Your Invite To Power Lunch

So Francine. Last week we were going to do a Jubilee special all about the restaurants scene in London, and we were talking to Syn Yessen, who's the owner of One Lombard Street, which is a big city lunch institution, and Bill not who's a Bloomberg food writer. And Bill had written this fantastic article about the power lunch being back in the City of London. So we went down

to One Lombard. We pretended to drink Martini's chinking water glasses and had a long conversation and then we just thought, what there are two things wrong with this. First of all, France scene is not here, and I protested a lot test is you're really upset and we thought we just got to make this a bigger episode. There's so much to un pack about the restaurants scene in London, in the city, but also beyond. You cannot do a food

episode without me. I'm like, I feel like I'm the food queen because if I'm not eating it, I'm cooking it. And everybody loves London food. One of the questions is do we have the right infrastructure and actually is is it just too expensive? And is the government helping or hindering? You know, when you compare it to cities around the world, the sort of government support that's gone in And also you know, in this country we've got a bigger inflation

problem than the rest of the G seven. We've got a worse economic outlook, and you know London rents are still sky high. You can't get the staff. Of course, Brexit is still being felt. Is it a good time to open a restaurant or not. So we're getting our two star guests back, right, They're coming back and we're going to speak without the Martinis here in the studio, without the margin or the mcgronies. But we will go off site, or you'll go off site. But I demanded, Dave.

The reality is that we demand to do some field reporting for this episode, so stay tuned for report from Sweetings. Dave has been. I've never been. It's actually considered the oldest fish and oyster restaurant in London and it's conveniently right next door to Bloomberg HQ in the heart of the city of London. But first our conversation with Thorn and Bill, Bill, we were trying to think about what London was as a food capital. How does it compared

to other European capitals. I think we have an awful lot of breadth, perhaps not quite the same depth, but I think you can eat more cuisines in London probably, I mean by by far than in any other You're a capital I can think of, partly because we don't have an awful lot of British or English restaurants, so because because English food isn't very nice. I think what we call modern British is fine, but that borrows an

awful lot from the French ship. Whereas if you go to Rome, as you well know, you will find almost all Italian restaurants. There will be a few others France parents the same. Sorry, Dave, you don't like the jellied eel, I mean fan of prime mash but I'm not sure. But it's not supposing that the Cockneys took so readily to rationing during the Second World War, I think so does it have more Michelin stars at other parts in Europe? Or it feels like you have to, you know, remarget

your house sometimes. I know eating as is expensive, but then try Paris. Parasi isn't cheap either. I'm sure Paris has more mis shown stars than we do. It certainly has more three style wach down restaurants, but London's sort of catching up. But we have a lot of interest around the one star level. Um, I think with a whole host of different cuisines. Um we have Chinese restaurants

with one star. We have we now have a Ekoi which is an African restaurant sort of based on sort of a modern take on Nigerian food, with two stars. So it's a it's a for for a curious gourmet.

It's a fascinating city. And have you seen a chain sorrow And since you know there's twenty three years with an opening one Lombard right here in the city, and you would never come to the city twenty years ago for a great mayor would you know, you wouldn't come here unless you worked here and then you'd um try and get out of here as quickly as possible when work was over and head for the West end or um and certainly not there were there were no nothing

exciting going on in terms of food. Twenty three years ago when I owned won Lombard Street, there were lots of people who said forget about it, and those you didn't say forget about it said, um, the city is a graveyard for people who have tried to develop an evening business. I thought that was very heartening. But you did it anywhere. We're still here and we've even got breakfast as well, which is great. So you opened one Lombard Street, you're you were awarded the square miles first

Michelin Star. That's right. When was that? What did it feel like? It felt amazing and it's it's a really big incentive for staff mainly. I find that it still is for staff mainly, and maybe over the years less so for for guests. I think when when people didn't go out as much, they've been in search of a treat that would glow their minds. Now, most people go out two or three times a week and I'm not

in the mood for that kind of intense experience. Maybe it's a it's a six monthly experience or twice a year. Actually it represents the change in hospitality throughout London, which is what atmosphere. It's much more about the It's about much more than the food. It's about the ambience to service and something you would like to experience several times

a week. And then the people you meet that as well, because you wrote about the you know, the return of the power lunch in the city and of course you know everyone to come back to work or companies are trying to get people back to work, but you know coming in for a meal, people coming in less for the meal and actually to do business. They're coming to meet their colleagues and so actually, I mean, you're not going to come in to the city and sit in front of a screen all day. You can do that

at home. I get to go out for lunch occasionally, and that's what people have seemed to be doing that, which is great. So you know, as Saren said to me, if you want to close the deal, don't do it over zoom, do it over lunch. That you've seen people coming into this bit of London and staying and having full you know, the full evening with lots of bottles of wine, and there is that people come in to go out, as Bill said, So if they come in for three days, they tend to go out breakfast, lunch

and dinner. Possibly there's no wait anyone, So they're going out. They're going out to eat three times a day. Monitor who are these people? I want to meet these people and what do they do and what did they do for a living. But I think Starns right when he stresses the ambiance and any restaurant right now, because there's tough times for restaurants. Prices are going up, overheads are

going up. If you don't give people a warm welcome and remind people of why they fell in love with restaurants in the first place, and give them something more than we got used to these meal kits during lockdown. You know, that's such a tiny fraction of what a restaurant offers. A good restaurant offers. So if you don't, if you don't smile, you're gonna lose your customers. So what was lockdown, Like did you ever feel like I couldn't cope? It was as bad as you can imagine.

It was overnight saddled with a very very busy machine turning out expenses and serial income. And it stayed pretty much like that for two years, only interrupted by some signals sometimes that we could open again and have some customers back. And every time we were close back down, it was starting stop and it was very difficult. Did you feel like you had government support help? I daresay

I don't feel that much. I think there was government confusion, like everyone was confused from the start, and it meant that we had to survive on our own. And those of those businesses who could find capital and support the business have survived, and a lot of businesses who couldn't not because they were bad businesses, they haven't survived. I mean, I'll give you a comparison and have a colleagues through

restaurants in New York, Paris and London. In New York, for the same sized restaurant over the course of the pandemic, they've got a million dollars of support to keep the business going and to keep the jobs going. In Paris, they've got four hunderd euros in London they got sixteen pounds. So it reflects a different attitude, doesn't it in these cities to the restaurant industry overall and the importance of it to the city. Do you think London? I guess

it's the council's, isn't it. And it's the government as a whole don't appreciate and support the hospitality industry as they should. I think you're right. Take outdoor seating for instance. Um, there is massive amounts of spaces that are unutilized that could earn an income and pay tax if we put tables and chairs outside, we would have. They ripped o the rules right and every pavement was covered in in for a short while and then a lot of a

lot of those permissions have been pulled back. I mean we felt that were not batt There's a there's a completely empty alleyway next door which we've applied for and we keep being rejected on the big basis. They put it in the Queen's speech. It was it was. There was a there was a line in the queen speech, or as and addendum to the Queen's speech saying that her Majesty wants fresco dyning fresco dining for her, and the Corgi swich is all rare. Well. I think you're right.

I think this is perhaps to do with London what Britain generally not treating, not treating food as culture. But this was not, I mean, it's not in the British culture. Right leet outside al Frisco. I mean, for one, the weather is not always clement, not necessarily helpful, but that you can go to Copenhagen or you go to Amsterdam and you will find more percentage of tables outside than

you do in London. In Copenhagen, I'm fun Denmark. In Copenhagen during winter at the whole of Newhound is full of outdoor seating with heaters and blankets, and people are sitting outside just like they do after ski And it's just a matter of maximizing what you have got now that you have fewer days if you're in the city, you have fewer days to take the money to pay for the rent and pay your staff. Then it would be nice to have our of things helping you out

of this. Also to make up for the losses over two years and the visibility of a restaurant without door seating helps all the trade. It's not just those tables outside, even if you just had them sitting there with a couple of people enjoying a glass of wine. Fewer days because people work from home or and soek has been compressed to three days. Really, I mean it's massively busy. Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, Friday dead. Monday is quite busy.

In fact, some people are now saying they'd rather come in Monday and Friday because it's too busy on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Said hopefully it'll even out a little bit. So that's if that's where we've landed in terms of the working week. I mean there are still big sort of storm clouds, aren't there on the horizon For the economy. Inflation is a massive problem, particularly I think Britain's got the worst inflation profile and growth profile out of the

G seven at the moment. I mean, what's happening to your costs and how are you able to absorb them or not? And is there gonna be another wave of restaurant clothed us with the economic circumstance. Well, I mean, let's start with the two biggest ones staff costs and premises costs, and staff cost has gone up that generally speaking, I think most restaurants will have passed on UM. There's nothing in the margin to give UM, so it's more expensive to go out. The second thing, premises cost depends

on who you speak to. Genuinely speaking, the market had was completely overheated before lockdown. It was very competitive and expensive. I think there's a little bit of a reset in the property market, and it may be a sense of more reasonable rents around the corner. But what about energy, because that's the thing that's really hurting everyone. Isn't a energing outrageous? I mean, I can give you an example

from Active minority restaurant here in Bloomberg Arcade. If you have some spare electricity to send our way, be very happy. We paid three thousand pounds a month for electricity build and last month it was ten thousand parts. Sorry, what's your biggest headache? And energy? Food shortage? I mean, I you know, I can't get a table to places where I want to go. So it feels like the restaurant businesses is doing okay. It is, it is doing okay.

It's been but there's the challenges now that you have compression of demand and then spiraling cost, which you we are lucky compared to other industries because we can we can more or less pass it on, not all of it. But the other side of it is we have been forced to and this is good news. We've been forced to look for efficiencies that maybe we were a little bit slow at finding before, and that is I think

that's very exciting. You know. It's a way we deal with the flow of staff in the restaurant, the ordering and payment out. Lena at the end, I remember being at a book launch for in Genois, the former PepsiCo chief executive, and she was joking that actually she was in a fancy hotel and couldn't get room service because they just didn't have enough staff. Now this was about twelve months ago, So has it you know, is it just as difficult to get staff? It was impossible and

now it's just very difficult. And there's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. There's an enormous shortage of skilled workers. And the government's policy on this, I have to say that they've it's got to change, and it's because of Brexit. Right, is that partly because of Brexit. Brexit has certainly not helped. And when I've got several Danish people lined up to work in a Scandinavian restaurant here and I can't hire them, it seems

ridiculous when we can't get anyone. Um, so we if we've got a t cvs for a senior job position before, we get three now and it's and those three are genuinely not as qualified. On top of that, the people who turn up. A lot of people don't turn up for interviews. Some people turn up for interviews and we never hear back because they're not busy because what they've accepted another job where there's also a change in mentality.

And I think with a lot of the digital online culture, you know, it's easy to cancel something with just a flick of the thumb. You don't really have to there's no courtesy involved. Are we in a crossroads where people want to go out and party when inflation is going up, so you don't really know what happens in the next twelve months where there could be a little bit of a lot of the Roaring twenties And then hopefully with hindsight and We're not going to repeat the end of

the Roaring twenties with a big crash. But I think in terms of if the restaurants offer right now, it's it's amazing. But if restaurants offer something good atmosphere, jolly good service and you feel welcome, good food, fair value prices in a good location, um, I think there's prospect of doing very well over the next many years. Well do you see you see the pipeline of new openings

across the city. Is that is there's still stuff coming out, people still putting in money in investment into new openings or is that starting to try up? But though they really are and some quite exciting things. I mean, there has been a big chair and especially in the mid market where I think a lot operators chain operators in particularly weren't doing enough to keep the customers, and so a lot of the chain restaurants have closed down, but

at that in turn opens up premises. I saw, for example, Thomas Perry, very gifted chef proprietor at Bratt just at the road from here in shortage has taken over an old Byron Burger site in big streets and so so less of the kind of the cookie cutter chains, more independent, innovative that's going to make good things. I think that's h And you know, it's a buyer's market as far as as far as diners are concerned, because a lot of places that don't make the effort, we're going to

be shutting their doors. You had a fun anecdote about someone partying for like a month in your restaurant. That member of staff there was he did leave in between, but he did. He booked our new private member's cocktail bell for private lunch and had a big lunch there. We could hardly get them out when they were having a cronies at six thirties, still um and they meet p M after lunch. Yes, they moved upstairs and continued

in the barn, the brosary. But not only that. As he left, he booked for next Wednesday, and for next Wednesday, and he booked two wednesdays a month for the next three months, same lunch, same same room. And he said, way go anywhere, Sace. He seemed to made it very very easy for everyone. What's your top tip going to a restaurant? I was always told, you know, choose a second bottle of wine on the list that I'm afraid restaurant has got wise to that one about twenty years ago. Wait,

I've been buying the second one for every wine. Every good wine is the should have the obvious expensive choice for people who like that, should have the value choice for people who love that. And also, which I like, is to find the um interesting wine which is really well priced for people who know about wine. So there's something for everyone. And I actually, if there is a wine ray to familia often say I'd like to spend

fifty pounds. I like white Burgundy, and then I say, well, good luck, no, but you know, give them a price and a taste and then ask them to come up with a suggestion. Can I ask you all, including Dave Merritt, a question about what's your secret sauce to host the best inner party there is? This is This is a great question because if it divers it into restaurants, the most important ingredient is the people you mix, and that's the thing you don't have any control over in the restaurant,

but you do. And of course the next ingredient is a lot of booze and some nice food. And then I think you're off. Even if the seats are uncomfortable. But if you don't have great people, it's going to be hard with no matter how good the food or

the drink is. And in a restaurant, when you especially if you're a new restaurant, you have no control over it comes into the room and you have no control over you're seating people next to that the atmosphere and a new restaurant is going to be a little bit like that. Whereas if you have an established restaurant full

of regulars, you can do that. You treated as a dinner party, and we drizzle the room with people, We put them in the seats they want we put We never put people from the same organization back to back next to each other, and you make you mix it like that, and you have you don't put a romantic couple right next to a couple who's about to close the deal. And if you don't think about these things, you only have two out of the three main ingredients.

What's your secret bill? As far as dinner parties go, I would say the most the biggest mistake people make is to make it too elaborate and spend all the time in the kitchen or fussing or failing about and actually just make sure you've prepared things sensibly and make sure you've got time to talk to your guests. Um.

And that's that's the secret source. That's uh, that's what oils the wheels of a good dinner party is making sure that everybody's happy, everybody's drinks stopped up, and everybody's getting on well with each The food is the food can still be wonderful, but don't end up doing everything. L Let me neat, as they say, says, I'm going to try and get an invited to Dave Merritt's house for dinner. Well expect my secret is to ask Mrs me cook. I'll make the McGrain. Thank you so much,

both of you. I'm so hungry after all that conversation. I wanted to take Dave out for lunch, but he's double book. He stood me up for lunch and I already ate. And actually, you probably don't like the role mobs. Yeah, I do like fish, but just not the wrong but not the jelly to eel. I don't know who I'm going to take. I'm actually going to take the cynical American in the newsroom. Good idea to sweetings with me, what are you doing here? I'm bringing you one and

only Oliver to the oldest fish restaurant in London. Gave you fish restaurant in London to give you jelly to eels, jelly eels and roll mops. What is it? Mops mops? I think it's called role mops. We're going to uh I can see it now, Sweeting. It's said I'd say about one hundred pieces from the office about there. I mean we would come in and it's a fairly savory smell in the Amazon the air, no reservation required, which

is a breath of fresh air from me. I mean, I think we were quite lucky to actually find groom work in space. How long have you been working here? For almost six years? Did you want to come to Sweetings in particular because it's such an iconomic restaurant. For me, it's the family business, so my grandparents and the restaurant. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of this place. That's the oldest fish restaurant. So slow for a hundred years old whatever hundred years old, eight

hundreds would come in over fifty years ago. They come in and they say it's exactly the same as they really what should we drink? We do a black Field, which suspiciality, which is Champagne and give Champain a Guinness. Yeah, we threatened to sign French one of our regulars on TV. Should we get us call on euro Yen or should we just ask him why do you think about sweetings? I think we should ask him about the black velhol enough come here, not regularly enough and you love it

because it's just old British restaurant, good food. I'm just like, we're gonna come here eight year ago. E second, I mean we always just like about the epony, but actually free. It's just because I'm very happy to go to all restaurants in the square mile and do prood reviews. I mean, arguably that's what the listener was. What wasn't my view will beats that's not true in general the London scene. How does it compare? So what I get upset about is that so much your food scene, but more kind

of the the experience right here what I love. We walked in. It wasn't a question about reservation because they don't take reservation, so you can show up and actually do something spontaneous, where like most of the time you're shackled by this kind of having to book something weeks and weeks and weeks in advance, because I find heartbreaking and usually do you only have the table for like two hours and a half. Two hours and a half. They love it. They love telling you the clock's going

the second you sit down. Wow. So this is what do we call this vessel that this has arrived? And the half pint because this has made out of silver, not most of the half pints I've had or made out of silver. Look at that. Yeah, it's I think it's a tank. Could I guess they call it. It's a nice sound sound. I feel like I'm drinking out the Holy Girl. Next time i'd like to drink, I'd like to drink to a hundred years of sweetings and a hundred years of Francine lad years of podcast on

the hundred Innocent. I'm David Merritt and I'm Francine Laqua. And that is it for this week's episode of In the City. We will be back next week asking the question is London really open for crypto business? Lord Philip Hammond joins us and in the meantime, if you like the show, please rate it and check out the Bloomberg UK website for more use and views. This episode was produced by Summersidi Special thanks to our guests so On, Yesen and Bill Knot, and to Oliver Crook for the

company at Lunch. The head of Bloomberg Podcast is Frances Gerde