Restaurants no longer simply exist.
Every week they’re rebranded, repackaged, and regurgitated with promos, offers, new dishes, chef cooking tutorials, and reminders.
We live in the information, digital age and we move with the times. But it is exhausting. Every time I’m on my Instagram feed, it’s another dozen restaurants desperately trying to fill the space and get covers in with some new information or another. My own restaurant is not immune to this either. If a week passes with no news or updates, bookings slow down. It feels like we’re all contestants on Britain’s Got Talent, performing circus acts walking the tightrope of doom, not looking down to witness the abyss of the industry.
In the last few years, I’ve witnessed camera-shy chef friends make reels, PR-hungry associates document every facet of their cooking lives almost daily, and an endless stream of £15 lunch offers regardless of whether they’re high-end restaurants or casual spots. Viewers have more inside-access than ever and they’re hungry for more content. Fallow Restaurant’s peek into their dish creations have millions of views on YouTube. That is to say, over a million individuals will have watched how they make a burger. That’s the population of Iceland times three. That’s Elon Musk’s children times ten.
We’ve had to become entertainers, where the food and the service and the trust of word-of-mouth is simply not enough.
Where does it end?
Will we be forced in a Battle Royale, the winner emerging triumphant holding the keys to The Devonshire’s inner circle/private room? The losers forced to close-up shop and reopen under a new name, courtesy of HMRC-induced debts? Well, a recent charity boxing event where chefs punched the daylights out of each other was a step into that terrain. Japanese schoolgirls with knives were replaced by men in their 40s putting away their own Japanese sets and lacing up their gloves.
And the sad reality is, today’s hype train is tomorrow’s desperate plea to come back to our shores. When we relaunched in 2020, the Action Bronson ‘Fuck That’s Delicious’ episode was released soon after. Mangal II was on everybody’s lips (or so it seemed to us). Everyone wanted a seat at the table. We were hot shit. What followed was being voted the 35th best restaurant in the UK a few months later. And honestly, it’s all bullshit. Were we deserving of being named 35th best? Objectively, no. We were still finding our feet and perfecting our craft. The year after, we were 87th,, even though we felt we were improving. Since then, we haven’t even been on the list. Who votes? Industry folk. Why did they vote for us then? Because we were everywhere, at the forefront of many people’s minds. Because of exposure. Because of the times. Our menu is arguably better today. The service tighter. The pricing fairer. But we’ll never get back on that list unless a great PR thing happens again – that’s not me being cynical, it’s just an acceptance of how things work.
All this to say, in a world of intense competition and a who-shouts-loudest-wins approach, sometimes the best thing to do is sit back and not play. Watch the others juggle.
Idealism can only get you so far. At this stage, I feel like a late Arsene Wenger, getting thrashed by debt and month-to-month survival own goals, because I simply refuse to invest in a goalkeeper other than Manuel Almunia, and because “defending” is a philosophy to be dismissed, and not a reality of football. I am not playing that game, but on occasion will post on Instagram when we really have something to say (new dish; pop-up event). Much like Arsenal’s stadium debt at the time inhibiting the manager from refreshing the team to make them better, stronger, I am also constantly losing staff to better-paying restaurant groups who offer more room to grow in a multi-location environment. Like selling Samri Nasri to Manchester City for £25m. I hope I won’t suffer the same indignant end he did, with the public demanding I sell up and resign because I stubbornly didn’t move with the times.
Wenger’s sins were partly because of the conditions he found himself in and his undying loyalty to the team, and partly because he was one stubborn motherfucker who refused to budge out of sheer principle. I can relate. Either way, it ended horribly for him.
So, what’s a (man)gal to do?
I dunno, is the short answer. Our lunches aren’t that busy, but beyond having a £25 set menu with generation portions, I cannot bring the price down by a tenner because I’d simply make a loss. So we stay quiet during those hours, and pack everyone in every evening. I play the game but only dabble in it to a point where it makes sense. I don’t believe in content for content’s sake. I find it laborious and lame. And the world, mostly, doesn’t agree with me, it seems. The busiest places are the ones with all this online activity, the constant stream of things, the never-ending news cycle of all things food posted.
I’m an idealist. I will eventually sink, but still be swinging like those Michelin-starred, coked-up chefs desperately trying to land a hook all in the name of charity (and ego). The sea of debt, and an unsustainable economy and business model that is built to fail due to a government and its policies not respecting or understanding hospitality, will submerge and drown me out. I have accepted my fate. I am at peace.
At least I didn’t put on my leotards, paint my face like a clown, and perform summersaults for the cameras. And for the while Mangal II remains in its existence, it did not compromise its integrity. That’s worth more than a thousand clicks for me. I am a fool, because I know I can do more to get more tables in by simply compromising my core beliefs and dancing along to the social media fiddle being played all around me. But even a fool has his pride, and what energy I have remaining I can channel into being a good person, a good dad, a good boss, and as someone who simply exists rather than one stretched out in the ultra-competitive world of owning a restaurant in London.
In the end, I don’t feel righteous compared to others. I simply just have a different code, and that’s fine. We need variety and we need noise, but we also need silence. Both can exist. Maybe one will prosper, and one will fail. But it’s all relative. What is success? Is it the bank balance? Is it growth? Or is it doing something with pureness and intention, and taking it as far as it can go without losing sense of what you feel is right?
Ultimately, you the reader, the customer, will dictate the answer. We are your servants. And we are your clowns.