah yeah everyone's like seasonal yeah yeah yeah hashtag no that's amazing and was so i think one of the things i loved you saying about um the on that note about the burger but almost pr is conversation yeah that article you wrote was fantastic um and like it was almost like good pr bad pr i think you're talking about like what was the david blaine thing oh like tell me through this that because i feel like controlling the one basically i'm trying to get to don't know how we get there but is some being able to control the conversation around what you're doing good bad or ugly that's important but yeah maybe we start with the david blaine stuff so uh that was so weird i did an instagram story once that we're trying to get permission for this box out there to get built and um the council said no basically to it being what i said sorry that glass yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but when we took on the lease we had the permissions to have a pergola out there and it was already up but it was not the prettiest so we took it down and then we were like oh we could actually maximize some seating and make that insulated so we did that thinking we had the permission council said no so i went on instagram on my story and said i don't know why the council have said no to this it's actually a day with blame box because he's going to make an appearance in london because i always think about him being in that box yeah yeah yeah well I was up there like 40 days.

1:00:24I was like, mate, come on.

1:00:25Ravneet Gill:So I made a really stupid joke about it, thinking like 1 % of people would understand it. It just like took off online on my stories and everyone thought it was so stupid that I put it on my grid. And I was like, oh, you know, David Blaine's coming over New Year's. If anyone's interested, book your ticket. That's so true. Obviously joking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then people started trying to book tickets. So we got loads of emails of people saying, can I come to see David Blaine? I'm a big fan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even my best friend's mum texted me to say can I get some tickets? Oh, yeah. It made it quite far into people's brains and then I had to say it's obviously a joke.

1:01:08Ravneet Gill:People still didn't think I was joking and then that made its way into newspapers and that people thought it was... And David Blaine watched my stories as they were happening, okay? It would say seen immediately. Oh, what? So he was actually in on... He's watching. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And at one point I was like, he's going to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he didn't come, but he might come. That's mad. And in terms of like... But that got us loads of PR before Christmas and loads of customers were coming in and talking about it. Yeah. Like a really stupid Instagram joke. Is there like a method to controlling the conversation?

1:01:39Because I know you put different examples of like, I think it's Jackson Boxes, like doing the scarcity of the burger at Dunk. Yeah. Genius.

1:01:46Ravneet Gill:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, are there ways, how do you think about... Are there any principles of controlling the conversation? Well, I think you have to be authentic about it. When it's naff, it works for a while. But then I think there has to be like an authentic edge to why you're doing something. Like the Jackson Boxer thing, he's a really talented chef. He's been a chef for so long. And you know that his burger is going to be really good. So that's probably why it works as well. And people have had it. And the rumour mill is that it's fantastic. And I really want to go and have it. so yeah you have to have an authentic edge to why you're doing it but then I don't know I think I think social media is changing so much like TikTok and Instagram I'm a full like a grandma that to be honest I don't think I'm an expert yeah yeah yeah yeah what could take off because I've seen I've seen the weirdest things take off yeah it's almost like you're just trying to throw stuff at the wall and you don't know what's yeah yeah interesting what was the so in terms of like when you when you started started the more of the sort of social media side of things like how did you get that were you like tunnel vision like this is gonna or were you just posting it because you wanted to was that a natural thing or is it like kind of like because you seem well you are very hyper driven like was it like we're getting here i'm asking this person because i'm like part of me is like i love just doing this for this great crack right and i think you can get so bogged down and like you need to be doing anything yeah you need to be and i'm like it's just making me fucking hate it yes like whereas actually I just want to just have good crack and meet amazing people like where I think you kind of need a bit of both but where were you on that spectrum I fell out of love with social media when we were opening this because I think like I my grandma had died I had I had Donnie and she died straight away it was like a really weird time for me and I always had a year of like being really down about everything and just thinking I'm not really gonna do social I was a lot lower on it and then when this restaurant stuff happened I thought I could just vlog it like because it's happening anyway and it'll be a nice memory to watch so i did it from that angle of like oh let's just do a fun vlog yes and then i did a bit of i started the sub stack to learn and also to i really wanted to show others like this is how much i'm spending because i was like this doesn't exist i can't find anything anywhere that's giving me a manual on how to open a restaurant so why don't i write it basically sick so if you read it from the beginning there is everything in there from what we spent on the premium to what we spent on lawyers to what you know should did I need that lawyer and what could I have done myself and where we went to get our floor tiles like there is everything in there and builder costs and I do like a running list of that that's more for me if I were to ever do it again I can look at that but also if anyone else wants to do it and they need material to like understand it I would love them to read that first because they'll be a lot better than I was yes I made loads of mistakes yeah I did it from that angle of like wanting to provide information and do something different and then it like that got picked up and turned into a tv show but not because i pursued that yeah my agent had pitched it to a few people but i was like that's never gonna happen because tv doesn't really it doesn't work that way anymore but it was a sub stack that turned that into a tv show because someone who had a production company was reading the sub stack and she lived down the road she came to me directly and that's how that happened i love i love it when people like there's ways you can change the system yeah like so this is the way things should be it's like you can swim around write a substack yeah it's such a that series also re-watched it like and you know for prep for this it's so endearing like when you're going to the builders with the cake like this one mate we need you to fucking sort this out so i don't know what the cake was being like this and have a bit of that yeah you stay till 9pm yeah I've got my more that came from yeah it's um there was a lot of that yeah yeah yeah it's it's like a really nice um I think it's the game has changed like you said people aren't like you're like an agent going to pitch something doesn't always work now like you going maybe you might do something with your podcast that someone just happens to listen to on the off chance that yeah you know create another opportunity for you yeah yeah yeah it's almost i think the what's the word like the more exposing like increasing a greater surface area of luck comes your way so what was the tv um because i think i saw you guys filming it i didn't realize it because i interviewed franco from the tourer yes and i was you filmed at the tourer yeah so you know where it is on yes uh not but is it permanency yeah yes yes i was interviewing him have you met him he's a fucking yeah yeah he's like mate blew my mind the way he talks about a beach.

1:06:23Yeah. So you slice that up and he's got the most American, Argentinian accent. He's like, I'm not going to do it. But like, he speaks beautifully. But I remember, I remember seeing a camera crew, but I was nipping in to set up our podcast. And yes, it was around there. It was like in April sort of time, maybe.