![]() The first one was a freebie for friends and family. We didn’t do a soft launch because if you charge 50% you’re either apologising that you’re not good enough or you’re losing money. ![]() I hadn’t really cooked meat for six years so I was happy to admit it was not my strength – we could do some nice dishes but there are better meat cooks out there. It was a real confidence boost that someone like Claude thought we were that good. He said he didn’t understand why we bothered with the meat and said our strength was with fish so we should bite the bullet and just serve fish. My epiphany really came when Claude Bosi came in for lunch about two months after opening and I asked him if we could improve anything. We are now closed Sunday and Monday and for Tuesday lunch. Also, when we opened I felt like we needed to have a broad menu so we did quite bit of meat and dishes that were vegetable based as that was a trend at the time, but they just petered out. We toyed with opening on Sunday and closing Monday and Tuesday instead, but with the fish it was too much to juggle, we either had loads left over or ran out. I knew I would tweak a lot because it was my first restaurant and I didn’t really know what I was doing. A year down the line we’ve got a team that really wants to be here and make the restaurant even better tomorrow than it is today. I want it to be somewhere people love to work and be inspired because I always had that with Nathan, and before that with Paul Ripley. The biggest challenge is getting staff to buy into Cornerstone. Since then we’ve increased the number of chefs and brought in a proper pastry chef, which has been a godsend as not only has it relieved everyone’s workload but has put us on another level in terms of food. I wasn’t running people into the ground but I was putting too much on people’s shoulders when they were brand new. ![]() Because I was happy to work five double shifts in a row, I expected other people to as well, and we went through a couple of chefs at the start. I overestimated what was reasonable for people to do. What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in the first year? I have no qualms in saying how naive I was about everything and how steep a learning curve it was. I had to ask my girlfriend to pay it out of her savings just for the day before I could pay her back. The bank rang up to tell me to bring the account into credit right away. Two days into opening our finance payments came out and put us £6,000 overdrawn because all the money we had taken on card payments had yet to clear. We’ve come out of it OK but there have been some tricky times. It’s different to anything I have done before and there are so many things since opening that I have had no point of reference for – I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had to say ‘can you explain that to me like I’m an idiot’. I had never had any previous experience of dealing with builders or solicitors or anything to do with the bank. But it’s a completely different role and it’s a bit of a blur. I wanted it to be not too dissimilar to what I had already been doing as a head chef in a well-established place. What expectations did you have for Cornerstone? It’s genuinely a dream come true to come into the restaurant every day and know it’s mine. With your own money you’re always watching the till, and it can be painful when you suddenly have to shell out for something unexpected. When you have a good day you’re elated, but if one thing goes bad it’s suddenly doom and gloom. When you’ve got a job as a professional chef you do your best and it matters to you, but with your own restaurant it’s much more personal. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s so up and down because I’m so invested in it. Visit National Restaurant Awards website.Follow National Restaurant Awards on social.
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