Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton is hungry for more restaurants after just opening the doors to his 15th. Emily Wright sits down with him to get a taste for what’s to come.
“I had to be really strict with myself when I got home last night,” says Michelin-starred chef Jason Atherton rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “All I wanted to do was make myself a cheese and crisps sandwich. I add the crisps for texture. Sometimes Pringles, sometimes Walkers. And right now I would love a bacon sandwich with tons of brown sauce, and I’m not even hungover.”
It’s 10am on Friday morning at Atherton’s and, hangover or not, he is on impressive form given the week he has had. On Wednesday he launched City Social at – his 14th restaurant opening in three-and-a-half years and his first foray out of the West End and into the City. Later today he’ll hop back across Regent’s Street to his flagship , where he still cooks Monday to Friday, and next week he’s off to Hong Kong for the launch of restaurant number 15.
And the frenetic calendar of events doesn’t start to ease up there. He has plans to enter the New York market within the next three years – “There’s no trick to that. It’s a tough one, so you just have to strap on a big pair of balls and get on a plane,” – and he has leases signed on 10 additional properties in London and across the globe, including the group’s first hotel. All are to be opened in the next five years, taking his total portfolio to 25 locations.
No wonder he sometimes just wants to collapse on the sofa with a Pringles sandwich.
Here the 42-year-old chef gives his own, insider’s view on the ever-changing world of high-end hospitality, reveals how he approaches each and every one of his property deals and promises he will never have “chief executive” emblazoned across his ?business cards.
Social animal
Atherton is often described in the press as being calmer, friendlier and generally much easier to handle than some of his culinary contemporaries. That is now that he has become a character in his own right. Once upon a time he was better known as Gordon Ramsay’s protégé. And while technically that may still be considered the case, it is now a significantly diluted connection given the speed at which Atherton is developing his own brand through the Social empire.
He joined Ramsay in 2001 and took on the role of executive chef at Maze in Grosvenor Square, W1, in 2005. It is well documented that by the time he left in 2010 the pair had fallen out and no longer speak.
Not long afterwards, Atherton went for it on his own, remortgaging his house to fund the launch of Pollen Street Social. He was lucky – there is no denying this first step was a risky one. But it quickly becomes clear that Atherton is anything but a reckless entrepreneur building a hospitality brand on passion alone.
Even more striking than his relaxed nature is his near instantly apparent business acumen. He is as succinct and sharp when quizzed on his property portfolio and approach to new deals as he is when he talks about confiting a duck leg or making a jalapeño sorbet. The only difference – and it is an important one – is that when he is discussing business, the emotion in his voice completely evaporates.
“I tackle every deal with a completely cold, calculated approach,” he says.
“I get offered deals all the time and before we get into the romantic part of opening a restaurant, I sit there with whoever I am buying the lease from and I go through every number. If they don’t stack up I walk away. No matter what. My business deals are based on a 50% rule. If my restaurants are 50% full and I can still pay my bills, pay my rent, pay my staff and put 5% profit in the bank then I’ll go for it. If I can’t, I won’t. If I work from that business model it means that if I am 100% full I can put 25% yield in the bank – it works.”
He adds that the difficulties a number of chefs and restaurant brands so often experience when expanding is often down to emotional decisions skewing judgment.
“Too many people rush in and don’t look at their numbers,” he says. “I would never do that. I wouldn’t sit there and say ‘Oh but I really want this site. It’s going to be an amazing restaurant and people will be queuing around the block.’ Because there is no point in them queuing around the block and the restaurant being full every single night if, at the end of the month, I can’t pay the bills. This is especially crucial now as rents at the moment are going through the roof. There are certain operators out there – who I won’t name – who are inflating the market beyond what is sustainable and it will come crashing down because it’s not achievable. A certain restaurateur paid a massive amount for a site in Covent Garden and he can’t make it pay – of course he can’t, it was an emotional decision, not a business one.”
Atherton is now in a position where his expansion plans look after themselves to a degree. He is approached so regularly that it ultimately comes down to cherry-picking.
“We never, ever go looking for sites. We don’t beat the high streets or go to agents saying ‘find me this, find me that’,” he says.
Having said that, he did have a hankering for something in the City and when Gary Rhodes announced he would be retiring and leaving his spot at Tower 42 in 2012, Atherton’s ears pricked up.
He doubled the size of the space, taking the whole floor on level 24, which he opened last week in partnership with Restaurant Associates – the executive dining division of contract caterer Compass Group – to showcase a high-end British menu.
“Every time we opened in the West End – with Pollen Street, Little Social, Social Eating House – we had lots of people coming in from the City with clients. So we thought why not take the Social brand to them?”
Why not indeed? The launch on 30 April, attended by celebrities including actor Benedict Cumberbatch and male model David Gandy, was suitably glamorous. And, apart from the food, the toilets have already been picked out as a highlight – for the ladies, glass walls with views of London, but no way for people to see in (a crucial clarification). And for the gents? Well, the men have similar views and can step up onto a ledge to give the sense of “peeing all over London”, which seems to have ticked a few boxes. “I knew people would have that reaction to the toilets,” laughs Atherton.
“That’s exactly why I did it.”
Global domination and pizza
Moving on to the other ventures bubbling away under the surface. Atherton is in Hong Kong this week to launch Aberdeen Street Social – his 15th restaurant. Then he will be launching in the Edition Hotel on New York’s Madison Avenue – the restaurant is expected to open in May 2017.
“I will move out there for two months or so when that happens as it’s a difficult market,” he says. “Although I will always live in London full time.
“I have no idea what the perception of me is in New York – or even if there is one. I’ll just go and open the restaurant and make sure the product is absolutely right. And I’ll stay humble.”
Then he has plans to open in Sydney, Bangkok, Jakarta and “a few more in London”, to name but a few.
And, of course, the hotel. It will be the first one, it will be in London and Atherton is still looking for the right site.
He says: “We are looking for around 25,000-30,000 sq ft – maybe in Clerkenwell or Shoreditch. It will need to have more than 50 bedrooms plus enough space for a couple of restaurants and a bar. It’s a natural next step for us.”
He is also talking to Land Securities about opening a high-end pizza restaurant at Nova in Victoria.
“I am obsessed with pizza at the moment. I have an idea to do two types – one where the pizza base is more like a plate and the starter goes on top. You spread on some guacamole then scallop ceviche, chilli, coriander, maybe a little jalapeño sorbet.
“The other type of pizza would be more traditional.”
The passion is well and truly back. It is clear that no matter how clinical Atherton is when it comes to his deals, once he starts to think about the “romantic side to opening a restaurant” he goes full pelt.
When the inevitable question as to whether he is spreading himself too thin comes, Atherton jumps on it at the speed of light.
“No. Because Jason Atherton doesn’t work at them all,” he says. “I work at Pollen Street Social. That’s my baby. Each of the other restaurants has a chef patron and I chose them all very carefully. I choose people with the same drive and ability as me to make a restaurant a financial success as well as a culinary one.
“Plus, I have a team of 1,000 people working for me across HQs in London and Singapore. I can call someone up and say ‘look into every single gas and electric company to find out all of their rates. Within six weeks come back to me with a better deal’ and that will then happen. It takes me 30 seconds.”
Cooks don’t rule the world
Atherton’s key to success is not to waver. He says decisions are made and, in spite of the outcome, you must move on.
“The minute you start wavering you lose all your strength,” he says. “And you need strength when you hit hard times. We really struggled with Pollen Street Singapore. It was too far from the centre of town. We made a mistake. So we are now actively looking to move it, lock, stock and barrel, to the central business district and that’s all there is to it.”
Then he addresses the issue of “the chef persona”. A regular guest on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, Atherton now appears on his own TV show, My Kitchen Rules, which first aired on Sky Living in January. Will it change him? Will it turn him into a culinary ogre? He thinks not.
He says: “I don’t believe my own bullshit – that’s basically it. Too many chefs do that. So many chefs do a bit of TV and think they rule the world. But what are we? We’re cooks. We don’t rule the world. And we are so lucky because ultimately we get to run about like kids, having fun for a living. Some chefs in my position would turn up to work every day in ridiculously expensive suits and have business cards with CEO printed on them. I could do that. And people would not begrudge me doing that. But I am a cook. That’s it. A cook.”
A cook who knows how to make a killer cheese and Pringles sandwich.
See also: Celebrity chef cooks up pizza plan
emily.wright@estatesgazette.com
