Matt Gillan left The Pass at South Lodge Hotel in West Sussex last year after 10 years as head chef to open ‘dual concept’ cafe and restaurant Red Roaster and Pike & Pine in Brighton. He speaks to Hospitality & Catering News about making the leap from employed head chef to business owner and shares his thoughts on the industry as well as his inspirations and aspirations.
Tell us about your new venture Red Roaster and Pike & Pine
Red Roaster was an existing coffee shop in Brighton. It was actually one of the first coffee brands to establish itself in this country. Last year Mike Palmer (owner of Brighton restaurant Lucky Beach) and I set out to rejuvenate it and to also create a special cafe with a space where we’d serve dinner in the evening.
We knew a cafe would work there in the day, but we asked ourselves, ‘how can we make the most of our asset?’, so I said, ‘let’s go to town and try and do something top-end’, so we set out with a plan to have a dual concept under one roof.
We finally opened Red Roaster as a cafe in March. Then, after we found our feet with that we opened Pike & Pine, which is literally at the other end of the dining spectrum. It’s very high-end, but gives me the chance to continue being creative too.
How did it all come about?
From a financial point of view, it made sense to open something together, because it would half our costs, but originally I thought the cafe-by-day and restaurant-by-night was a silly concept. I thought dinner would feel like a pop-up in a cafe, so it wouldn’t have the finish I was looking for from a restaurant, or the cafe would be too posh and too restauranty. As an idea it was great, but as an actual business I didn’t think it would work, so I turned Mike down about four times before he convinced me to give it a go.
Eventually he said to me ‘don’t think of it as a cafe and a restaurant, think of it as a mouldable space that serves coffee and food in the daytime and we can change it for the evening’. When he said that, I said ‘ok, now you’ve got my attention’.
Why did you leave the relative safety of full-time employment to become a business owner?
I’d been at South Lodge for 10 years when I decided to leave, but it wasn’t an easy decision to make. When I started at The Pass I’d set myself some goals. I was young and hungry for success, so wanted a Michelin star and also to get it busy and generate a big profit. We got a few awards, then got a star and then, on the back of The Great British Menu, we were busy at both lunch and dinner, so after that the question was ‘what do we work towards next?’ Also, it sounds morbid, but I thought, if I was on my death-bed what would I regret not doing with my life and it was opening my own place, so I went for it.
What has been the biggest learning curve?
It’s having to face the reality of running a business.
I’ve not been naive to the fact that The Pass was a bubble within the hotel. I was concentrating on the food and running a restaurant without having to think about things like the accounts or the HR, because the infrastructure of the hotel supported it.
Now, we are the accountants and the HR team and I am the chef as well as the gardener and the maintenance man. I haven’t cooked and that’s been hard. I’ve had to put a menu in place that the team can handle without too much involvement from me while I fix the toilets or tend to the garden, but that’s the reality of having your own business.
I am also looking more closely at the cost of everything. I did to a certain extent at The Pass, but ultimately someone else handled the accounts. Now I consider every little thing, like do we need another person for that extra hour, or do we need a KP in for that shift? I’ve become that annoying person I’d always argue with before.
What are the big issues you think the hospitality industry needs to sort out to make it work better?
Staffing is always going to be an issue, but I think we need to look at the root cause of the problem to understand why there aren’t enough chefs coming through. I speak to lecturers and have worked with Brighton College for quite a few years now, so I have an understanding of what they are going through and how I see it is we need to engage people at a much younger age. Home economics was on the curriculum, but has now been phased out. Even if students don’t want to go into the industry, cooking is a key skill they should be developing.
It’s good that everybody is looking at working hours, but I think if it does get to a point like in France where there’s a cap on the number of hours that can be worked, it could have a negative impact on growth of experimentation. There’s only so much you can learn in eight hours a day and if you spent five hours in service, that only gives you three hours to spend with somebody to teach them. If people are motivated enough to be at the top of their game they could be held back by restricted work hours. We have to find a balance.
I think we’re all going to be looking more closely at sustainability and food too. I’m fascinated by Dougie (McMaster) at Silo and his approach to food. It make me think about what I’m doing. There are so many more chefs who are finding space for farms and growing their own produce now because it is so important. It’s not all about local now.
Over the next five years there will be a big shift in how we buy food and I think Brexit will be a massive factor in this. If the trade deals don’t go to plan and prices creep up we will have to look at home-grown solutions.
Who, or what inspires you?
It changes all the time. When it comes to chefs, I think Gordon Ramsay was one of the first to inspire me and because I worked with him, it led me to work with other inspirational people like Daniel Clifford and John Campbell. I think those who also send you on another journey that you hadn’t considered before are the ones that are inspirational. Lewis Hamblet (executive chef at South Lodge) didn’t inspire me as a chef, but he has inspired me through the journey he has taken. He turned what was a small, four star hotel into a conference and banqueting suite and then added two restaurants, a lounge and soon a spa. Working with him and seeing how he runs and grows things is inspirational.
Inspiration comes from everywhere though. Watching Chef’s Table on Netflix. Chefs like Dan Barber are so inspiring. Their journeys are amazing. You think you’ve had a shit journey and then you realise everyone else has had obstacles at some point. My kids as well, they are an inspiration, because they make sure I take time off and am away from the business.
What’s the plan for the next five years?
In the next year I’d just like to stay in business. It’s all still such a learning curve for us that we need to make sure we’re still here in 12 months’ time. We have no aspirations for accolades at the moment, it’s just about staying in business.
I do have ambitions though and would like to have five Red Roasters open in the next five years and for the brand to be a household name. The Red Roaster brand is scalable and as a brand and concept it would be good to have a few more, which would really benefit the coffee side of the business if nothing else.
At the moment we’re not sure where. They wouldn’t all be in Brighton, but whether they are all in the south or dotted around in major cities is something we’re still discussing. Wherever they are, it is guaranteed to keep us busy for the next five years.
Emma Eversham
Hospitality & Catering News, Interviews Editor