Interview: Tom Kerridge

Before sitting down with the UK’s most famous landlord (no, not that guy from The Devonshire), I tried to recall the last time I had interviewed Tom Kerridge. On that occasion, his one-star site The Coach, just down the road from the renowned two-star Hand & Flowers in Marlow, was still a boarded-up Chinese restaurant, with Kerridge ready to transform it into the beautiful space that you’ll find today.

Turns out, The Coach is celebrating its 10-year anniversary, meaning it was over a decade ago that I was last in front of the ever-cheery, West Country chef, who, you may have noticed, has been in the press rather a lot of late. The combination of The Hand & Flowers celebrating its 20th birthday and the fact he has a new book out means he has well and truly been on the PR campaign trail, appearing on various podcasts and programmes, as well as dominating headlines after a soberingly honest interview with The Guardian about the current state of the hospitality sector.

He’s been here before, of course. Indeed, in 2023, the BBC’s The Hidden World of Hospitality with Tom Kerridge showcased the struggles operators face with running restaurants to millions of viewers, with many arguing it did no favours for recruitment when it comes to painting the sector in a positive light. As always with Kerridge, critics came after him through the ‘but he’s alright with his business empire and bags of money’ angle, implying a level of disingenuity through his public appearances and messaging. So why does he continue to do it? Does an operator as successful as Kerridge really need to run the risk of attack by publicly complaining about how tough things are right now?     

“I think being brutally honest about stuff is the best way of letting people understand what’s going on,” he tells me in the bar area of The Hand & Flowers. “This is what’s happening in our industry. I don’t want to cause controversy, but I quite like telling people exactly how it is, and this is the reality. I recognise that we’re very lucky, because I can sell a book or do whatever, so there’s money that comes into us from a secondary or third type of business that I operate outside. That helps our other businesses work. But if The Butcher’s Tap & Grill in London was my only site, we’re in trouble. There are lots of people that are like that, on the verge, so when you get given the chance to go on Question Time or on the news, I’m not representing me necessarily. My voice is representing those guys, representing those people. And that weighs quite heavy. I’d feel really bad if I didn’t say how bad it was, as I’m talking about it for the 3m people that live and work in hospitality.”

The Hand & Flowers, Marlow

The Butcher’s block 

He mentions The Butcher’s Tap & Grill in Chelsea specifically, as in his Guardian interview he cryptically revealed “we have six sites and I would say three operate at a very minor profit, two just about break even, and one’s losing a lot of money”. So, I ask him, was there a reason for not naming which venues are which? He thinks about it, but it doesn’t take long for that brutal honesty to take over once again. His three in Marlow (Hand & Flowers, The Coach and the other Butcher’s Tap & Grill) are making profit. “Not masses,” he adds, “but Marlow is pretty strong.” However, it’s the second Butcher’s Tap in Chelsea that’s the money pit. In fact, days after we speak, Kerridge announces its closure, paving the way for a new Hand and Flowers sister site in the same London spot called The Chalk Freehouse. 

“The Chelsea site has been there for 18 months and is still finding its feet,” he says. “The problem with it is a huge outlay, a big capex at the beginning, and you have to work out what it needs to be turning over every week or month to start paying some of that back. And at the minute, it’s not hitting those figures. That’s partly the climate, partly the location, maybe the offering isn’t quite right. If you talk to anybody in London, it’s a very, very difficult space to be working.”

But, isn’t anywhere? No matter your method or model? I illustrate this through an anecdote from the evening before the interview when, in The Hand & Flowers dining room, I witnessed quite a full-on complaint from a guest. So disappointed was this particular diner, that he summoned the manager and made them sit with him on a separate table so he could complain in detail about his experience. His wife watched on with palpable embarrassment as manager Katie Mulliss absorbed the tirade with dignity and aplomb. Yes, The Hand & Flowers is not in London, but with two Michelin stars above the door and a price point that reflects them, surely meeting guest expectations is just a difficult space to operate within?

“Katie told me about that first thing this morning,” says Kerridge. “The guest said the beef they get from Costco is better than ours. That is absolutely fine to have that opinion. I 100% know that it’s not, but you can’t argue with somebody who’s arguing that. We know what we do is good. We’re very happy with it. I’m sorry that it’s not quite what you think it’s going to be, but every place has to deal with personal expectation levels.” 

The Classics menu at The Hand & Flowers (image: Cristian Barnett)

Michelin-star pubs

One of the calm replies I heard from Mulliss while dealing with the complaint was to remind the flustered chap that The Hand & Flowers is still a pub, something Kerridge and the team are evidently very proud of. Each year, as the Michelin Guide announces which UK sites have acquired or retained stars, The Hand & Flowers repeatedly nails its flag to the mast as being the only pub with two of them. It’s a huge achievement. But, as I observed firsthand, the pressures and expectations associated with accolades from Michelin can result in negativity. With a handful of chefs opting to renounce the stars they have picked up over the years, is Kerridge ever tempted to do the same? Would it not ease the tensions from both sides of the operation?

“We don’t cook for the guidebook, although we are hugely respectful of it,” he says, as the Michelin Man peers over him from a shelf above. “That recognition is amazing and we’ve had guide recognition for these 20 years, as we won our first star in 10 months. That comes down to personal standards that we all set ourselves, not just me. We all have our own standards. We care about every detail and if, in turn, that means that Michelin think we deserve those accolades, that’s great. As a global guidebook, they don’t often get it wrong. If you go and eat in a Michelin-star restaurant in London tonight, it will be amazing. The same would happen anywhere around the world.” 

And yet, there aren’t many places around the world where you can find a two-Michelin-star pub. As part of the 20-year celebrations, Kerridge and his team have rolled out a Classics menu, where for £95 you can eat dishes that have defined the pub’s journey and shaped its reputation over the past two decades. Changing things up like this is a quality he loves about the hospitality industry. Kerridge uses the word ‘fluidity’ a lot to describe the sector, championing its ability to pivot and adapt with speed whenever necessary, all in the name of enhancing an offer. While that is happening through admirable examples across the trade, I argue that, despite the current climate, there are many businesses standing still and struggling. Why, does he think some pubs aren’t as fluid as they could be?

“I think pubs run with tradition,” he says. “We all love the idea of taking a dog for a walk on a Sunday, ending up in a pub with an open fire, having a pint of beer and a roast dinner, spending £15 on it and leaving saying ‘that was mega’. But pubs that think that’s all people want won’t work as a business. You’ve got to solve things. It’s like turning a great big ship, isn’t it? The industry is exciting and vibrant and new, but there’s also a lot of old school tradition that’s got to drop back into it. 

“Look at non-alcoholic drinks now – they are becoming quite cool and there’s a lot of things that are changing. That filter and the way that works and moves helps shift the viewpoint of how pubs are and how they operate. It does take a long time for people to move. I think they can be incredibly exciting, but it’s finding that shift of balance. As an industry, we need to move and move quicker.”

Dining at The Hand & Flowers

That’s enough of VAT

During his media rounds over the past month, Kerridge has talked a couple of times about how a VAT reduction is needed across the hospitality industry. It’s far from revolutionary as an idea and one that has been peddled by Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin for decades, to limited/zero success. Even with Kerridge as a loveable poster boy for such political messaging, is he not wasting his time on this subject? Does he really think a VAT reduction for pubs and restaurants is a topic Westminster will even entertain?

“It is a realistic conversation,” he says with genuine conviction. “I’ve been very fortunate to be able to speak to shadow ministers and front line ministers, and have that conversation. They do listen. Things just take so long to move. It’s not something that you can just instantly change. Conversation about VAT and the upturn that we would get as an industry from it being reduced, they understand. They get it. However, to then present to the chancellor is very, very different. The country and the systems that operate in this country are broken. To then say, ‘can we reduce VAT by 10%?’ Where does that money come from? I think the reality of that conversation in the shortterm is very different. The thing that always worries me about politics and about policy making is so much of it is obviously short-term and reactionary to by-elections, a lot of it is narrative. It’s not a fluid conversation.”

When it comes to National Insurance contributions, due to his access and conversations with government, Kerridge believes it’s not necessarily a fulltime or foregone conclusion, suggesting it is being “monitored” and considered for a U-turn. Fingers crossed on that one. But, with politics overall, he does occasionally seem to be in the thick of it, for want of a better phrase. As he says, Question Time and the like often come calling, asking for his perspective on a whole host of matters, which is usually on the left side of the political equation. Given the prices of his menus and the clientele his sites are likely to attract, is he ever hesitant in offering his political opinion so publicly? 

“The majority of the area around here is pretty much blue voting,” says Kerridge. “And that’s fine. I’m cool with that and it doesn’t alter what we do professionally. I’m very proud of coming from a working-class background, I had a single parent, qualified for free school meals and my mum had two jobs. I recognise how difficult it must have been for my mum at that point, and those are the people that need the most help. If you want to talk about politics, I can tell you my viewpoint and I’ll stand by it.”

Kerridge stands by it despite the media having come at him in the past over social and political standpoints. He seems comfortable running the risk of becoming the story for the greater good of the subject at hand.

“I can talk about free school meals and the Full Time Meals campaign I set up with Marcus Rashford, because it’s something I came from,” he says. “It’s also really lazy right-wing journalism to write about the cost of dinner at The Hand & Flowers compared to telling people about free school meals. One is a professional point that operates as a business at this really high level. The other one is a social point, talking about somewhere I come from. And if you want to merge the two together, writing for the Daily Mail, then that’s fine. You’re also then shouting at an audience that just wants to be angry about stuff. If you read the Daily Mail and you believe everything that it says, that’s not me, that’s you.”

Parklife

As we chat, just five minutes down the road, the Pub in the Park team is getting ready for their festival season through day one of the Marlow edition. Kerridge’s pub food-led music festival, which he launched in 2017, now operates at four sites around the south of England. After Marlow, it’s heading to London, Reigate and St Albans. As well as live music, it features some of the best pub operators in the country, all out of their kitchens and cooking from their own stands.

Alongside that, he has his work with M&S, VIP dining at Twickenham stadium, cookbooks, podcasts, partnerships… the lot. He’s a busy man. I think, given his business acumen, when The Butcher’s Tap mark-two arrived in Chelsea, people in the industry were poised for Kerridge to roll out the brand, like so many of his peers have done before him. But now we know this isn’t the case. 

“The Butcher’s is a brand that we tested the water with, and thought maybe this is something that could work, but I don’t know that it does,” he says, as the conversation comes to an end. “I don’t know that it’s 100% the right thing. Maybe it might work in a different site, in a different space, but right now I have nothing in the pipeline. For me, right now it’s about keeping staff, keeping staff happy, continually building this amazing family of people that seems to keep churning out and generating great leaders. We have a lovely kind of connectivity, a brilliant kind of growth process of young chefs that come through, front-of-house as well, who will go on to do great things that we’re really proud of.” 

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