I've worked in food and hospitality for most of my life. I started at the bottom, washing dishes in a restaurant as a teenager, and somehow never really escaped.
I've been a chef, run restaurants and large catering operations, built and sold a catering business, worked with airlines and food manufacturers and, in 2012, founded Niche with my friend and business partner Adrian Morgan. My career has taken me into some extraordinary places, but the thing I still love most is hospitality itself.
And by hospitality, I mean something quite particular.
There is a difference between
service and genuine hospitality. Service can be technically perfect. Someone can say all the right things, deliver everything correctly and follow every procedure, yet somehow it can still feel transactional.
Hospitality, in its truest form, comes from a genuine place. It's wanting people to feel welcome, cared for and valued. It's warmth, generosity and the pleasure of seeing somebody have a lovely time. I want people to leave Niche not only thinking that they've eaten really well, but feeling somehow better for having spent time with us.I think some of that was instilled in me long before I ever thought about a career in restaurants.
My grandmother was what I would call a true
bon vivant. She had an extraordinary warmth, kindness and generosity of spirit and seemed to exude hospitality naturally. She was a publican and later managed golf clubs with my grandfather. She understood instinctively how to make people feel welcome and looked after, and that has stayed with me.
My mother's parents were farmers. My grandfather had the most incredible kitchen garden and we grew up around wonderful fresh produce — fruit and vegetables straight from the ground, grown naturally and seasonally. Nobody called it organic then. It simply was. Looking back, I realise how much those early experiences shaped the way I think about food.
Many other people have inspired me throughout my career, and I'm still learning. There are certainly things I would do differently if I had my time again. Like most human beings, I'm not infallible. I've made mistakes, backed things that didn't work, trusted the wrong people occasionally and undoubtedly got things wrong myself. I've also learned some fairly hard lessons along the way. I don't regret that. Experience is rather pointless if it doesn't change you.
Where Niche took me Niche wasn't originally intended to be gluten-free. My diagnosis with Coeliac disease changed that, and the full story of how the restaurant evolved is told elsewhere on this site. What I hadn't anticipated was quite how profoundly that experience would change the direction of my wider career. Trying to understand Coeliac disease and food allergies properly led me deeper into food science and nutrition. I eventually completed an MSc in Food Science and Nutrition, and the knowledge developed at Niche has subsequently taken my work well beyond the restaurant. I've worked on special dietary food for airlines, healthcare, food manufacturers and other parts of the hospitality industry. I've written about the subject, spoken at industry events, judged food awards and worked with businesses large and small. It has been an unexpected journey.
But however technical the work becomes — allergens, nutrition, food science, manufacturing, systems and specifications — I always seem to come back to the same thing.
Food is about people.
That's why I still love restaurants. I want Niche to be somewhere people come because the food is delicious and they know they'll be looked after. If having Coeliac disease, a food allergy or another dietary requirement brought them through our door in the first place, wonderful. But once they're sitting at the table, I don't want their condition to define their experience. I want them to relax, eat, drink, laugh and have a lovely time. That's hospitality.
And that's what I've always wanted Niche to be.
And there's rather more to the story... I've written about much more of the journey — the good bits, the difficult bits, food, Coeliac disease and everything that happened along the way — in my book,
Celebrating.
Discover Celebrating →
