Murray Ward | Soho Farmhouse, Thyme and Public House Group

Some places rely on spectacle.
Others rely on precision.

Murray Ward has spent his career focused on something quieter — consistency.

From Soho Farmhouse and Thyme to Public House Group, he’s worked across places where atmosphere matters, standards are high, and guests notice immediately when something feels off.

This conversation is about the real work of hospitality.

Not just delivering on the best nights —
but maintaining standards on the average ones.

Because in hospitality, that’s where most of the work actually happens.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

No reservation. I'm Antoine Melon and I'm here with Gideon Lask. I've spent my career inside hospitality, building and running restaurants. The members come on the hotels, working alongside the people who carry the pressure when the room is full. Gideon approaches it from the other side as someone who lives in restaurants and hotels and notices when something feels seamless and when it doesn't. This podcast is about the people who make hospitality work, the operators, managers, and the teams who hold standards, who shape culture, and who keep a room steady when it matters most. Each episode moves from beginnings to defining, defining chapters. Sorry, French accent. To the moments that test judgment. And today we are joined by someone who has built his career around doing exactly that. Day after day. Gideon, please introduce our guest. It would be my honor answer, but how are you, first? I'm alright. I'm all right. Actually, it's sunny outside. I've got to be a formal because we are inside a room, but you're wear- you're wearing a jumper and a coat. I know, yes. A bit overdressed. I'm super happy to Murray because I feel he's a I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not supposed to say his name, you're supposed to introduce him.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

That's okay. I was just about to tease you about your outfit, so you distracted me at just the right reason. Murray, you're welcome. It's it's brilliant to see you and great to have you here. Um yeah, I think the last time I saw you I was moaning about something at Farmhouse. So it's nice to be You were probably drunk. I'm always drunk. Yeah. No, when you someone else could probably be drunk. Everyone at Farmhouse is perpetually drunk. That's how they make money. Um so some places rely on spectacle, some rely on precision, and some are built on something quieter, consistency. Today we are joined by someone who has spent his career getting exactly that right. Murray Ward is director of operations at Public House, working across a portfolio that blends London energy with the pace and rhythm of the Oxfordshire countryside. Before that, he was head of operations at Time, a place known for detail calm and a very particular sense of atmosphere. But the foundation of Murray's career was built over nearly eight years at Soho House. Wow, eight years. From GM at Soho House to head of member experience, he helped shape one of the most distinctive hospitality environments in the UK, where expectation is high and consistency matters more than anything. Before that, a long stretch of running rooms properly. GM rolls across Scotland, building teams, running service, learning the trade in real time. From Glasgow to Edinburgh to the countryside to multi-site leadership. Murray understands what it takes to run a room day after day after day, not just on its best night, but on its average one. And in hospitality, that is where the real work is. Murray, welcome to No Reservation, Sir. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Very happy to be here.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

It's nice to have you in London. I know. It's good actually, yeah. I'm back a couple of days a week. Oh, really? Yeah, I I bought um half of my time in London, half my time in the Cotswolds these days for public health. How many restaurants do you look after? So we have seven venues, uh six in London currently, and then Well, technically eight. We've got six in London, and we've got the bull in Chalbury, and then we have a new project which is rapidly growing in the Cotswolds, which is our second farm, a production kitchen, a catering company called Bush Camp, and very soon to see and an Oxfordshire outpost of Canteen.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Goodness me, someone's spending some money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Yeah, yeah. Opens in about two or three weeks. And where will you be? Not far from Chalbury. Site is kind of like. But it'll be it'll be in canteen. A pop-up to see if you it it is a P2C if it works on too much. I i i it is, but I think we're relatively confident that it will work because you know, out there in that kind of immediate area in close proximity to farmhouse and the steel and and those members' club elements and things, we're really well served for pubs of all colours and creeds, but there isn't a huge amount of restauranty things going on unless you head off to uh Cheltenham or if you kind of venture into Oxford or come back into London. So in that immediacy, we feel that the kind of fast, casual, high-energy, kind of high-quality canteen offering. I love doing really well.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I'm there every Saturday for lunch, sometime on my own, sometime with my girlfriend. Yeah. After you I love it. Ever invite me. You don't come really west.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Um, why I'm watching I live on Burmese Street. I never there's no need. There's no need. I mean, well, just in hearing you talk, like we we often get a little bit sad and depressed and cry a bit about the state of hospitality in London. I think Anton was telling me yesterday, three closings every day. That's so sad. But let's look at the cots vaults and the phenomena that that has been over the last decade. I mean, the amount of money that's been invested in there, that's probably rival what's been invested in London over that same period. Mr.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Mano Farmhouse, what do you guys think? I always feel like Farmhouse probably kick-started it, didn't it? Really? Ten years ago, 2015, 11 years ago, no one was really I mean, there were things happened that were good in isolation, but farmhouse landed in Great Chew and opened to, you know, immense fanfare and has grown since then. But I think I don't think Estelle would have done what Estelle have done with um at Ancient without Farmhouse, you know, and and all the other bits that have kind of happened on the periphery. I think owe a lot of it to Farmhouse.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Well, listen, it's what the houses always did best, right? Look at Shoreditch House and what a precursor, what foreshadowing that was for what kind of beyond.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

A big old tea building, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Completely. Yeah, and by being to an issue somerset. I mean, the new twin agree said. No, yeah, no, exactly, yeah. A confidence building for everybody else.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

So I think so. Before we go anywhere else, how on earth did the two of you meet? I do actually remember distinctly. I remember not the first time we met in person, the first time we met, and I do remember that, but the first time we met was on I don't know, would it have been a Zoom call? With the Zoom ten years ago, eleven years ago? Well, it was probably Skype. I was um disappear. I was a GM at a boutique hotel, service departments, restaurants, actually had a gym bar in the basement, which is very good. In Edinburgh. And Jamie had Jamie had moved to London a few years previously, had landed with Soho House after working for Hicks for quite a while, and the Soho Hotel and Ferndale. And um and then he had talked to me about coming down and joining, and he'd put my CV, I think, in front of you, and then I had to I had a call with you on Skype, presumably, and I did it in one of the bedrooms that weren't occupied on that day, kind of quietly hiding away because obviously I was still there. Uh on probably wasn't an iPad then, it was probably some sort of kind of cheap coop cooper. Certainly wasn't real phone. So old come on. Yeah, certainly wasn't an iPhone or anything or anything that could take a video call. I remember having that conversation and then being invited down to meet you in person. I think at the time I also met who was the HR director for who was P D for So House? Keith. Keith. And then the final meeting was with you and MK. And you never left London or No. Well, I went back briefly, packed a couple of bags and came back a bit later.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

So I do remember, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, I loved that story because I feel like I found a an amazing talent who was now blossom with Sawhaus First on Oh, you're what Public House Group.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

What were your first impressions of Anton? You could be on you can be on a simple face space. I I think I think that couldn't this turn his accent.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

No, not at all. Probably say the same thing coming to me. No, I I it's someone who was across I think, you know, you've kind of alluded to it a bit in your introduction, which was very kind, but the kind of making of me probably has been, in and from hospitality point of view, has been a significant kind of uptick in uh moving to London and working with Soul House and that kind of higher level of hospitality. I mean the people I were working for in Edinburgh were very, very good operators. You know, they were there were pubs, they were restaurants, they were they were four-star hotels, but they didn't have the kind of standards and and cachet and influence and and uh that Soul House did. So I think my impression of Antoine probably would have been someone who was across something that I found incredibly attractive and was slightly nervous about joining and being able to kind of make a really good impression. But having said that, I went to when I went to High Road, it was apparent there were a few easy wins in the immediacy. Good that were very basic things that could get better, which I think put me in good stead for working for Soul House for quite some time. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

So it's funny because our interview from the previous episode was the GM of High Road Health years before.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Yeah, could he already heard it described as the house you go to die in?

SPEAKER_02 8:55

It was the house that time forgot.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

I think do you know what I love I love High Road and I still love High Road, not that I go there very often. It's it feels like a it feels like a hyper-local house. You know, every you know, the people that go there, it's very much, you know, it's it's Chiswick regulars, and and and it does not feel it's feel it doesn't feel it's been begotten, but especially with the kind of opening of White City, you know, because High Road doesn't have the rooftop pool, it doesn't have those kind of amazing amenities, but it has beautiful rooms, it has amazing brassery on the ground floor, which isn't private, it's open to everybody. It's that private dining room. And I always loved the club, you know, just those three rooms and moving through them and and the offer. I think the chef at the time, you'll remember him, was Dario, and he was absolutely unbelievable. Doing extremely well with Aman results. Yeah, yeah. And he was just incredible, he never seemed to take a day off. Not that's necessarily some months, all the time. And he was across, you know, so many different kinds of we had different foods, different cuisines over different floors in terms of the brasserie being very kind of English-led and then a bit more Italian in the club menu and then the events. And I just loved I landed there with Dario and he felt like a bit of a kindred spirit. So I loved it. It made a lot of money, didn't it? It was a profitable house. I think it was a good house. Yeah, it was a really good house because it really turned occupancy was always in the high 80s, low 90s. You'd expect that with 12 rooms. I I just and I loved the kind of the for me, new to London, I just liked the romance of it. You know, I lived round the corner, I lived off Turn and Green Terrace. It occurred to me that I was going to work and not do much else for the you know the the immediacy to try and make an impression. So why why go somewhere else? Let's live close. I could walk to work, it was great. I would work six days a week, you know, sometimes more, because I like doing that anyway, and I could just walk to and from High Road and it was great. I absolutely loved it. I did about a year and a half and then got seconded to the uh the branded stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

We are going to dive deep into your career. But before we do, I want to go way, way, way back to the very beginning. Not talking about your career in hospitality, but your first memories as a guest. So it could be a restaurant, a hotel, a dish you had. When did you first fall in love with it?

SPEAKER_03 10:59

I was thinking about this and and it it is kind of not not really career because I was too young, but um my father's a hotelier, he's retired now, he's been retired for about 15 years. But he has been it, wasn't it his entire adult life. He's in his late 70s now, so he's been out of it after a brief um a few years of consultancy at the back end. Anyway, um, he ran hotels at high, you know, smaller, privately owned five-star boutique hotels for the majority of his uh career. And there came a point um when I was probably about 10 years old, where he and my mother divorced. These things happen. No, no, no tears, all good. Uh but at that point uh there was an element of uh he had to look after us as kids for part of the week. And my father likes to like to work quite a lot. I probably got those hours, all the propensity to work the long hours from him. Anyway, rather than pay for a babysitter, he took me to work with him. And I'd often sit in the office, and and and it was in the particular hotel that he ran in as part of a small group called Ashley House Hotels, doesn't exist anymore, it was bought over by Belmond a few years ago. But there were three hotels, two in the States and one in Wales. They were owned by a guy called Sir Bernard Ashley, who was the surviving husband of Laura Ashley. So he worked for Suburnard, he opened all these hotels for him. My dad was a CEO. Anyway, we had this hotel in Wales, we lived in Wales, said divorce, such as life. Um, so I would be within that environment when I wasn't at school because I like to joke that my dad was too tight to pay for a babysitter. And then after being in there for about a year or so, he kind of put me to work because he probably didn't want me sitting around doing nothing and there wasn't anything really to do anyway. So I started being a part-time bell boy or bell hop. And I had a wee little tartan waistcoat and trousers, and then someone would call down and they want a tube of tennis balls for the tennis courts or help with room service. And I ended up doing that for about I don't know how long it was for, maybe half m half a year, a year. And then we actually moved to America as his role broadened. Yeah. Uh Maryland. So there were two, there were three hotels in total. The two in America, one was in one was called The Inn at Perry Cabin, which was in St. Michael's in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, about an hour out of Baltimore, 45 minutes out of Annapolis. And then the other one was called Kitswick Hall, and it was in Virginia, Richmond. And because those two had just been opened and his the London that's right, the uh the Welsh Hotel was called Langoid Hall. That was very much kind of set up and had been running for a couple of years. Uh, we moved out there and I spent five years living out there. My entire high school was in the States. What was that, freshman, sophomore, junior, senior? I think I was possibly uh prom king in junior year. Of course you were. There's no there's no well, I mean no problem. I was I was disproportionately successful uh socially because of my accent. So never have I been so popular since then, but you weren't killed in the States. No God no, definitely not. I've got terrible little sparrow legs, I'm never ever wear a kill.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Um did it did it change your relationship with your dad moving into his hospitality world?

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Yeah, that wasn't the intention. I I kind of hung around and doing it for a bit. Obviously, went to school in the States and then I finished high school in America and applied to come back to Scotland to go to university. And I applied, I wanted to go and study theatre and film and literature, English lit, at Glasgow, and I got in for those things and I did really well in my first year. I really enjoyed it, I kind of really got into it, and then less so my second year, because I don't know, I just kind of lost kind of I just wasn't as focused. I'm just offensively flunked out in my second year of uni. I had a part-time job in a restaurant in Glasgow that was owned by the son of one of my dad's colleagues, uh, who was another hotel here in Scotland. And um, I had that job part-time. I came, I flunked out of uni, I had to leave a halls, I had to make a full-time job to make some money. So I became a full-time waiter in this place. I didn't tell my father that I'd flunked out of uni for about six months, told my mother immediately because she was fine. Knew that my dad wouldn't be happy, you know, firstborn, first to go to uni, completely fucked it up. And told him eventually he wasn't happy. But that full-time waiter's job within about a year became like a trainee floor manager's job. So by the time I was about 20, I was kind of well on the road to hospitality. Although that was never the intention. Um and, you know, in in in years after or years hence, he was he became more happy with it.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

But he was very And did you feel that you wanted your career to be as successful as your father was?

SPEAKER_03 15:29

100%. 100%, definitely. I still I still feel that it probably hasn't kind of reached that level because I always think of my father professionally as as this person who was across what I remember when I was much younger as these incredible, like, you know, multiple bedroom they were resorts, really. They are the one in the one in Kedstick was was, you know, private houses, it was an Arnold Palmer signature golf course, it was the whole thing, it was a country club. I loved all that. We lived on the estate. There was a house for the uh for this for the year. We lived there. We um you come out, I think we were only the 16th Hall or something. Not that I really cared about golf at all. But yeah, I still I still hold myself to that standard and in some ways don't think that I've ever kind of I've not got there yet, to be honest. But you know, working on an amazing job.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Oh totally. No, I do. So we're probably with the most exciting restaurant group at the moment in London. For that is definitely true.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

But before we go there, I just wanted to ask a question, kind of I think within hospitality, you guys probably are the hardest working people I know, right? It's quite a moa by far. Even more than you. As I mean, oh yeah, you never turn off some Mari, my God, if you work hard on this man, incredible. Does that impact the relationships you have with kids, with parents, with your partners?

SPEAKER_03 16:45

Must make it hard, right? I have been, I was gonna say it sounds like I've had lots of relationships, but I've been through, you know, as all of the all of the relationships I've had I've have been born of someone I've met in hospitality because I've been in it for so long and and worked in it, you know, the hours that they kind of that's ended up kind of what ends up happening. My wife is still in hospitality and met her, so it's case in point. We've been together for nearly 10 years, or met her almost immediately when I moved out to uh the Cosworld. And so she still dips her toe into it, has another business. So immediately there's an understanding there that you wouldn't normally necessarily have with someone who doesn't work in hospitality. And to be honest, I think one of them one of the lessons I actually have learned from my father was it's not a criticism, but it was his absence. He was away a lot, especially when we were before the split. He was away doing the setup in the medical. So he'd be away for weeks, if not months at a time. And though I can't tell you that I remember that acutely in any detail, I I do I've been mindful of her absence. So how do you do that with your you charity? I've got five, she's five years old, like two weeks ago. So um fivey has her name. She's um I just make a point of try, even though I work the hours that I work and everything, I am afforded a lot of autonomy to how I run my own week by by public house, which I'm very grateful for. So I'm not having to ask if I need to take time. Um obviously I'm going to go on holiday, I'll put a request and and the bosses need to know that I'm not here rather than they turn around, I'm in I'm in Italy or something. But you know, day-to-day, moment to moment, I'm not having to kind of justify where I am. So if I I work three or four days, long days, and take a couple of days off the back end of it. Between that and the kind of the uh balance that Camilla, my other half and I strike, it means that it means that I maybe don't see my daughter for two or three days a week, but then I get back and see her for a little bit of time. And you know, another friend of mine in hospitality told me recently when I was talking about this change, because the change of me not seeing my daughter until recently from always seeing her every single day to now not seeing her two, three days a week has only really happened since my role with PhD has expanded in January. So it's not it's only been a few months. I was talking to a friend of mine who had something similar years ago, and he's like, as long as you make the time that you do have with her count rather than kind of submit to the temptation after a busy week to flop on the sofa and do very little, then they don't really notice. I think he's right. So when I'm back when I'm back on Saturday, uh I've we've got things planned and that's the right thing to do. Whether I'm knackered or not is immaterial. I think she doesn't care, she doesn't know what what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

So I know we're itching to talk more about public house group and farmhouse, but before we do, we like to talk about our hospitality highlights and lowlights of the week. Antoine's been bitching and moaning about one particular lowlight. So my mic over to you, mate, your little diva. What upset you so much this week?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Okay, so my lowlight is again I've got something with coffee. I order two coffees a day, so that's probably why. So before coming here, I had a coffee in a nice coffee shop in Benmonze Street, and the girl is on her own, which is a lot of responsibility to make coffee, sell it, serve it, etc. And it's a usual large counter, you enter from one side and you exit on the other side. Her weather, she was on her own, so she makes the coffee. She's next to me by the till where I stay after I paid, and she shot out my coffee as it was available at the end of the counter. And I'm like, why she didn't give it to me when I'm next to her instead of placing it on the overhand for me to go all around. And that's where sometimes hospitality is about, as we say, EQ. Like it's yes, you have a process, you have sequence of service, you have SOPs and so on. But sometimes it's just about, oh, let me give it to the guest who's just next to me and say, enjoy and have a great day, instead of shouting loudly, like if I was it was for someone else in a room.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I mean if if any of you out there want to console Antoine, you can email him at diva at reservation.com. Had you tipped out of interest? Do you tip for coffee? Um takeaway? So on Burmesey Street, all of the coffee shops now present a tip option. Ah, okay. Which yeah, I mmm. You feel obliged, no? You feel you feel obliged. And listen, I'd I'm all for these very hard working. Takeaway coffee, we're not tipped, but you've took away, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 21:12

Tip is based on service anyway, and and and I mean there is an element of service, but it's not a huge amount. I didn't tip.

unknown 21:17

I didn't tip it.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

You didn't tip.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

So activity. By life, because I arrive early and I don't often enough come east to see my friend get in. I stop at a restaurant. I always wanted to try. You've got Agora, and above you got Omar. And so I was like, why don't I have quick lunch on the bar while doing my emails and messages? So I had uh lunch at Agora, the food was really good, Greek food, and I really like Greek food and go in it quite a lot. And nice vibe, busy, relaxed, and actually very cheap. I spent 30 quid and I had like four small dishes with some sparkling water, and it was Perfect. And despite all the doom and doom about hospitality, it's nice to see some place that are thriving. And so well done to the team behind Agora. Hooray.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Murray, highlights and low lights. I was thinking about these and they're both somewhat kind of self-centered when it comes to the job I'm doing for PhD, so if that's all right. I really a highlight for me in the last week or couple of weeks has been um the improvement in the weather and how we have all these wonderful outdoor spaces. Some of them are are literally just pavements that we kind of activate, and how all of our teams have really moved really quickly to kind of embrace the immediate change in the weather and get into the spirit of kind of driving it and really getting into it. So really, really good. I mean it's you know, but it's easier when we've got somewhere like the bull that has an amazing garden. It's trickier when we're working on pavements like we are with the pelican and bits and bobs, but everybody's really got into it and embraced it, and it just it feels like summer is here.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

So you really think that weather, even if you don't know about to make your odd door, has a positive uh impact on the uh revenue and daily people want to go out, want to find, want to drink.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

They do, they do want to drink. Suddenly, uh suddenly a pint at five o'clock on the first day is much more acceptable if you're doing it in the sun.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Yeah, and you can stay out because the sun's out till nine. So you keep drinking those pints. Yeah, yeah. Long may it continue. Night highlights, any low lights for you, sir? It's it's related to that, and it is too much sun.

SPEAKER_03 23:25

No, I know it's not too much sun. I mean, my t-shirt tan's looking pretty good. I don't tend to burn that much anymore. Litter. Litter everywhere. Litter. All my outdoor spaces that we have and and and anyway, just generally as well. I think actually it's much more It's kind of boring, but it's it's much more noticeable, I think, in the countryside. And when I'm driving to and from where I live to Chalbury to go and see the bull. It's absolutely beautiful. You know, you drive through, we call it countryside, and there's crap on the side of the roads. And and and and listen, it isn't getting blown out of bins. It isn't because some it's because someone's tucked out of the car. I I it blows my mind the mindset of someone that can take something and just discard it on the side of the road. You would not do that. Not exactly. And everybody, everybody has access to a bin, right? I assume. At the end of your journey, or you know, where you park up or put maybe you've got a bin in your house. Or like a I treat my car like it.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Well true, sure. So given that you English, I've got a question for you, because I live here for 11 years, and it's something I don't understand. In France, we're not perfect by far, but we have bins for all the rubbish for your house, for your restaurant, and so on. Whereas in UK, there's still some counties or councils where you like in Nottinghill, you drop the rubbish in the street. There's no bins. Are you talking about direct are you talking about a resident or is a business?

SPEAKER_03 24:50

Both, actually. Yeah, the suit. One of our one of our venues, bin bags next to a tree. They won't let us have bins on the street.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

So I tried rodents, I tracked foxes, etc.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Why is it still why there's no public bins that I d I don't know, but I don't think it's a good thing. And I've also noticed, actually, because on Burmese Street where we are, where there are no bins for a lot of the restaurants, they're also being forced to use these new plastic bin bags, which basically are just so fragile. And yeah, the foxes jump in and there's trash everywhere. All right, my highlights and lowlights, both related and of course related to Burmese Street, because I spent my life here and well Harry. You never leave. Uh related to breakfast. So I can I can I can talk about the name because I spend lots of money there and I've been to lots of her restaurants. So Angela Hartner at Cafe Morano on Burmese Street. I spend a lot of time there, I do a lot of business there. They open for breakfast two days of the week. Only two days. Why? And that's good. It's not good. Is it the weekend? It's the weekend. And it's just not brunch. It's not good. Lunch and dinner there, absolutely fabulous. So much care and attention goes into it. The kitchen staff are on point. It's amazing. The breakfast is consistently bad. What's bad about it? Um you walk in and you can just smell the kitchen for some reason. Yeah. They're frying in I don't know what, but it smells. Food is burnt, food doesn't come out in the right order. It just isn't considered, it's not tight. And it's I I get that you can't do breakfast every day because there isn't a demand. But when you are going to open for breakfast, do it properly, right? Or don't do it at all.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

I can give you an excuse for that. The reason is it's actually very hard to find chefs that want to cook breakfast. They don't find it inspiring, they don't find it. A breakfast chef, it's like gold nowadays. Uh, and it's a really special tea, and only a few people are proud to do it and love, enjoy doing it. And I remember Dean Street Town House, we used to have one guy only doing on his own 200 breakfasts every week.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Wow. Um so on the flip side, breakfast related, Burmesey Street related, Lokma, Turkish restaurant on Birmsey Square. You should all go there, especially for breakfast. They only do breakfast two days a week. For me, pound for pound, best restaurant breakfast I've ever had. All the Turkish dishes with the wonderful baked eggs and stuff, but all the traditional stuff as well. Wonderful produce, a great vibe, good price, just wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Okay, good and before next episode, can you try a new restaurant outside Bermanzi so that you can't promise that, Answan?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

I can't promise that, mate. For listeners that don't leave only on films. Um, okay, on to pivotal moments. These are the turning points in your career, Alex. So if sorry, parry, if I think to my journey and my career, there've been people I've worked for, people have worked for me, mistakes I've made, gambles I've made that maybe haven't paid off. But they are like the defining pivotal moments of my career. Could we explore some of yours, please? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

The first one would be that you know, inadvertent slide, not slide, that sounds terrible. That inadvertent kind of sidestep into hospitality after, you know, failed thespian career at Glasgow, you know. But I mean, you know, you're putting on a show and you I still get to act.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Um Is the hospital team not a show? It is. Are you not acting on the floor? You cannot bring your problems on the floor. No, you can't. You have to show up.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

You have to, yeah, given it an audience that you need to do for a lot of time. It's like, what is what's the what's the what's the American? Because if you want another carrier, go to a spot. Isn't that a lot of actors do anyway?

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Yeah. You know, or part-time. Game face, isn't it? It's about coming in and it doesn't really kind of matter what what's going on in your life. We've all got things happening, we're all a bit knackered, we're all slept poorly, we all drank too much less, or whatever. But when you come in, you've got to get it on. And also there's nothing better for a hangover, in my opinion, and a really busy shift. An absolute kind of arse handed to you, completely shocked. Because the adrenaline works for you. Probably 100%, definitely. Not that I have hangovers very much any or, but were I to have one, the best thing to do would be just to get into a busy service. I mean I say that, you know. Um, so probably that that was a pivotal moment that took a lot of adjusting to. I think when I first in the first couple of weeks I went from part-time to full-time in that restaurant in Glasgow, and it was it was a French-Scottish restaurant called Boozy Rouge. Boozy Boozy Rouge, named after the still, the still uh still wine. I can't remember. I do it's it's it's the the wine is called Boozy Rouge, and it was a particular particular earlier. I can't remember much of another, it was so long ago. But it was uh kind of French, Scottish Nebraska all-day dining. In Edinburgh or Glasgow? In Glasgow. But it ended up having one in Edinburgh as well, and there's also one in Dunblane with rooms. I was involved in all of those kind of in my early 20s. So I I went, I remember that I went and within a couple of weeks doing these long hours, split shifts, doubles and stuff, and my my kind of tender, 19-year-old kind of university body wasn't used to that, and remember getting really sick really quickly and realizing it wasn't for me. Or wasn't that I didn't realise what it was going to be like. And now I pride myself, I guess, on kind of being hard as nails when it comes to doing lots of hours, which is a silly badge of honour to have. But you know. Uh beyond that, I think I guess I've been really lucky, I think, to have probably a few mentors over the years in places that I've kind of landed when I was in Glasgow, and then when I when I moved through from Glasgow to Edinburgh to work for a company called Montpellier's. Yeah. And I went to, and I and again I remember that I I was working in Glasgow, a GM's role with this large restaurant, and I was approached by a recruiter about a general manager's role for a venue around a corner called Fat Cat. And it was kind of like a multi-site, multi-floor venue. That there was a few across the UK, whether it was in London, I don't know, but there was definitely one in Manchester and Birmingham and all that. I've been approached about the GM's role there. I I'd gone for a conversation about it, though I had no real intention of leaving where I was, so I was quite happy. But that recruiter suggested I'll put my CV to somebody else in Edinburgh, which happened to be Montpellier's. And they were opening a hotel on George Street called Tiger Lilly, which was 40 bedrooms, basement, late-night venue, sexy club, restaurant, you know, got Edinburgh's biggest, arguably Scotland's biggest opening in 10 years. And Montpelier's always felt to me, thinking back on it, the closest that Scotland ever came to producing something which had the quality of so wise.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

Because it was really, really beautiful. That's what I was buying to you. I remember that uh for me it was like having worked in the number on knowing Montpellier in its heydays. I was like, yeah, that's a very easy transition. Yeah. What was the bar I used to go for Montpellier called Blue Something Behind?

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Like Indigo Yard. Indigo Yard. Indigo Yards, yes. So I was I was AGM, opening AGM for about two years, and G AGM sooner for two years for Tiger Lilly. And then my first GM's role, I was with Montes for like five, five or six years. Where's my first GM's role was Indigo Yard? Yeah. So I know Indigo very well. I loved Indigo, yeah. Hutt for in the corner, still there, yeah. Yeah, it might be called something else now. They've rebranded over the last few years, but they've still got Tiger Lily, they've still got the club. I'm not back in Edinburgh very often, um, but I have been a couple of times. It's it's it's very nostalgic. So I think I went there, and the GM for opening there was a guy called David Hall. He's still in the industry. I think he's an operator himself now. I haven't seen him in a few years, but he was a fellow Aberdonian and he kind of took me under his wing, and he he was kind of instrumental in kind of helping me bed into Tiger Lily as his number two, and which was probably a calculated risk for them, I think, because they didn't really know me apart from my CV. I was from Glasgow, which was a completely different kettle of fish operationally. I had no hotel room experience at that point. Tiger Lily in Montpelliers was the first time I'd done anything in hotel rooms operationally. I'd been exposed to them over the years when I was much younger with my father, but I'd never had any operational kind of responsibility for them. And and ever since then, I I kind of, well, everything I did was really about bedrooms and across kind of F and B, which I think has always been, I've always prided myself on having a pretty broad experience. I'm not a restaurant manager, I'm not a hotel manager, I'm not a GM. I can I can, you know, reasonably competent, all of them.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

So which I like to know, you know, rooms F and B together, obviously, Montpellier, then South House with I Road House, Farmhouse. I'm not even the bedroom sale.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Although, yeah, exactly. So is that unusual, Answan, the way you ask that question? Um yes, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

I mean, usually you when you go to hospitality, people go to hotels and they will go from whether room side or F and B side become a VN. Um but I think here it's it's they're not really your classic hotel from a hotel chain. They're more independent on F and B's as important in the big room. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which is hard to manage.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

Not necessarily, but but something kind of grew into that with farmhouse was was the the real kind of kind of litmus test with that in in that you had to be, as a general manager there, you had to be right across that rooms piece because it's such a huge part of the revenue driving in and you know, people come to farmhouse to stay in a cabin. It's a there's a very romantic notion of what that is, especially for the first time.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

How many how many rooms were there when you started versus when you tell you exactly there were 40 rooms including or 44.

SPEAKER_03 34:50

40 cabins, cabins one to forty, uh, two houses, seven bedroom farmhouse, and the four-bedroom cottage as you come down from the car park. And there were two annexes on the back of the farmhouse, which is farmyard up and farm yard down, which were both one beds. One was in the attic, which is farmyard up, and one was down, which is farm yard down. And then when I left, there were still 40 cabins, two houses, 20 huts, 40 piglets, and 10 garden rooms. So it went from 44 keys to what is that, 100 and something? Yeah. Yeah. So And I was no, I was I was very lucky to be there when we built the uh when we built the uh the piglets and oddly launched them in the beginning of December. Um and then we did the huts, which you mentioned previously, which are absolutely beautiful, and and and the garden rooms as well. So through that entire process, I was very lucky to go from a see a site going from the footprint has always been about 110, 115 acres, and it's always worked within that footprint, but gone from being two restaurants, a good spa, a cinema, a cookery school, and 40 keys to four restaurants, a huge spa, a massive pool, a massive.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

The revenue there must be just astonishing concerning the revenue growth. Is it a profitable site? It is not as profitable as you would.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

But I mean, the running layman looking at you would would assume that it's not, but but yeah, you drill down the flow through isn't huge because your payroll is huge and you know your your operational costs, you'll remember.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah, that's the difference between what we call a vertical and horizontal hotel. Yeah. Vertical obviously much more efficient because it's one tower, yeah. Uh, so you need less stuff. Whereas a resort, which often horizontal, and especially with uh cabins that are spread out, you need much more stuff to clean the gardens, etc. So it's very expensive to run.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

And yeah, and was it a part of the original plan to grow the number of rooms in the way it has grown, or has it been an accidental?

SPEAKER_03 36:46

It's just demand, wasn't it? Just demand. You know, I just think that 40 was never enough. And I think I I didn't move there until the beginning of its third year. I've been bang on, it's uh after its two year second year birthday or the end of its second year, I joined, and it was still at that point the 40 keys, and it was doing whatever it was doing. And by the time I left, it was I mean, quadruple what it does. And I mean what it does now, they've expanded it again. They're building more accommodation, apparently, family cabins. I gather. There's now a a dedicated kids pool in the back. Yeah, which is good. Which is good. I've got kids, so I can hate.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah, no, no. You had that that uh cottage twice a yeah. Yeah, we like to do New Year in the cottage. The cottage the uh kids room at the back, the fall. Oh, right, with the uh the uh yes, the up at the back, yeah. A few stories there. I've got a few stories that I don't want to share. But thank you. If you look back, Mario, upon your time at the farmhouse, what do you think you brought to the place? It is a national institution, the farmhouse now, like and you were amazing to have had so many years there and had that opportunity. Yeah. How did you change it?

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I think I felt very privileged when you know Antoine and Martin and Nick, I guess, took a chance on kind of moving me to farmhouse, you know, having been with Sawhouse for less than two years. So I felt very lucky in the kind of infancy of my Sowhouse career to be given the general manager's job for the biggest site by a country. I'm still the biggest site they have. You know, it will probably be superseded by the New York farmhouse whenever that opens in the next couple of years. But it still is the biggest revenue driving and biggest, you know, biggest venue that they have. The most complicated and and the most sought after. So I think I all fairly analogue in terms of of what my kind of abilities are. And I think that I pride myself on on just being able to kind of go at it and get into it from a from a kind of getting things done and working the hours and the kind of tenacity and not being particularly sensitive about, you know, those. Just just I think with Farmhouse as the GM or any senior kind of leader, operational manager in there, you just need to be able to be committed to it kind of not necessarily 24-7, but not really kind of far off it. I don't think you can make an impact unless you're really, really present at the front end and really hands-on. I think that the number of managers within Soul House with Farmhouse meant that you wouldn't have to worry too much about the admin kind of day-to-day, because you've got a finance manager, you've got somebody handling the P ⁇ , you've got somebody generating the flash on the Tuesday, you've got somebody counting stock up stay up at the top of the hill. And so you could and the expectation from Nick and the operational team, you know, Martin, yourself, when you were still there, was very much, you know, it's about the guest, just be with the guest, look after the guest. Um, and although it sounds very simple, you know, the mantra was was very much look after the guest, properly generally do everything that we do, make every decision that we make with the guest in mind. And more often than not, things everything else kind of tends to take care of itself. And that is a probably a bit of a simplification, but I also believe that. Was it sad to leave? Um, yeah. I think I was probably a little melancholy about it. For the first year or so, I kept my membership. I still have a membership because I don't live very far from it. And I think I was guilty in the first year or so of going back socially and kind of going, oh, that's not very good, is it? That wouldn't happen when I was here. Nonsense, really. But I think that's just part of of of removing of becoming uh unindoctrinated, if that's even the word, to to something that really kind of pulls you in and gets you in the center of it for eight years. You know, I believed and still believe kind of fervently in in what Soulhouse is about, and you become really passionate about it, which is why you don't really give a shit about doing the hours or because you want to be there and you want it to be amazing. And and there's a there's a real pride when you're in your mid-30s or early 40s, as I was at the beginning and end of my tenure at Farmhouse, of being a GM of something somewhere of that, especially when you've you know you've got for imposter syndrome or something. You know, it's just it's you want you it's it has helped me obviously immensely in my in my career. It's it looks fantastic on my CV and it's allowed me to move on and do what I do now with with public house group. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

And can you describe what it is you do today at public house group?

SPEAKER_03 40:56

I am operations director, and so I apply myself across all the venues, and I'm very, very skewed towards all of the front-end standards um when it comes to attention to detail, guest experience, aesthetics, and again, PhD and from an operational team, we're all very hands-on, you know, because uh the founders, Phil, James, and Livia, are are present across all the venues over time, and we see them and they and they they set that standard, they kind of set that tone. They don't meddle, they come in, you know, for something's not particularly right, they'll feed that back to the operational team, we'll address it. But but they're present and inspiring all the teams in the venues, and and you feel that you need to kind of up to that expectation. So I flit across the London venues now two or three days a week, and then do the same in the countryside. And I I work with the teams in a very, very hands-on way. I'm I'll be off to do service in the Fat Badger tonight.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

And what ne what next for you? You've ticked a lot of boxes, my goodness me.

SPEAKER_03 41:54

I think PhG is continuing to grow. We've got a couple of of things going on this year, and I I I can't speak for the longer-term plans because I'm not obviously in that conversation at a high level. And so, you know, it kind of becomes an operational consideration. But I would very much like to continue to do what I'm doing for them and and apply myself across multiple sites. And do you know? I think that the multi-site thing at Farmhouse, I think Farmhouse, regardless of the fact that it's one venue, is actually lots of different venues. So farmhouse actually prepares you for that multi-site thing in a bit more of a controlled environment or a particular shape box. So I think that when I think about what I'm doing now for multi-site and whizzing across different venues across London in the countryside, um, the six years I did at Farm in particular kind of teed me up for that anyway. Because you know, you'd be dealing with Japanese or Mayanban or a flood or rooms or you know, something like some small explosion at the warehouse or something.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Joking aside, we like to play a little game now, which is called Under Pressure. And um we we like to probe kind of what have the disasters been. And given that you were just starting to mention some of those, have there been explosions? Have there been floods? Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_02 43:04

No, no, I mean it's like there was there was a there's a just a little bit that was the ethical license.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

I remember when the tents that you mentioned earlier that were superseded by the huts. I remember when the tents collapsed under the the snow that came from with people in some east. No, no, but we'd already kind of got them out and everything as well, but it was uh it was years ago when we um decided that the the uh the tents in the field at the farm were a viable option 12 months a year. Not at all. And then there was that beast from the east, I think early back the year, was it February or March? And that snow came down a huge amount overnight. And um and they basically kind of collapsed them and and killed them.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

With guests inside. No, no, no, no, no, no, the guests were right. No, it's fine. No, no, no guests, no god no. No what do you do when the partying gets out of hand in a cabin? So how do you handle that? It's difficult, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Because farmhouse and storehouse is about Fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And do you know what you I I always thought that I mean there's if someone's having the fun and have making a bit of noise and and whatnot and and and it's not happening in one of the studio cabins which are built back to back, so effectively twins. You know, if it's happening there and it's impacting upon the person on the other side of the wall, then we would always obviously have a bit more of a direct conversation and ask them to be mindful of their neighbours. But apart from that, I mean, you know, in isolation, if you're in like a cabin nine down by the stream and you're having a good time and you're you're not causing any sort of damage and and you know that's what going to farm is about, right? Having you know, having a you know having a good time enjoying yourselves. I don't think there was never any major issues with that.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Is there a lot security at Farmhouse? Because I mean bringing the police in is going to take a while given its location.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Never, yeah, we never had to from when I was there, but there are I'm assuming it's still the same. It's been a few years since I worked there, but there was always a security presence um in the background and a very casual, you would never know to some way you would have thought they were a member around, you know, and they would be on call and on through the night, even when everything was technically closed. So yeah, but you would never know. Kind of like uh men in black but not in sea. Or something.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Um at this point, we like to look to the future. And Schwan, I know you like to get philosophical and talk about the future of hospitality, so over to you, sir.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Yes. Yeah, unfortunately we know that's 18 UKMO and is quite doom and rooms. So what do you think about the future of it? How can we bring some positivity and how can we inspire the young generation to join this?

SPEAKER_03 45:35

I I think I saw uh a number of articles pop up on my feed the last couple of days about what you referenced earlier on, which is what an average of 3.75 pubs a day closing in the UK, 300 plus this year already, or in the last two quarters, whatever it was, whatever the headline was. Um, which seems like insanely it's just like a number that you can't. I mean, how many pubs can there be in such a small country? At what point are the only pubs that are going to be left are the ones that I work in or something, or whatever, which hopefully that isn't the case. Because you know, pubs of all colour increase. We've have when I live in the village, I live in the Cotswolds. We're we're blessed to have three really middling pubs when it comes to food, but they're really good pubs for drinking and stuff, great outdoor spaces, and they're really fun for kids. And it's the center of co- You know, it is, it's completely. And I I've walked in, I'm very lucky that I've I can walk to kind of all of them. Um, it just seems bizarre that that these things are closing at such a rate of knots. And and you know, what will no, is it is it VAT relief? Is it is it the business rates? All these these things, nothing seems to kind of be happening at all. It just it makes you wonder, I'm not anti-labourer as per se. I'm a I'm a covert Scottish nationalist, but that's a different conversation. You know, not that covert. No, not that covert anymore. Um, but it's it's yeah, it's it it at what point will something meaningful change? I don't really know. Because I think about hospitality and about young people that are coming through it, and I I think I feel like there was a sea change pre and post-COVID when it came to the the kind of caliber and and people that were in it for uh for a career that that for whatever reason left the UK and now I remember reopening Farmhouse on what was it, the 4th of July 2020. Everyone was very excited about you know the first lockdown coming to an end, everything was looking fantastic. Whole country was ready to get pissed. And and we and we opened this really green young team. We had, you know, we'd we had all these these experienced people that we'd unfortunately had chosen to leave for whatever reason that we'd lost. And we opened with we opened Main Barn in this incredible weather with like, you know, runners that were 17 years old that had never known the intensity of what it was like to work at Farmhouse, and it was a completely different thing. I don't think I think that's still the case. We've got a you know, we've got a lot of young people within our businesses at Public House Group, and we've got lots of amazing young people that are just incredibly good at what they do. Most of all, that most of them are like less than half my age, and they're just they're brilliant, committed hospitality professionals, and even the ones that aren't here for the long run just seem to be very passionate of what they do. But I just wonder how do we maintain that? You know, internally and selfishly, we are you know, we work on on training and retention and inspiring people.

SPEAKER_01 48:17

But here you know you would like you guys were working on an academy or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

So we we do we've actually launched that a couple of weeks ago. So also at the same place that we have production kitchen and our catering businesses, but as our second farm is it's called Pub Club. And it's uh it's uh kind of charity hospital pub club. Yeah. Love that. And it's a charity training school, but it's not for us. It's not, we're not, we're not, it's not uh, it's not an incubator for incubator for uh for a public house group team. It's it's a genuine uh enterprise to allow anybody that wants to think about hospitality as a viable career and to train them up um over a 12-reak curriculum where they're paid for it. The first cohort is is doing it right now of eight students. It'll it'll go up to the next one for 12. We're not gonna work to public health group after that. No, so they won't know that if they can and there's an opportunity for them that fits them, then absolutely yes. But also we want to be able to send them out into the wider hospitality world. We're already working with a couple of a couple of our partner operators or other pub operators in the course worlds who are so as part of that 12-week curriculum, they'll spend some time in our operations, but they're also going over to some of our competitors and spending time with them because it's not about people want to find out more about that, Murray. How do they do that? The pub club website, which I believe is www.pubclub.co.uk. But I'm we'll stick a link in it. Oh no. That's truly admirable. I love that. Well, it's it's it's it's it's um it's a real passion project for all of our all of our founders, uh, Phil in particular, and it's just kind of made it happen. It's been an interestation for longer than I've been my public house. So we finally figured out a bricks and mortar site for there to be a classroom environment, um, which also overlaps with our production kitchen, which means that in the fullness of time, part of that curriculum will be an element of food prep or knife skills, for which we already have chefs in there who are doing elements of our catering and production and who will also become, I guess, like lecturers or or teachers. Loved it. It's great. We're finding it's it's it's in our infancy, it's in its infancy, but and we're finding our way. But I met the students for the first time the week before last. And they're young and and and and they're all they're all different, and and they come from different environments locally, and um, but they all seem really fantastic and engaged, and it's just a beautiful thing. I think it could be an incredible.

SPEAKER_00 50:36

Can you do a um special module specializing on breakfasts? Definitely, yes. We do breakfast pretty well in the ball, if you fit. I'd appreciate that. Yeah. Murray, before we let you go, we want to keep building this podcast. And the best way of doing that is to ask you who we should talk to. Thinking about this. Maybe someone that doesn't get enough recognition.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Well, uh it's always a personal bias, isn't it? Jamie was very, very kind to recommend me. I think uh I think about two different people. Well, there are so many people I've worked with who are incredible and amazing and in hospitality. One of them is not based in London, so you'd have to get him remotely. He's called Stephen Strachan. He is he was one of my I worked him very closely in Edinburgh for many, many years. He originally was Martin Wishart's senior simelier, opened up all of Martin's one and one star properties in uh in Edinburgh and uh Loch Lawmond, and uh has recently taken on the mantle, I think, as GM Cromlick's house, which is Andrew Murray's hotel. I love that man dearly, he's an he's an absolute maniac. Steve with a strackman. How do you spell that? S-T-R-A-C-H-A-N.

SPEAKER_00 51:49

The place looks amazing. I've always wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

Yeah, and um they they recently, I think it was being managed for them by by somebody else. They've recently taken it back on, and uh, he's gone to take up the mantle there. And I love that man dearly, he's an incredible, he's he's lightly mental. Number one? Oh, the other one would be someone I work with currently who I'm also amazed by. He's a a bit younger than me, but he's our chef director, uh, Doug Sims. And Doug has been with the business since I think nearly the beginning, started off as one of our senior chefs at the Bull. He previously was at River Cafe and at Corvadis, and it's a bit of a kindred soul. You know, when you click with somebody in hospitality, he's just we just we get on immensely well, we we see things very much the same across it, and and like many, many of us, he's just um totally dedicated. You need something you know. He's just yeah, he's it's a very interesting, a very humble man, big fan.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Thank you, Murray. We shall get on the blower. And thank you for the pod. That was honest, detailed, and exactly why we like to do this. In hospitality, a reservation guarantees you a seat, but it doesn't guarantee you a great night. That part is earned. It's earned by the people you rarely see, the ones carrying the room when it matters. And if you've enjoyed this, share it with someone in hospitality who deserves to be heard. Thank you for listening. Antoine, all that leaves for me is to ask you is there room for me at your restaurant? Sorry, Judil.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

There is no reservation.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Thanks, buddy.