Nicolas Budzynski on scaling La Petite Maison and why consistency beats awards in luxury dining

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's episode, we're exploring the value of a strong foundation in building successful and enduring businesses. First, we'll meet the boss of an award-winning global restaurant brand to hear how a focus on core values and long-term vision drives growth. Awards came, recognition came. We can only be thankful for that, but it's in the past. It's for the hard work we've already achieved. So I'm already thinking one, two steps ahead and I want the team to think in the same way.

0:46And later we'll head to Finland to meet the team behind a program designed to help students become the entrepreneurs of the future. Some parts of entrepreneurialism you cannot teach because it's not an academic subject. It's a vocation that we are learning and the secrets are in the details of how you do it. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:09You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Nicholas Spudzinski is the CEO of La Petite Maison, a global restaurant brand known for bringing a little bit of the French Riviera to cities including London, Dubai, Miami, Hong Kong, Marbella and, well, more on the way. With a focus on consistent quality, memorable experiences and careful international expansion, Nicholas has helped turn LPM into one of the most respected names in luxury dining worldwide. I caught up with Nicholas to hear about his approach to leadership. I began by asking him about his early education at the famed French Culinary Arts and Hospitality School, Institut Paul Becuse in Lyon.

1:48I was at a Moroccan restaurant with my mother and then I started to describe to her the type of restaurants that I would want to open one day, you know, mentioning that each room would have a different theme and a different cuisine. And she just asked me the questions, why don't you want to work and study restaurant business? And I'm like, well, never thought of it. And let's look into it. So she encouraged me from a very early age to look into my dreams and decided to go to the Institute Paul Bocuse at that time because it would give me the base of French cuisine, but it would also open doors to the international network that they have.

2:28while still keeping a great focus on the product itself. You know, the school is fantastic. It taught us all the basics of French cuisine and what made it internationally known. And I decided to go to Dubai after that. That's how I started my career. I love that. And well done, Maman, obviously. They're very wise, aren't they? Our parents know a lot more than we give them credit for at the time. Let's talk then about Dubai a little bit. An amazing scene. Obviously, the pace of change there is so rapid, almost from week to week. but you know if you go back to your experiences some amazing names you know jumeirah group you know you worked at birja arab some of these really iconic places but you is it fair to say you sort of quickly realized that it was restaurants as that youngsters dreams you've described it was restaurants rather than hotels was that a helpful learning how did you kind of realize that your focus on hospitality was very much on the restaurant scene going to dubai was a very clear decision at that time i've always had big dreams and i thought dubai was one of these up-and-coming territories with fantastic projects.

3:28At the time, no one really knew where Dubai was in France and in my social circle. But I just decided to go there because of all the fantastic projects. So my decision to go to Borgia Arab as a management trainee was more to get the name on the CV back at the time. I mean, it's a fantastic hotel, fantastic property with great service, fantastic guests. But I quickly realized that the level of hierarchy within such an establishment was extremely complicated and i'm an individual who always like to add value in anything i'm participating into so just fulfilling tasks was not enough for me so at the time i consulted my training manager and the gm of the hotel both of them have been very supportive in supporting my career path and they said well definitely a hotel you learn a lot of things but you're not going to have a lot of space to explore your creativity.

4:22So they both advised me to look into a newly established division within the Jumeirah group. And this was Jumeirah restaurants, and it was a lot more casual. It was like a startup mode. I was able to support the GM of the division by looking into various projects, legal aspects. So it was a fantastic way to touch a bit to everything and to really understand that, you know, being a lot closer to guests, being a lot closer to concepts creation was the way forward for me. That is super interesting. Can I ask you how you go about ensuring that you're sticking to those values as now the leader of this business?

4:59Because obviously you've been with LPM since 2019. I think you were there on the operations side and then now what, three or four years as CEO. How do you ensure that you're fostering the right environment, Nicholas, that allows for creativity, for flexibility? Is it about having a flatter management structure? because presumably the stakes are very high, the reputation of the group is very, very exacting, and it's built on impeccable service and so on. So how, as a manager, do you ensure the kind of flexibility that you yourself were seeking out that you were just talking about? No, it's not easy.

5:31I mean, as you pointed out, I've been in my new role for the last three and a half years. I think it's been quite a journey to shift from an operational focus role into to being responsible of a business on behalf of investors. So I think the initial years and steps have been exploring and trying to find the best way to still taking care of the existing operations while delegating a bit more, giving a bit more space for individuals within the organizations to bring value themselves while trying to understand what was my new responsibilities. There is no real roadbook in relation to a role of CEO.

6:13I mean, yes, you can read about what is a CEO for a large corporation, but each company is very different from one another. You know, it depends what type of investor you have, what type of board you have, and then the aspirations of the investors behind the business. So I think the last three and a half years have been very exploratory, at least the initial three years. And the last six months have been a little bit more stable in understanding what we should really establish for the business. And then finding processes and systems, easy ones to understand, for people to have the right vision behind the company, the right objectives and the right framework to be able to express themselves according to a clear direction.

6:58So I think that's how we went about three years of finding the right way. And now we're a little bit clearer about it. Absolutely. What role does recognition from outside play in that, Nicholas? Because lots of the leaders that we talk to on this programme and across all of Monocle, really, they talk about, look, trying to shut out the external noise, criticism, positive reviews, negative reviews, and sticking to your principles. And I know you believe in that. And yet at the same time, recognition is so important. If we look at world's 50 best restaurants or we know the hit list, right? And obviously, lots of the properties and locations that are under your aegis are now recognized there.

7:35Clearly, that's advantageous from a business point of view, from a promotional point of view. But do you have to try and shut out that kind of scrutiny or do you have to reflect it and try and meet their rigorous demands with your strategic decision making? How does that work when it comes to that high level kind of criticism and recognition? I think as a team today, including myself, we've been extremely lucky to inherit of that particular business. Our founders, we're so thankful for what they've created together. And we've been trained and we've been continuing to fulfill their vision in making the guests happy.

8:13And the key focus has been the food because obviously food is the main reason a guest is coming to a restaurant. It's changing a little bit for the last few years, but I still believe moving forward, food needs to remain the key focus. No good food in the restaurant, people will not come back as often as they could if the food was excellent. So we've been lucky by being shown the right way by the founders, by being focused on the product, being focused on the guests. Awards came, recognition came naturally, but it's in the past. So we can only be thankful for that. I think it's been very useful to motivate employees to join us or to continue working with us.

8:53So I think we use it as an internal tool to show how great of a company we are, how great of a product we are, how much we can bring into people's career as a professional value. But we always like to stop it very quickly. I mean, we praise a little bit ourselves, maybe not enough. I would admit I'm not the best praiser, not because I don't want to praise people, but I've always keep looking forward. So for me, when a step is achieved, we gain an award, it's done. I mean, it's for the hard work we've already achieved. So I'm already thinking one, two steps ahead, and I want the team to think in the same way.

9:28So we always look at what we can do better, what we haven't done good enough, and we could do even better moving forward. So the world is changing, trends are changing, so there are always opportunities to adapt and make your business evolve. And that's what we really, really focus about. We do get inspired a little bit by what our competitors or our peers are doing. But in general, we prefer to focus on our own business because by looking at what others do, we're just spending time in speculating about others while we have enough to take care of our own garden. you know so that's i would say how we look at recognition and awards and things like that yeah and i'll ask you a bit more about some trends and the direction of travel in a moment but look you mentioned food and it would be a serious missed opportunity not to talk about the specifics tell me about a typically great service i think look i'm sure our listeners amongst them there'll be lots of frequent visitors and maybe they have a favorite maybe they're thinking of a particularly playful rosé real you know sunshine in a glass kind of thing with i don't know is it salt baked sea bass or whatever it might be.

10:35Take me to one of your locations and one service, maybe one dish and one accompanying glass of wine that for you sums up the whole of the kind of La Petite Maison experience. So you need to start the experience at the bar, or at least if it's not at the bar, it's with a cocktail. And this has to be with the Tomatini. It's our signature cocktail. We define it as the essence of La Petite Maison in a glass. So pretty straightforward. But, You know, when you enter the restaurant, you get the vibrance of the location. There is a buzz. There is a positive dynamic. Everybody's happy. People are moving.

11:10You go to your table and the first thing you see is a tomato and lemon on the table. Right. So the tomato is an important element for us. And when La Petite Maison Dubai opened in 2010, it was the first time we had a destination bar. And at that point, we wanted to create a signature cocktail. So we got the help of Jimmy Barrett, who at the time was working for Zuma. Zuma was created by our co-founder Arjun Wani. So there were some links there. So Arjun Wani decided to provide us support on the mixology side. And Jimmy Barrett comes from the South of France. And immediately when he said, OK, I have the opportunity to create a cocktail for L 'Apetit Maison, I want to use a tomato.

11:48I want to use the salt and pepper that you see on the table and recreate a tomato salad within a cocktail. So he created the Tomatini and it's a freshly muddled tomato, white balsamic vinegar, salt, salt and pepper, a bit of sugar syrup to balance the acidity of the tomato, and some Kettle One vodka, shaken and steered, finished with freshly grinded paper on top of your tomatini and it's served in a martini glass. So you start with that. I think you should follow with warm prawns in olive oil with basil. It's probably the dish that represents La Petite Maison food in the simplest way. is just prawns, olive oil, basil, and some sea salt and black pepper.

12:34Very simple ingredients. However, if you don't get the right ingredients, the taste of the dish would not be balanced and would not be so great. It's very light. It's very refreshing. It's a dish that is shareable. And that dish alone, you know, and even when you look at it, it's very bright and bold in colors, represent equally the DNA of La Petite Maison as the Tomatini. And then as a glass of wine, I definitely would advise to go with a glass of Rosé, you know, a Côte de Provence, because it's a wine that represents the region, that will link to memories of summer with friends and family. And it's a wine that can go with starter, main course, and desserts.

13:14It goes with everything. And it's so easy to drink that, yeah, you drink it like water. or you've seen me in a restaurant before and listeners should be assured there's no interference on the line that's just my stomach rumbling i'm thirsty and hungry in equal measure tell me a little bit more nicholas then about how you ensure that the sort of the dna of the brand runs through places that also capture the unique spirit of where they are and i think this is what great restaurant groups do very well and they make it look easy but it's difficult you know i think if you're in any of your locations, you know you're being looked after by the same team, but you're in no doubt about where you are and that it's different from one to another.

13:55Is that difficult to pull off? I guess a lot of that relies on your people, right? From location to location. But how mindful are you that particularly, look, you've got other plans to expand. You're going to have more locations on the Eastern seaboard in the US, for example. As you get bigger and it becomes harder to be everywhere at once, how do you ensure the consistency to the core standards, but also capturing the unique character of each new venue as it opens? We've been lucky enough to open our restaurants in very multicultural cities. Our first location was in London. I mean, the world is flying to London.

14:26We then opened in Dubai and Dubai has done a great effort over the last 15 years since we opened, you know, to become, I think, one of the top tourist destinations globally and one of the top dining destinations globally. We've opened in the US, in Miami, which is also very multicultural and And then the same with Hong Kong. So somehow by default, yes, we have a French Riviera inspired concept. But by the cities we've opened, we've been able to access a very wide demographic. When we choose to open new locations, we always look at a simple criteria. Are we going to be able to drive equal amount of local residents to international travelers?

15:10and by having this mix we will never be too local and never be too international and that's very important for us we've opened in cities we had a restaurant in Istanbul and we had a restaurant in Beirut back in the days and these restaurants were driving a much higher demographic of local population and we've seen that over time the imbalance of the guest demographic was leading the business in the wrong direction so we've learned and now we a lot more careful and that's the initial criteria we're looking for is how can we get this balance so neither the traveling audience nor the local audience is influencing the concept that everyone loves it for we we're very lucky because as i said our founders have created a concept that everybody likes i don't one hater of La Petite Maison concept.

16:06You know, some other concept may be too dark, may be too loud, may be too this, may be too that. But somehow there is this sense of harmony when you enter the restaurants, when you eat the food, when you talk to our people and you leave the restaurants and you just feel happy. So I think that's what we're really lucky about this concept. And we try to duplicate, but the balance of the audience is very important. Yeah, and I think harmoniousness, it's really interesting that you zero in on that word, because that is often not considered enough or not deeply enough. You know, it's something a harmonious experience.

16:37And just to that point, Nicholas, perhaps finally, let me ask you about the future of luxury. These are quite sweeping questions, but just maybe tell us some of the other values, some of the other shifts in the appetites, if you'll forgive the pun, of your clients that you're serving. You know, here at Monocle, we talk a lot about taking time to do things properly. We talk about the craft, you know, the thoughtfulness that goes into making things. We talk a lot about less is more. And I know these are things that you demonstrate clearly in the restaurants that you manage. Talk to me about the direction of travel.

17:08What are some of the values that you think will set the agenda for delivering great luxury products to a discerning audience, not just in two, five years, but maybe over a 10 year time horizon? I don't like to talk about others, really. I like to focus on what I like or what our product is. But let's look at what we as brand and organizations we've been able to follow since our inception in London in 2007. And as remain successful by not being, you know, focused purely on transfers. But our values as a business is fresh. You know, we need to remain quality driven and seek the best for ourselves and for our guests.

17:50simplicity, you know, in everything we do, we need to be organized and we need to be very, very careful to not overcomplicate things. Sharing is a big part of our concept in relation to the food. You know, we want the food to be served in the middle and people to share the food with one another, but also in how we create memories, you know, we're sharing memories with our guests, with our employees, you know, we want to be caring and generous. It's a collaborative work between ourselves. We want to be honest in everything we do, making sure we're respectful, truthful, and we behave with integrity.

18:24You know, there is a lot of discussions with, you know, where is the product being created and at what price is this being sold and the margins that business are making on particular products. I think we've seen the last few years, especially since COVID, I think that pricing has been a major issue in our industry, but potentially in others as well, where people have been sold what businesses wanted to call experiences. But experiences has been great for once, but not for twice or three times. So people are getting a little bit fed up of pricing abused, seeing across the restaurant world, but also maybe the high-end and luxury retail world.

19:07And finally, for us, going back to our brand, we like to also bring an element of playfulness. We like to create memories. We like to create an element of surprise, something that just leaves a smile on people's face. And these five value, you know, fresh, simple, sharing, truth, and playful, we believe has led us to be still very successful after 18 years. We're still growing covers and revenue in each and every markets we are into. despite all the difficulties of London and the high competition of Dubai and Miami and so on. And we believe by continuing to apply these values in everything we do, you know, we have another 10, 15, 20 years ahead of us to be able to still grow the business in our existing locations and new locations equally because we don't want to be focused on growth with new ventures only.

19:59Our existing restaurants is even more important. How do we keep surprising our guests in our existing restaurants? So I think the secret of longevity in business is that consistency in applying that on each and every day, but also in what you plan to achieve tomorrow. That was Nicolas Budzinski, the CEO of La Petite Maison. And since we spoke, LPM has announced it'll be opening in Bahrain in late 2026. This comes off the back of other recent new venue announcements, including Marbella, Boston, Kuwait and the Maldives. You can find out more about all of that by heading over to lpmrestaurants.com.

20:49You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. We head to Finland next, specifically to the city of Esbo, where a new university initiative is helping students turn ideas into real businesses. Monocle's Helsinki correspondent Padri Bertsov went to meet the people and the students behind the Aalto Founders School.

21:14Aalto University in Esbo, Finland, has long been seen as the beating heart of Finland's start-up scene. It's where Slush, Europe's biggest startup event, was born and where entrepreneurial energy runs through the lecture halls and labs. Now the university has launched Aalto Founders School, a program designed to help students not just dream up ideas, but build real products and learn how to lead.

21:43My name is Martin Mikos. I'm a serial CEO, startup CEO, maybe most known for MySQL, which was the second unicorn startup out of Europe. Alta Founders School is a new initiative where we give young students who have the entrepreneurial spirit but they need a lot of practice and skills and by working together they can develop them at the Alta Founders School. We have several different initiatives within the school. One is a concentrated, intense Founders Sprint where we currently have seven students running in that program. Mikko says entrepreneurship isn't an academic subject. It's something you learn by doing.

22:22Some parts of entrepreneurialism you cannot teach. You can only learn. So we've tried to figure out the best ways to get that knowledge and share it from those who have done it before, share it by those who have studied it very clearly, but then make sure that the participants are doing, practicing, engaging, because it's not an academic subject. It's a vocation that we are learning, and the tricks and the secrets are in the details of how you do it. The program attracts students from all over the world. Adit, a second-year data science student from India, told me what drew him in. The main aim that I came with was to meet other cool people and talk to really smart people and sort of become a part of that community.

23:07And every week we have excursions and founder talks and fireside chats and you get to meet more interesting people and learn from their experiences and perspectives. For Melanie, a master's student in data science, it was about turning technical skills into something more tangible. Currently at Aldo, I'm studying data science. I'm in the first year of the master's. And I joined the Founder School because I've been quite a technical person so far in my career and I would love to learn more about building products. What was it about the Founder School that attracted you and what are your expectations?

23:40I think it was mostly being surrounded by the right people who are as driven, as ambitious as I am. So that makes a huge part, basically, the network that you're surrounded with. And then, of course, more of the practicalities in every course. It's always really theoretical. But here at the Founders Sprint, we actually build a product. We do user research and then we have the business strategy coming up later. So I think this is a key differentiator. Students don't need to arrive with a ready-made business plan. The goal, Mikko says, is to help builder types find their footing. We are not requiring them to have a business idea of their own.

24:20They just know they want to be builders of the future. The difficulty here is it's really nearly impossible to know who will be a future founder and who won't. So we have assessed them on six dimensions, which we think are indicative of where they will go. But the excitement of the startup world is that it doesn't show on the outside. It's not like you have to be talkative or shy or fast or slow or something. The people who do well in the startup world come from all kinds of, they are different in their own unique ways, and that's what makes it so exciting. And like everything at Aalto, community is central.

25:00Our most important collaborators are our students, of course, but they all come for the community, and the secret of success is building a strong community that will always be ready to help the new students when they are learning, doing, practicing, testing, validating, building, prototyping. So in that sense, we will partner with anybody who can bring relevant help of that sort. Specifically, it's with the groups in and around Aalto University, like Aalto ES, Kiwas, Freight, other VC groups, entrepreneurial clubs that we work most closely with. Finland's startup ecosystem has evolved quickly, and Aalto sits at the center of it all.

25:40What we see is that the startup world is very, very strong in Finland, as you can see from the Slush Conference. And of all universities in Finland, Aalto completely stands out in terms of how many entrepreneurs come out of its ranks. So this is really the place to build something new. What's different from when I was a kid, I was 24 years old when I started my own first company here, but now it's so international. It looks like half of the students are from somewhere else and it makes it much, much, much stronger. So I think Aalto has never had an opportunity that it has today to build amazing businesses for the future.

26:16Beyond the sprints, Aalto Founder School runs guest talks with some of Finland's top entrepreneurs. We have a founder talk series where we invite great founders to come and share not just their success, but how they overcame struggles and problems. Tomorrow we have Mika Antonen, self-made billionaire. He will be speaking to us and sharing his experiences. We also have a minor program, minor study program that you can add to your degree in entrepreneurialism. We have courses in product, go to market and other things. And here we use a lot of real world examples. So they are not theoretical courses.