What It Takes To Open Your Own Restaurant | Clare Smyth, Chef and Owner of Core

whoo welcome back [Applause] [Music] I'm cold I'm not I'm not made for this weather for the last two days we've been talking about minding the gaps the gaps in gender equity the gaps between the present we know and the futures we seek and most of all most of all the realities of our industry sometimes the gaps are the biggest when we open a new restaurant and I think our next guest is likely to agree she has spent more than half of her life in the restaurant industry she is the first female chef to obtain and retain a three Michelin star she's also a member of the Order of the British Empire which seems really fancy I don't and she's also the current holder of the much-discussed title world's best female chef last year she opened her restaurant core in London and now she's here to talk about this journey with us please join me in a warm welcome for Claire Smith [Applause] [Music] hi good afternoon really delighted to be here and heard some really inspirational things so far and obviously would like to thank Renee and milena for inviting me over and so today I'm just going to share with you my experience of opening a restaurant over the last 12 months so Corps opened its doors on the 1st of August in 2017 in fact we just celebrated our first birthday and it's been a bit of a roller coaster as you can imagine and so we all begin the process of opening a restaurant with a vision in mind so we know what we want that restaurant to be what we want it to feel like we may not know exactly the color of the bathroom tiles or the fabric of the seats but we know how we want our guests to feel but the reality is often something very different so it's about closing the gap between our vision and what reality deems possible sometimes that gap gets wider and sometimes it's very very close certainly through the opening stages of the restaurant I'd go home and think to myself what the hell have I done and so I'd like to talk call this talk the good the bad and the ugly but I'm going to start with the bad because we like to keep the good to the to the last okay so if we're before opening core I was a chef at restaurant Gordon Ramsay for almost ten years and I had worked in three Michelin star kitchens for 15 years of my life given my background people expected me to carry on with a high-end French classical style of cooking I had maximized all British guides and with only a handful of chefs to ever have done so so when core was opening it was one of the most anticipated openings in years now my story's a little bit different because when I left a restaurant Gordon Ramsay 9 9% of my team were still there my dishes were still on the menu and I left 10 years of my work behind to start something new and I wasn't planning to go down the route that people expected I was going for something much more relaxed and to be honest a restaurant that I could afford to open and something that wouldn't go bankrupt in the first few years I put everything into it and I couldn't afford for it to fail so this being my first solo restaurant I really wanted to do everything myself part of the reason I was leaving working for a major group was I wanted to prove to myself as a chef that I could really do start something new so I wanted to do everything myself from the business plan the designs the finances finding the right site dealing with agents how much risk I was prepared to take on it all of it took you know a good year then I had to fight very hard to fit my vision into my budget and then you realize that that's just not going to happen so you squeeze and squeeze and squeeze everything you hit you deal on every single plate and every piece of cutlery and you try to fit it in to your vision so all of this of course is before any work had begun and anyone that ever opened a restaurant I'll tell you that 95 percent of your time is worrying about things that you've never dreamed of so my planning permission was declined three times to replace an extract system but the newer quieter more environmentally friendly one our neighbors opposed our alcohol license legal and accountancy fee stacked up and they are expensive you know when you have to go to hearings to get your license you didn't budget for that but lawyers cost a fortune so per hour you're already spent so much money by the time you've even started the building but then the builders moved in okay so I want to show you just a little bit so you can get an understanding of core so getting the keys to my first restaurant it's big moment in everyone's lives that's ever done this going through that front door finding a site that meant something to me that felt good was very very important unfortunately this was very all on Sun sound so this is what we ended up with so this is actually the kitchen so you can see there's some pretty major structural things happening needless to say it's quite a considerable project we wanted to remove structural pillars supporting walls to open up the space the building was built in 1861 so you can imagine and many challenges drains collapsing foundations crumbling and I thought we've given ourselves plenty of time to open we were scheduled to get the building back and completed by the 7th of June I thought you would set the opening date for the 1st of August and that would give us plenty of time to get the team trained up so 7th became the 20th and then that became the 7th of July and so on in the end it was like being in a very slow crash all I could see was the wall in front and we were going to hit it hard for sure but there's nothing we could do to stop it first of August bookings were open and we were already fully booked for weeks we had no choice but to somehow opened everybody I spoke to said don't worry it's always like that when you open a restaurant guests are walking in when the paint still wet literally that's what happened we managed to get in about three soft opening services before we opened and one of those I was the only guest because I was so upset with how the first one went I cancelled the next one and I walked through every single step with my team about how I wanted the restaurant to feel I've been so used to working in such a tight regimented system that anyone who joined us at restaurant Gordon Ramsay very quickly got molded into that system it wasn't like that now we had to create the systems for ourselves I couldn't just turn around and tell people what I wanted and expect them to deliver because they didn't know there was only three others in the kitchen that previously worked with me we had to really really go back to basics and learn to communicate training the team to become who I needed them to be took time they don't just arrive with a skill set and knowledge required getting them to understand the vision the feel connected to us and the gues suppliers that takes a lot of work we had to inspire them we had to get them to buy into it I had to take them by the hand and show them my vision working with them every step of the way and we all know that training never never stops but we had to start so far behind to be the best you've got a train every day and continue to share your knowledge through all of this I remained quite calm because I had been through [ __ ] before and I fought my way out of it I knew that losing my temper would only shake the team further and this is where all those years came in thankfully this time I didn't have three Michelin stars to lose we didn't have any we opened on the first of August as planned and it was a near disaster after opening you would think that things would smooth out a bit wrong we started to lose staff we just didn't get the team to knit together Christmas season here and we were in the [ __ ] no way out but just to put our heads down and crack on so the sous-chef fell over and broke his finger one of the shefte parties fell over and seriously sprained his ankle they call me on the pastry got bronchitis which then we had to send her away because it was going to turn into pneumonia the guy on the garnish fell down the stairs at home and got concussion on Year's Eve we barely got ready for service there was a special menu high expectations but I was determined to have fun which was always something I wanted at the very heart of core we dressed all the chef's up in hats and bowties we it was a tough service but we got through it we had a live band we cleared the tables away and we got the whole team dancing with the guests I realized it's always important no matter how [ __ ] things are that if people give you everything you can't ask for more you've got to be grateful for that and you've got to lead your team and celebrate it you have to let your hair down and say thank you so now the ugly part everyone think that's pretty ugly but the ugly parts more personal because we can deal with being in the [ __ ] but personal stuff is it sticks so from the moment we opened our doors food critics were falling over themselves to get in my first review was written on our opening night in a major tabloid newspaper the headline read all the food that you can tweet just when you thought restaurants couldn't get any more ridiculous along coms core the critic wrote naturally there is an open kitchen where chefs use gilded tweezers to garnish these dwarf sized dishes with micro herbs whilst wearing the expression of someone performing open-heart surgery on a dying puppy she thought that I was having a laugh charging 95-pound for a tasting menu and that the scholar that she had for her main course was overcooked perhaps she wrote the team were too busy ironing the petals of an edible pansy to notice all of the ingredients on the menu couldn't have cost more than a fiver okay never mind okay we weren't actually serving scholar to the main course the extra-large hand ice collet cost more than a fiver and anyone knows that anyone with primary school maths can work out at a 50-seat a restaurant in Notting Hill in London that employs more than 40 people would realize 95 pounds for a tasting menu is actually incredibly good value you have to take in consideration 20 percent of that is v80 now the truth is that that critic didn't even step foot in my restaurant what actually happened there was a man in gray hair waiting outside the restaurant the doors to open when we opened he pretended to be invited by my PR company I ever heard the conversation went over to the man introduced myself he said he was a local and just wanted to try out the restaurant I said sure of course your neighbour I'm never gonna turn the neighbor away and I always said that cor I will feed everyone so I said why didn't you take a seat at the bar bearing in mind this is our opening night and we are rammed full we've got everyone in and I said don't worry I'll feed you a couple of dishes just being neighborly 30 minutes later Clara and Pierre Kaufmann walked in and Claire said to me be careful that's a food critics husband sitting at the bar and I said oh don't worry I'm just being neighborly he was just in their neighborhood so I've just made him a couple of dishes so the critic wrote the review based upon her husband's experience now of course I called my mentor Gordan he said sewer [Applause] but really I couldn't understand what I had done to this person and why she wanted to stick the knife in now I was used to quite a lot of heat working with Gordon for so long he used to wind people up on purpose but why me this wasn't the only one there are others I squeezed in for a favor they wrote shitty things I found it very disheartening that they would use our hospitality for a cheap headline whilst missing pretty much everything that we were trying to do we did receive great reviews also but by our own nature we never remember those just the bad ones I couldn't get over why anyone was so horrible after the night where we had endured during the opening nobody wanted to give us a chance or it seemed that way I left home when I was 16 I worked hard saved my money so that I could open a restaurant to feed people and make them happy I employed 40 people trying to be sustainable as possible I want to create good working environment we were serving less meat and fish on the menu championing of vegetable to be responsible sure the acoustics weren't great when we opened but that that need to be the point of someone's article I fixed the problem quite easily weeks after opening and I couldn't understand what why do they get pleasure out of being so harsh does it make them feel good or more important then there were the neighbors who love to complain constantly phoning the council complaining about noise cooking smells of course some of those days that they complained we weren't even opened I pointed out that maybe one of the other neighbors was making themselves a bacon sandwich or ham somebody had a barbecue but of course my sarcasm didn't go down very well but really some people seem to be professional complainers and it felt that like everyone was against us and no almost pro business now I understand 95 pounds means a lot to people it's a lot of money to pay but restaurant margins are incredibly thin or do cooks waiters dishwashers not does deserve to earn a decent wage like all those accountants and lawyers that I had to pay or should we dredge the oceans and keep animals in cages so you can get a cheaper meal and we can work in basements we really should be able to run successful businesses economically and environmentally sustainable in order for our industry to survive we need to be able to pay people a decent wage and I'm really determined to make all that place we need to keep educating people in the correct way we need to talk about the real costs of running a restaurant somehow get those critics to understand and buy into it the ugly moments of opening a restaurant are the ones where you feel that maybe the gap is simply too large to bridge maybe the world we hope to create as chefs and restaurant owners isn't possible in this age can we ever pay our people enough can critics and chefs be in a conversation rather than conflict it's enough to drive many people from the industry costs can easily run away and at some point you have to force an opening regardless of builders and contractors because if you give them more time they'll take it you know months slip away when you're paying rent business rates and staff sure you can make a claim against them but lawyers cost money good luck ever actually getting it back because they'll go bankrupt and pop up somewhere else meanwhile how many guests will you have to serve to make back that 100 200 or 300 thousand pounds you have to take a leap of faith and know that you'll get there quickly even if the opening isn't how you want it to be you just have to believe in yourself and put the work in that's why you should never judge a restaurant when it opens yet so many people do now I'll get to the good back this bits the shortest because we always focus on the negative it's a human nature okay luckily I've always been a bit of a fighter negative review spur me on rather than calling out the critics like I was looking bitter it fuels me to make them look ridiculous from calls success over the last 18 months most of my senior staff and I have worked non-stop not because we can't take a break but because we don't want to we're committed to making a restaurant as good as it can be as quickly as we can and I just won't be happy sitting around a pool when there's so much work to do the good side of a restaurant is not financial reward or fame or awards maybe that will come maybe it won't what feels good is wiping the slate clean and starting again creating something new and watching it come to life new dishes a new identity you get to learn who your audience is and who supports you a nice large number of old colleagues came back to me after some years of working apart they were just waiting for the call some hoots targed our HR had joined us from all over the world it was like a family getting back together I'll show you some of those family there they are people it's what Ben was saying earlier about the individual and appreciating every individual member of your team as a person and the part they have to play all the people that helped us all the suppliers that believed in what we were doing all a part of it and there's the team now after our rocky start I really reflected on what I had done I questioned everything I was doing and realized that what I thought was important and not I learned to strip back the layers go back to basics of communicating with my team and my guests for all of the ratings and accolades in the world nothing is more important and valuable than the people around you and the food community I learned to listen to people's feedback but really for the first time whether I took it or not on board I certainly considered it we knocked down the kitchen wall because I wanted to say hi to all of our guests we spent time really talking to suppliers for the first time we invited them all to core so they can meet each other share their passion and knowledge this is how you bridge those seemingly impossible gaps by leaning on around you those who've survived it too we can't make it by ourselves we have to open our minds and our arms to the rose around this and ask for help and give it out as well like I say the rewards are not guaranteed but I can tell you there's something magical about doing something that's your own and watching people embrace it I've seen the stiffest of guests from our HR real connoisseurs who dine in three-star restaurants globally come to Corps in trainers and they love it more and it's amazing when you strip the layers away how people become themselves and how we become ourselves we cooked for 20,000 450 people in our first year people coming to my restaurant and supporting me has been more valuable than everything I've ever won or been awarded before and I genuinely never realized that before opening core I tried to thank all of them personally and have genuinely been blown away by their support and feedback one of my all-time favorite gay guests beat cancer rate recently and was able to celebrate her 84th birthday with us it's moments like that when you remember why we do this it's to see these people having fun and being a part of special moments in their life and for them to be a part of ours also and that's it bring on year to thank you thank you very much thank you