55. Fame, failure & a 12-stone weight loss: The journey to 2 Michelin stars | Tom Kerridge

0:00Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business, management, and leadership. Every episode, I sit down with different guests who bootstrap companies, masterminded investment models, or built a business empire. They're leaders in their field, and they're here to give you top insights and actionable advice so that you can apply their ideas to your own career or business venture. my guest today is tom kerridge one of britain's best love chefs known for his michelin-starred pubs best-selling cookbooks and television work tom's journey has taken him from high-pressure kitchens to leading one of the most respected names in modern british hospitality we'll be talking about how he's grown from one pub to a portfolio of venues the lessons he's learned about leadership and resilience and how he's managed to stay authentic while becoming a household name.

0:56Today on All About Business, I'm delighted to be talking to Tom Kerridge, who's actually welcomed me to his wonderful bar and grill in the Carinthia Hotel in London. We're in magnificent surroundings here with lots of people enjoying themselves around us. And if you're thinking of somewhere to go at Christmas to have a good meal, I couldn't recommend Carriage's Bar and Grill more highly. It's a splendid place and I've eaten here many times. So I'm looking forward very much to talking to you, Tom. We're sitting here in this splendid room in this magnificent hotel. You have a very successful restaurant here.

1:31But let's roll back the clock. How did this all begin?

1:37Tom Kerridge:A little bit by accident. I ended up in a kitchen when I was 18 years old. I needed a job washing up. So I grew up on an estate in Gloucester, a single parent family. My mum and dad split up when I was 11. And I just kind of floated about, didn't do very much. School was, I loved going to school, but it really wasn't my thing. That was back in the day when school and exams were all about being taught stuff, remembering it and then writing it down again in exam means that you're intelligent. And actually, you know, we all know moving forward that vocational skills, being proactive about what you do isn't just about remembering academic facts and figures it's actually about being able to be involved in stuff being being involved in in connecting with whether it's with business whether it's with people or whether it's the actual skill set that you actually want to learn a trade for example but so school was um it wasn't i i loved it i loved hanging out with my mates but there was no plans for a levels and university it was like what can i do and i ended up in the kitchen when i was 18 years old needing needing money needing a job and i ended up there washing up where was that though that was a place called the painswick hotel oh i know painswick near stroud yeah exactly near stroud yeah so i'm from gloucester so it was just over the hill uh and i went into there started washing up and that was the first point of there was an energy and an excitement and a buzz and this kind of electric kind of current flowing through the kitchen but also throughout the whole building in terms of what hospitality and the people that worked in hospitality and that i instantly connected with it now even on a quieter day there was a sense of people doing things that were passion there was a sense of things that were of people coming into the business that were passionate you know whether it was wine suppliers or fruit and veg suppliers or a butcher or it was a whole collection of so many different peoples as well it was a completely eclectic diverse mix of you know if you come from an estate in Gloucester that's mostly working class kids and their parents all of a sudden you come into a world where irrespective of race religion sexuality educational background economic background you were all in it because you loved doing it all of a sudden it was and also ages and experiences and world travel and so many different people that you can learn from.

3:58Tom Kerridge:So straight away, there was this kitchen buzz that I just thoroughly fell in love with. And it wasn't really from a love of food, although I've always loved food. It was a love of the space and the energy and the environment that grabbed me. That's so interesting. So that was really infectious. You really caught the bug in a sense. How did you move from washing dishes to becoming obviously a very accomplished chef? Someone must have taken you under their wing, did they? Yeah, kind of. I mean, what happens in hospitality, like many other things, we have something called battlefield promotion. Battlefield promotion.

4:28I like the sound of that.

4:30Tom Kerridge:Normally it means when somebody gets fired or walks out in the middle of service or doesn't come back the next day, you're now the pastry chef. Right. It was a movement from washing up to can you help do the starters and the salads? Can you do? And then all of a sudden it starts becoming and you start becoming a valued member of the team. if you say yes and work hard to stuff and you just do it you become a team member you become a team player and you become even if what you're doing in terms of the greater skill set of you know running a restaurant or being a head chef is minimal in terms of what you think you're doing it's actually has huge impact to the rest of the team because they know and trust that that one job can be done properly by that person that means that's something else i haven't got to worry about and they know it's a level and a standard so even at 18 you can start building a reputation for yourself a place in a team and gradually go up through battlefield promotion as you put it and progress very easy to understand they work in that kind of brigade system there's a clear pathway to from commie chef to chef to party to junior sous chef sous chef head chef you know you keep going through skill sets understanding and then you go through sections and it's defined really by four sections that kind of like the starters the garnishes the main course and the pastry i mean right you can separate it a little bit more than that and there are obviously different ladders in the in the rung to the top that you can put in but that's essentially it so you can break it it's quite easy to understand okay i need to learn that and i can cook at that level and i can go so you can you can forge a career path very easily with just a little bit of understanding so that hasn't changed has it really that's still the same now as it was when you started out as a of timeless aspects of that exactly so any young person listening i mean you've given them a kind of blueprint for how to get started and get going and be the next tom carriage in a way exactly that you can understand that you know you can get into a kitchen you can learn you can work hard yes you do need mentors i mean you mentioned it there you do need people to take you under their wing you do need people to explain and you do need people it's a bit like you know i'm sure you might all everybody might remember a teacher that they liked very much at school the one person that they connected with whether it was the drama teacher the art teacher the PE teacher the physics teacher whatever it was there but you know there's normally a chef or two that you go actually I understand their ethos what they want what they're looking for and their standards of what they want to achieve now you might cook better than them or you might do something different than them but the way that they run a kitchen or the way that they hold themselves there's always that sort of influence that comes in yeah and it's incumbent upon us as sort of more sort of established people in the workplace to keep doing that for other other young people as they come through i guess yeah i think encouragement is huge for every industry hospitality massively now is we do need you know the skill set shortage but you do constantly need you know i think it's the same in every business you need to encourage a workforce to make personal and professional choices that help them grow yeah no i agree so you progressed obviously you worked in some other restaurants after pain so where did you go after that i went to colcott manor which at that point had a mission star then i moved um to somewhere else in in the west country called the country elephant which is a beautiful little individual restaurant just two of us in the kitchen then i moved into london when i was around about 21 uh to a place called the capital hotel which as a mission star fantastic brilliant chefs brilliant cooking and all of a sudden that realization that london is a very eclectic exciting wonderful place to live learn um see people you become you learn a lot more about yourself traveling to and from work for a longer time on a tube or being you know you suddenly start growing up in your early 20s in a in a really exciting but also you gotta remember that was the early to mid 90s where the brit pop scene and british cookery and the art world and everything was kicking off you know there was like oasis there was marco pia white there was damien hurst there was yeah this like it was a real cultural moment wasn't it a magical moment it was so special to be a young chef in and amongst it and a part of it another question that sort of comes to mind is what advice tom might you give to your younger self you know starting out again in your career yeah i think um don't get so hung up at the beginning on what you think is a mistake just learn from it really quickly fail fast and go okay learn from it real quick because sometimes if you dwell on them and say and i know that's all about a learning curve and you learn actually i shouldn't have worried about that so much because it didn't really matter the one bit i could you could go back and say that really doesn't matter don't worry about it don't dwell on it tomorrow's another day get on with it like forget it it's done now you can't change the past but you can you can change the future you can work towards something what's what's done is done move on so as long as you learn from it you're saying 100 yeah don't do it again idiot that's probably why i said don't do that again idiot motto of yours so when did you branch out on your own and start your own business in 2005 so that was a little bit later yeah yeah a lot later so i worked through different spaces worked my way up to being a head chef in somewhere and spent a long time cooking as a sous chef level i very much enjoyed and loved that supportive role of helping another head chef create and build and understand I would build the team around them write the rotors understand the costings and build all of that and help try to be the right hand man the supportive role and I took that as quite a serious learning curve more than probably anywhere else before then I took on the first head chef's position and then from there it went from taking that to uh where was your first head chef so my first head chef position was at Adlard's which was in Norwich so I left London we moved to Norwich we were there for about 18 months and then it got to a point where it was it was about opening our own space myself and my wife and she was you know she's always worked for herself she's an artist and it's always been about self-employment we wanted to create something and build somewhere and open a space that meant that I could cook and she could make uncompromised art and that was the end that was all we wanted it It wasn't about owning numerous sites or being on telly or writing books or making money.

10:42Tom Kerridge:But that all happened subsequently. Yeah, that all happened subsequently because we're very fortunate. We both follow our own preferred trajectory and passion path to get to where we want to be. And, you know, she's gone on and won the Global Art Award for Sculpture. Her biggest piece is at the front of the Dubai Opera House. She's got a cellar. She had a huge show in Palm Beach at the beginning of this year. She's got a big, she's in Miami Freeze later this year. So there's a lot going on for her. So yeah. Oh, good luck. So I heard for that. This Christmas, your giving can make double the difference.

11:14From the 2nd to the 9th of December through biggive.org, any donation you make to over 1 ,500 charities will be doubled while match funds last. Whether it's supporting those with cancer, giving children the best start in life, or helping people facing homelessness. Whatever charity you choose to give to, your gift can go twice as far in the Big Give Christmas Challenge. Visit biggive.org between the 2nd and 9th of December and make double the difference this Christmas. Thank you. This new project became a huge success. It became the first gastropub with two Michelin stars, as I understand it. Yeah, that's right.

11:55So how did you approach that? How did that come about? What was your sort of philosophy, I suppose, when you opened it to begin with?

12:03Tom Kerridge:Yeah, it was about trying to create somewhere where we'd like to be on our days off. And it was using all that, utilizing the skill set that I'd learned in fine dining restaurants, I'd put in inverted brackets, you know, like that sense of, you know, this is how you cook, this is what you do. And these are the way that you make stocks and sauces and all of that skill set of refined cookery. But putting it into a pub environment where braising and slow cooking. and then treating the ingredients with the same love and respect whether it's a shin of beef or a fillet of beef it still comes in the same animal yes it's still actually interesting we can make this shin of beef absolutely beautiful and then just trying to remove what everybody's perception of michelin star dining was of this pomp and ceremony just trying to get rid of that and trying to create a space that becomes warm and welcoming and people feel that you have a good I love temples of gastronomy but I hate a hushed dining room I hate that that sense where everyone's too scared to talk to each other too reverential or laugh about a joke out loudly yeah yeah you go on that like how dare you have fun in a restaurant it's like no we want people to enjoy themselves make noise have fun have a laugh and a lot of that is to do with you know people are used to us they don't ask anymore what's the dress code what do you mean a dress code clothes actually you know like just wear some clothes would be good yeah yes exactly yeah some clothes yeah you also just go some clothes it's like you know just come have a nice time enjoy yourselves we'll take care of some really good cooking you come and enjoy yourself order some beer wine whatever you want have a nice time and leave and then tell your mates and come back and that was kind of the preference and the process for setting it up and then those standards kind of that you learn over years of i suppose honing a professional getting having and taking on personal responsibility and professionalism that you want to replicate you know your own personal standards into what you do with that fortune a Michelin star came along within 10 months and two stars came along in 2013 so 2012 sorry so yeah well within the first seven years so this is the hand and flowers which is in Marlowe in Marlowe but then you've also got I think the coach in Marlowe which is also Michelin coach in Marlowe as a star and he must be well fed in Marlow, Tom, thanks to you.

14:18Lots of happy people, I imagine. It's a beautiful place on the river. I don't know if people don't know, describe it a little bit.

14:23Tom Kerridge:Yeah, it's a beautiful, like quintessential English town on the River Thames. But it's also one of those lovely towns that everyone feels very proud of. They're very supportive of entrepreneurial businesses, small boutique, whether it's coffee shops or clothes shops or hairdressers or - Oh, so there's a whole ecosystem. There's a real supportive network of small businesses and and community and it's built on people that are you know things like it's built on schools and sports and communities and you know events that the town comes together on really really lovely did you know that before you went there or did you discover that later you could sense it's as one of those times that when you arrive in it you could sense it's a nice special little town but nowhere nowhere near as much as we continue to to work and you felt that it's actually it's hugely supportive people are very very kind very supportive very they get behind people you know yeah and i think that's something that all towns could do in a way i mean there's nothing to stop every place being more supportive of entrepreneurs and local businesses and young people getting going you know easier said than done yeah it's a wealthy town it's a wealthy town you know we you know there are there there are pockets of poverty and there are pockets of people that are in need there, obviously.

15:40Tom Kerridge:But actually, you know, it is a town that has, it kind of operates in a smaller little bubble. So you obviously, with the Hand and Flowers, had a very unique, high quality restaurant and then you opened some more. Yeah. How did you manage that process and how did you make sure you were still getting what you wanted from your different chefs, different teams, different locations? It's all taken time. Nothing has been rushed. It's all been organic growth. So the Hand of Flowers, it took us 10 years before we opened the second site. So the second site, which was the coach, that was when we had a head chef and a sous chef.

16:14Tom Kerridge:Then it was myself, a head chef and a sous chef. And a sous chef was incredibly good, very well respected within the group, incredibly super intelligent, brilliant chef, a proper grown up. And you go, well, we're getting to the point that that sous chef is going to go and be a head chef somewhere else. Oh, yeah. he may as well do it for us let's try and find a site so we opened the site down the road and he moved into that space so then we have two great head chefs in the company which then proved to be fantastic because he took it on took ownership of it pretty much in terms of the daily running and making it work and managed to win a mission star for it himself and he's now he then opened here he opened carriages bar and grill for seven years ago so he moved from there right to here and then in the last year he's left here he's in the company for nearly 14 years and opened his own restaurant called Starling Bistro and has won a Michelin star there for himself with his own business so that's wonderful to see that all that skill set that entrepreneurial spirit of working with us alongside to then opening his own business and doing incredibly well makes you feel very proud yeah it's great and so your ethos is really to bring people up through your organization help them learn and grow absolutely and then run things for you each chef in the business has been in the business for a long time Tom who's head chef here was sous chef under Nick before he left Tom's been with us for six and a half years Sarah who's head chef at the hand has been in the company now for uh 10 nearly 11 years tom who's head chef at the chalk has been in the company for 12 and that's quite unusual in hospitality isn't it that long tenure it is unusual but it also means that because we allow them to join us as young kids allow them to grow allow them to make mistakes it's not the end of the world irrespective of what anybody thinks and it could be someone could have the worst meal and it could be that we've absolutely ruined their night and we've got something completely wrong and if we do do that we put our hands up we absolutely will own that but it is only a plate of food what's the worst that can happen okay you've had a really bad meal we're really sorry don't pay for it in fact don't pay for it and come back again on us let us show you what we can get it right essentially all we've done is got steak wrong yeah like let's not get overly upset about it i understand it we can solve this problem we're not heart surgeons we're not rocket scientists we're not we're not doing anything that's well put we're not doing anything of major catastrophic traffic effect if it goes wrong as long as you don't poison people yeah exactly yeah i mean those are yeah obviously that would be quite a big thing but the reality is that you can allow people to make decisions within your company when the knock-on effect essentially isn't that bad they are solvable problems you know if you give people the autonomy to do that absolutely permission to do that and that in turn helps build business because yes for every mistake that's made we can rectify those mistakes and they grow from that there's no real mistake actually if you if you're if we put you in a position of authority and a position of management that's because we know that you can deal with this even if you don't believe you can do it and you only learn from mistakes i'm sure you say and you must hear it all the time yeah i've learned from plenty myself yeah you learn from mistakes so they'll learn if something's gone wrong well I don't do that again I'll learn I will do something different next time so you know the business ethos has always been built on you know young professionals wanting to ask questions and push themselves and allowing them to grow so you you said that and just repeated it you take on young professional youngsters what do you look for in those youngsters when they first join you it's an attitude it's an attitude it's funny I put an Instagram post out recently for a job position and we were looking for um we're looking for a sous chef for the hand of flowers we have found one now yeah but we've gone through all the normal processes and we've gone through all the advertising we've gone through all the agencies we've gone through all the and actually i went well let's do something different here so i put an instagram post out and i said if your first question is how much do i get paid when is how many days off do i get you're not the right person for this job yeah right what we want is passionate people that want to do it now that didn't say you're going to get paid badly no in fact you get paid very well and that didn't say you're not going to have any time off no so the amount of negative noise of people going oh rubbish pay were you getting a lot of heat back for that but actually we got more we got way better transaction in terms of quality candidate because if you're in this industry this is one that should be led by passion it should be about actually i want to do this job because not because i'm going to get earned more than everywhere else.

20:45Tom Kerridge:It's because I love doing it and I can grow and I can be somebody. I can be something and somebody. So it was a really interesting thing to go through. It's interesting how it divided people. Yeah, divided people. I took a lot of heat on it. Well, it was lovely by the side of it. You got your sous chef. Don't worry, the salary is good. It's a good salary and they do get their days off, but it wasn't their first question. And the person that's taken that job, they've come and they've come from a background that actually they've taken the position we've given them the job they've come from somebody they're not from a mission star background but they have the attitude they have said i am the right person for this job they've done the interview they've done the trial shifts they've done the process and they've told us i can do this i am the right they want to learn and you go this is this is the person that's the person that's what we were looking for and it's an energy and it's an enthusiasm it's the right way to look at a vocational career this isn't a job like it can be treated like a job but if you're in hospitality and you want to be a really good chef it's not a job it's a way of life it is who you are it it defines you you are a chef you don't go to work as a chef you are that person you are a chef you are a chef yeah no i like that and you are also an author we've got some of your books and you're also a tv media personality yeah i am 13 books 13 books yeah 13 books um why do you do so many books well there's always been it's funny we we we've now come to the end of our book deal um right and the bloomsbury want to do more but i don't want to do anymore i've run out you put your content out there for a minute we've got we don't need and there's always been a process and a reason to do it we've got the ones in front of us one was a diet of weight loss process that i went on that well that was a personal journey of your own that i went if that helps one person that's amazing let's just write the recipes down and wow i did it i'll do it one is was in connection with a television show and you go great okay well let's show and it showcased british produce and amazing and this one here is because i love doing outdoor cookery and barbecue stuff you go these are all great and they all have a particular purpose a particular purpose then when the ideas have started coming why don't you write an air fryer book why don't you write a you know and you just go oh why didn't feel passionate about that i don't feel passionate this is just ticking a box for a a budgetary boardroom system for you know looking at p and l's for some publisher yeah it's like well i mean that's not right and then the publishers go yeah no you're right let's just let's just chill yeah don't worry wait until you you feel moved to do the next one i'm not going to change publisher i love working with bloomsbury it's all amazing they're great we're you know we have a wonderful relationship let's not just force it let's just wait so books are written because they're a passion point otherwise again like restaurants they don't work unless you're yes authentic about them no i write books and i really like your uh take on that i'm just finishing one off that's coming out in november which i'll give you amazing thank you but uh it's called karma capitalism shameless plug everyone your book here the dopamine diet um was a journey you went on because you lost i believe 12 stone in weight which is like the weight of a man yeah i lost i lost a chef i lost a whole i lost a whole member of the kitchen brigade did you yeah yeah so what happened what was the motivation for that age it's an age process i was getting towards 40 years old and when you get to 40 it's very much a point of life reflection you go actually what have i achieved where have i done where am i heading where am i going and i was in a so i was in a hugely driven process and my business has been successful because i i dealt with an escape route which through alcohol so i pushed and pushed really hard i would do 18 20 hour days and then i would escape into booze for the remainder of that day and then go back to work again it was very much this 6 a.m till midnight and then midnight till 2 30 so you weren't sleeping no not very much i was heavily drinking and and every day and every night and but i loved it i don't regret that guy or that bit that was who you were that part of your life and i needed that to drive that business It's that singular restaurant.

24:46Tom Kerridge:At that point, it was the Hand of Flowers. To drive that passion, to drive that standard, to drive that energy, to be that person. It was so like a ball of energy, a whirlwind, this big fucking boulder of chaos and mayhem and drive and force of nature that I pulled loads of people with me that then I needed, you escape it through alcohol. And then - Well, you can't do that forever, right? You can't do it forever. You go, okay, we're at, because it got to the point, we had two mission stars. I had cookery books out. I was on television. And you go, hold on a minute. I've got, but I can't, I'm not, I can't be this guy.

25:24Tom Kerridge:It's going to, it's going to do me. Actually, it was one of my best friends that I've known since I was 14. He said to me, because he's the same age. And he was like, yeah, 40. Yeah. The way halfway to death. You go, what? He goes, yeah, if you think you live till 80, that's it. We're halfway there. And you're like, all right. All right. Okay. and then you think well hold on a minute if I keep going like this it might be sooner yeah it is going to be sooner there's no way I'm not going to do 50 right you've got to make a decision you've got to make a change so I stopped drinking changed my whole life changed it like I'd say overnight so you stopped drinking totally yeah totally so since then I planned it took about three to four months I didn't stop the way I was drinking I just knew there was a date so I had a date in a position where I went right that's where I'm going to that's where I'm going to stop and I got to that date and I stopped and I stopped and in that first year I fell off the wagon four times so it was a it was a it was a mid-January date yeah 2013 and then by the November of 2013 that was the last time I've had a drink so it is it's now yeah we're 12 years we're 12 years sober pretty much this month yeah coming do you go to meetings might I ask no I worked out for myself you did it all yourself like everything I work it out I go well yeah I know what's wrong I know what I have to do this is what I've got to do let's do it like you know you can work it out you go you have to have strength with it but then you obviously prepared a different diet for yourself as well i remove carbohydrates from a professional and you still do that no i i go to the gym every day or i try to go five six times a week and i and i i try to eat a lot more sensibly i don't eat as much but i will have i will have carbohydrates i will have a sandwich i will have something i will but i i just much more in control of non-chaotic eating no like yeah i mean I'm not doing cheese on toast at 3am after I've done 20 cans of Stella anymore.

27:15Tom Kerridge:Like it's a way better place to be. So you go. Sounds better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were going to say sounds fun. No, no, it sounds better to me. I stopped drinking a while ago as well. I was just thinking the headache you might get with 20 cans of Stella. Yeah, yeah. But it was, for me, carbohydrates worked from a professional point of view. So how do you take things out of your diet? How do you make, but still operate as a professional chef? And you go, well, actually, carbohydrates are quite often the bread, the pasta, the potato, the rice, they're quite often vehicles for flavor.

27:45Tom Kerridge:They're the thing that add. And you go, well, actually, that means I can still cook in a professional manner. I can still make things work. I can still drive all flavor profiles of dishes and with an understanding and not have to worry about it. I know there's chips that come with it. Well, you don't have that. You don't like, so when you're driving flavors forward and being in that professional kitchen, it's a lot easier to do rather than calorie counting because you don't come to restaurants and calorie count. You come here because it's lovely. Yeah, exactly. so how do I continually work and process dishes on a professional basis without trying to so I did a low carbohydrate diet for two two best part two years I lost 10 and a half 12 up to 12 stone that by that through that route yeah through that route through no I mean booze is a big thing but also through that route yeah and training and then I'd swam every day I swam a mile every day I decided to get in the pool and just make myself do that uh and then I changed my world now is so different i'm i'm in a different space all the time everywhere so there's never i've never got the consistency of a swimming pool so i changed to the gym so maybe the last six or seven years it's all been about lifting weights so it's now so i focus on the numbers on the weights and so i always have to find something to ever do boxing training no i thought of it but no it's i like i like i like the i like the weights i like i like the solitude of sometimes i sometimes you go in the morning or the evening depends on the diary but most times it's normally morning i'll do yeah anytime from half five six a.m but sometimes tonight will be i i'll end up probably doing an 11 o 'clock one in the garage at home so like really so you go home at 11 o 'clock a night yeah i still do when i'll do so you're really disciplined around it yeah i have to otherwise otherwise it's good for my head good clarity if it just helps someone so i'll do a late one tonight and then i'll do an early one tomorrow so sometimes i'll do one and then i'm the impression The reason I'm getting, Tom, is you've got a huge amount of energy.

29:36You must have to carry yourself through all the things you're doing at once.

29:40Tom Kerridge:I don't know that my body has, but my brain has. You've got a very active mind. Yeah. So I work. So it's dealing with my wife. Like it says it's exhausting. We've just done 25 years of marriage. And she's going, yes. I say, well done. I hope you celebrated it. 25 years. We went to the library. It was magic. Oh, very good. It was amazing. Well done. You must be exhausted. She went, yes. I was going to ask you where you'd go out to eat. Yes, I am. So it's an ADHD brain that is constantly worrying and moving. I have to find something if I'm not twiddling with fingers or doing something or spinning a spoon or thinking of something or being.

30:15Tom Kerridge:So it's a constant. Well, you're not the first guest on our podcast who said that. I mean, I think it's quite common amongst entrepreneurs. And massively so in kitchens. Kitchens are very welcoming in neurodiversity. because so whether it's from an adhd uh or even slightly autistic perspective that hyper focus so the noise of a kitchen where there's huge amounts of things going on so somebody who isn't neurodivergent walks into a kitchen they see chaos and they see mayhem actually if you've got an adhd brain it's actually it's calm in space it's amazing you can see that's going on okay so you find calmness in the chaos of it all and you can go with and then for an autistic structure and brain you can find hyper focus on going okay that's where i'm going to go and that's what i'm going to do this is my this is my particular skill set job now i'm going to do macaroons for two hours and that's what i'm going to do it every single one is perfect and everything so there's a huge amount of neurodiversity that goes on in kitchens and they're they're places of solitude and greatness for people most most chefs that made it to the top have some form of addictive or neurodiverse quality that drops into their life you can exceed it's a superpower in a kitchen I think neurodiversity is a superpower in all sorts of aspects of life which is why schooling at that particular point of going here read that book remember it write it down again it's like what I want to do something with hands I'm encouraging people to do things with their hands because AI is taking a lot of the jobs away Yeah, yeah.

31:49Tom Kerridge:It might help with recipe writing, but it still needs someone to cook it. I like that. Might help with recipe writing, but it needs someone to cook it. It certainly does. Can't cook for you. So you've developed this business into several different locations. You're using different brands. You've obviously got Carriage Bar and Grill. Yeah. Is that something you're going to be developing? Are you going to open more of? No. How do you think of the business strategically, I suppose? Seven years this has been here. and you always think restaurants are always they work when you have individually care heart and soul into them unless you're creating a concept which is something very different but we've seen that a bit haven't we you know things like the ivy being opened up all over the place yeah that's a concept they're consistent in what they do in terms of interior design and you know the food that you're going to get there's no fluctuation in standards and levels and you know what you're having whereas individual restaurants they're very important their success is people keep coming back to them because they feel like they're an individual space and they're looked after by staff that care and and care about the environment and every point might have a touch point like my wife's sculptures in the middle of the room or different bits of art or you know tables or chairs that have been developed in a particular fashion or a way and you know this is personal it's personal and all of those things make a big difference so and each site we try to make so the hand of flowers is the first one which is the two mission star space and that's you know straight away from from you know my heart the heart and soul of me and beth and then the coach has been a development of that was we wanted that to be the first pub to win a mission star with sky sports on and it was and then we got was that the goal yeah that was yeah that was solely the goal who was playing when they awarded it yeah i don't know to be honest i can't remember but we have sky sports on and there's little tellies in there no sound right It's just like they're on in the background whilst you're eating, so it wins a start.

33:44Tom Kerridge:And we've got the Butcher's Tap and Grill, which is just all about cuts of meat, a bit like the meat counter here. We have here, which is our London-based kind of bistro. Like if you were to do a big brasserie style, but actually the food is a lot more refined than that. But the room, the noise, the energy, when you look at the high ceilings, it's great. And you go, what a beautiful restaurant and a brilliant space. and then the chalk which is another which is a chelsea-led um i suppose um residential community pub that's just off the king's road that is right you know which is has individual cookery skill set that's coming from tom who's the head chef at the hand he's there he's he's been in the company for 12 years so right so you know you're going to have a good each one is individual so there's no so you're not interested in concept rollouts for yourself you want you're more interested in a personal individual i never say never but the idea the concept has to come i haven't got the finances to put that together so the concept would have to come from a big finance company or a big financially backed hospitality company and then the concept would have to be the correct one that you could go okay it might be fish and chips or it might be burgers or it might be a a particular start it might be a pie shop or it might be but it would have to be something that you can roll out that you would be proud of it's the same everywhere else it'd have to be more of a branded concept as opposed to you can't have people expect to see you in it now i'm never in any of my restaurants i am yeah but we're sat here now somebody at the hand of flowers is going well he's never he's not here today well no and somebody at the hand of flowers can't be everywhere at once and somebody at the coach is going well he's not here today so i am in all my restaurants i'm just not there all the time now i wouldn't want to do a branded concept that gets rolled out and people expect to see me in there because you're just never going to be in there so never say never but until that's interesting that's a challenge that comes with growing a business yeah you can't be as close to everyone in it you don't necessarily know everyone who works in it and it's probably particularly so in your line of work whereas as you say personal involves passion and yeah well it's a way of life it's 200 250 people within the company and my My managing director and my PA have both been with me.

35:58Tom Kerridge:PA's been with me for 15 years. MD's been with us for 10. You know, and these people have tried and tried to manage in, a general manager in Marlowe, Lourdes, has been with us for 18 years. So it's all built on people that all understand the DNA. We're all in it together. We all built it together. May well have my name on the front of a book and the name of the restaurant. But actually, it's all of us that have built this collective force and brand. and I suppose restaurant group together. So you can't ever be everywhere at once. You do need to understand and learn to trust other people in their business to do things for you.

36:36Tom Kerridge:You have to know your own weaknesses, the things that you're rubbish at. Well, find someone who's good at it, let them do that. And the things that you're not so interested in, if somebody else is really interested in that, let them do it. Let them be a part of it. That doesn't mean to say shirt responsibility, But if there are people in those businesses that are good at just certain things, let them do it. That's delegating, isn't it? Yeah, you can't grow that delegation. And having 250 people and building that team of people is really important. We do a big party every year, summer party. We shut everywhere and everyone comes to our house.

37:07Tom Kerridge:So they come to our house every year and we have everybody there. So it feels like it's a part of something from all restaurants. Yeah, exactly. So they all feel collectively part of something. And they've been invited to our house. It all makes it feel like it's a nice thing to do. We're all in it together. yeah no that's great how sort of stepping out of that a little bit how have taste changed in terms of what people want to eat yeah and what they enjoy from when you started to now you know over the last 20-25 years yeah well fashion and fads in food and restaurants and cookery changes all the time and it makes it makes the british food seem incredibly eclectic and really exciting when i first started cooking it was all about french classic cuisine cooked with british ingredients but it's now kind of grown and adapted and if you think we're one of the most multicultural rich diverse eclectic countries in the world and we're on to the third fourth fifth generation sri lankan indian pakistani west indian like you know african nations where that those food influences are heavily coming into the way that we cook and as british chefs and as british society there's so many different influence we're like a magpie we're like a nation of magpies well that's you know, well, I'll take some chili with that.

38:19Tom Kerridge:I'll take some of that. I don't know. That makes an exciting place to cook and eat. Yeah, exactly. And it really does. And it makes it wonderful. So as those flavors and profiles grow, and pubs probably are one of the most amazing versions of that because there aren't any other restaurants. If you go to France or Greece or Italy, where you'll go, right, this is an Italian restaurant and it does pasta and pizza in Italy. And this is a Spanish restaurant that will do paella and it will do fantastic kind of like grilled stuff. and you know here in greece we have these fantastic um beautiful cook like kleftiko or you know slow cooked dishes or kebab style dishes but the british pub no no other global cuisine no other cuisine is like it where you will go okay well we might have a korean spice mackerel dish as a starter then we might have a lamb boona as a main course and then we might have sticky toffee pudding for dessert you go well we go in korea india like uk like not all pubs are like that No, but I don't know, Moses, quite a lot of them that will have a mix of that.

39:18Tom Kerridge:Yeah, no, that's exciting. And you go, and that makes it super exciting, amazing and brilliant and beautiful. And that's where it has changed massively, that food scene over the last 20, 30 years. So what are the challenges for you as a chef, business owner, operator now? Tax, taxation, like everything. What is national insurance in Greece? National insurance, VAT is the biggest thing in hospitality. The rest of Europe sits at anywhere between 8 % and 12 % in terms of VAT. Yeah, in the UK, it's at 20%. And that's a massive difference. So it's the most taxed industry from front-end taxes across the port, from whether it's NIC, whether it's VAT, whether it's tax on alcohol, whether it's everything that's got a corporation, everything that comes in is hugely taxed with no back.

40:08Tom Kerridge:What we need to do is see a VAT relief that would make a big, big difference on this industry. you know that eight to ten percent difference will be the difference between hospitality venues not only just i mean not many they did that for a bit after the pandemic didn't they did it make a big difference huge the industry had a sense of relief it could operate it worked it meant that um pay rises situation the difference between when i first started to when to now is when i first started there was no such thing as a minimum wage and there's no such thing about a minimum hours worked now that's hugely involved when i first started working you were doing 75 80 hour weeks and you're getting paid really badly now that is not the way forward right we are it's right that there is a minimum wage and there's right that people are paid per hour and that infrastructure comes in and the hours and the time off that people get all of that is of course correct however the percentage margins where where hospitality industry used to operate at about at 30 30 30 staff cost now all of a sudden because the food prices inflation and you can't charge more to the guests many places are operating on a wage bill at 50 55 percent you know that's not of total cost total cost now right now is not sustainable it doesn't work and the only way that restaurants and pubs and bars and coffee shops or sandwich places can make any money is what they charge you for the plate of food going across the other side well all of a sudden if you take 20 of that away like all of it like and the wage bill has gone up that's where it cripples you need to readdress those margins release 10 from the vat that means that those wage bills will sit still that means that everybody could get paid properly that means the industry can survive the way it's getting squeezed at the moment industry is closing it and closing it and closing it and closing it because people can just not afford to operate even the busiest places that look absolutely packed and they generate revenue does not mean that they are generating profit.

42:03Tom Kerridge:You could be a hugely busy restaurant and still be losing thousands of pounds a month. And the huge amount of work and effort that goes into that doesn't feel right or fair. It's run by passion. It's run by passionate people. No one's asking to make loads of money out of the industry. What we're asking for is the industry to just exist and survive. And the only problem that we have with it is it's not, sorry, it's not um it's not like it's not like british steel or british coal or it's not like so once it's gone it's gone if every if every publican every pub every restaurant every bar every shut today like that's the end of the industry it's not in two weeks time it'll be reopened because we all want to go out we all want to do it and there's loads of people out there go i could run a pub and a restaurant it's a different industry it's got it's got infinite amount of people that want to eat out and drink and enjoy themselves and it's got infinite amount of people that want to own the spaces irrespective of whether it makes money or not but they're not making money it is one of those industries that is on this precipice of falling off like british steel coal wherever also it creates a lot of jobs and it gives a lot of opportunities to younger people it's the fifth biggest employer in the uk in terms of what it brings in and then if you think of the the knock-on industry with it farming agriculture travel tourism all of those things that are added into hospitality on top of it generates so much and it's used in our lives so if you were chancellor if you were rachel reeves and you've got the budget coming up at the end of november what would you do then tom what would you reduce vat to 10 to 10 to 10 and you think that would really make a difference a huge amount because businesses would be able to operate they would be able to keep going they would be able to move they would be able to think forward they might even make a profit which means growth you generate growth it's a short it's a long-term answer to it's not going to it's not going to generate any money short term but longer term cost of money short term yeah but long term but it generates jobs it generates and then they pay income tax for people with jobs tourism and things like that it will come It does come in.

44:11Tom Kerridge:The knock-on effect of it will be a positive one. So, yeah, my biggest call always to government, no matter who's in charge. And this isn't just this government. This is a knock-on of the last 15 years, irrespective of who's in charge. Well, taxes have just been going up, haven't they? So they've only been going in one direction. The industry is often looked over and has seen a second dream. Yeah. So is there someone who's a sort of champion for the industry? Part of our problem is there's lots of voices. Lots of voices. There's not a trade association. But we also haven't got a minister of hospitality.

44:43Tom Kerridge:This is something else that we call for. We need a front-bedge minister of hospitality that could sit there speaking to the business secretary and saying, actually, this is what needs to go on. But it needs somebody to understand the industry and it needs somebody to be that voice. Seems like a good idea to me. It could be the business department. If you have a minister of hospitality, you need a ministry. And then it suddenly becomes a secondary thing. And I get it. And I get all of these problems. I do understand. I am somebody who has a much more socialistic viewpoint in terms of this country is built on a workforce.

45:13Tom Kerridge:You know, all of the people that work here within this building, within this hotel, come to work. They have to travel. They're on their days off because they work weekends. They have to be able to try and see a doctor or a dental appointment. They have to be able to, their kids have to have some, you know, an education system. We have to build solidity for a workforce. So trying to raise revenue to help people, I absolutely understand. But at the same point, you can't just blanket all business with the same. You have to look at different industries in different ways. So from a hospitality perspective, a reduction of VAT will also help a workforce and growth.

45:51Well, here to that. What next for you, for your business? I'm feeling you've got a lot on your mind, a lot going on. Yeah, there's always those things. What are you thinking about doing next?

46:04Tom Kerridge:Well, I don't know. I'm always thinking about what should we do now? And then I think we haven't got any money. We can't do it. There's no point. And everywhere. Because of what we've just been talking about. Exactly. And we need to generate business in spaces and things need to work. And, you know, businesses need to operate and they need to operate correctly. And we need to. So there's so much concentration on trying to operate the places that we have. I genuinely don't believe that next year there's not green shoots of growth coming through. It's going to be another, it may be even more difficult year next year.

46:31Tom Kerridge:so how do you keep building or just maintaining keeping the show on the road foundations that you already have and not let them get eroded and crumble so that's probably the first business point of view i think then on a personal nature you always have to be we're very lucky in our partnerships with mark suspensors and the way that we work in food development through them we work very hard with that from a media perspective um you're always looking at different opportunities to film and do things that you enjoy doing and you also find we also find ourselves with a voice when you when you write books and you come on television you find yourself with a voice that has to represent an industry yeah you have a profile yeah that you have to use in the right way whether it's help british farming whether it's to help the industry whether it's to help um i mean i come from a background of free school meals when it comes to you know trying to help disadvantage and more I suppose vulnerable economic people in a more vulnerable economic situation so you always find there's always something I'm always trying to do something but from a business profile and perspective we are not actively looking at expansion right but it sounds like there you've got a lot of things that you can turn your energy and talent to make a difference yeah there is and I wish you every success with that Tom thank you

47:53so i think that's a good place to finish the formal part of our discussion i always ask two questions at the end yes my the first one um is what gets you up on a monday morning okay like

48:05Tom Kerridge:i've never had a monday morning feeling and that's i count that as so lucky because we have that vocational job that you're always doing something it's something exciting i know i also moving on from when we just had the hand of flowers and it was just me driving it to now being in multi-site businesses, author, television presenter, all of those sort of different things that drop in. There's no routine or no structure. So every day is something new. So I never really have a Monday morning. So what gets me up is just going to see what the day brings. I'm super excited. You know, I'm very lucky.