Stories from the Stove

Episode 4 of Building Resilient Futures: Stories from the Stove. I'm Aryan Vedhara, and today we're exploring resilience in one of the toughest industries in the world— hospitality. My guest, Adam Byatt, is a Michelin-starred chef, restaurateur, and chairman of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, a leader who's helped shape the next generation of chefs while redefining what it means to build and sustain excellence. From starting out as a 15-year-old apprentice at Claridge's to building over 5 acclaimed restaurants, including Michelin-starred Trinity, the new brasserie Constance, and co-owning Wildflowers, Adam's story isn't just about success. It's about staying grounded through pressure, uncertainty, and the relentless pursuit of perfection. We talk about mental health in kitchens, leadership with empathy, and our resilience isn't built in calm, it's forged in heat. This is Building Resilient Futures featuring Adam Byatt. So if we could start by you giving me a quick summary of your career thus far.

I left school at the age of 15, having done my GCSEs, uh, and I went to Cris Open Day. There was a role for an apprentice at Claridge's Hotel, which I took. I started that. Career at Claridge's. And I spent the first 3 months there and then was chosen to go to Bournemouth and Poole College and, uh, join the Royal Academy Specialized Chef course. I spent the next 4 and a half years doing a block release, 9 months at Claridge's, 6 months at, uh, at Bournemouth on an apprenticeship scheme. So I spent all in all about 5 years at Claridge's, left there, went to the Berkeley Hotel with John Williams. And spent about a year there. He left, so I wanted to venture into restaurants, so I moved into a restaurant called The Square and spent the next best part of 5 years at The Square, progressed through those kitchens, moved restaurants with them, went from 1 to 2 Michelin stars with them. Um, had a great time. I loved that restaurant. And then it, after that, I opened a place with the owner of The Square, Phil Howard, in Fulham called The Works. I spent a couple years there. And then we opened a juice bar, fresh juice bar chain. Uh, and we did that for about 3 years, which was really fun. That was kind of based in Fulham in SW6, fair enough. And, um, and then eventually I bought my own restaurant in 2001. I bought, uh, Thyme. Uh, traded that through until 2006, and then I opened Trinity in 2006. And since opening Trinity, which is 19 years ago now, I have gone on to do lots of bits and pieces. I've written a cookbook, opened Bistro Union in 2012, became, uh, the culinary director at Browns Hotel in 2019. I became the Royal Academy chairman, um, in 2023. I opened Wildflowers with Aaron Potter in, um, Pimlico. Last year as a co-owner. He's the chef patron, and I'm about to launch where we are right now, which is Constance in the Fulham Pier project here in Fulham.

Thank you very much. And if we go back to that moment, just when you had the opportunity for an apprenticeship, what did you know about the world of cooking and restaurants before that point? Or was it really just you saw it there at the careers fair and you started to take the plunge?

Yeah, I didn't know anything about the industry at large. I was interested in food, home economics at school. My grandfather was a chef, mum was a chef a little bit as well. So sort of familiar with the terminology of it, but certainly not familiar with what the industry was gonna bring. So not much knowledge to that point. No.

And let's break down the process of starting a restaurant right from the initial idea to the opening night. Can you run through what that process is like?

I think you, you, well, you've got a passion for what you want to do. You, you've, set your heart on opening this restaurant. And I don't think anyone goes into a restaurant thinking, I'm doing this for a reason to get rich or a quick, quick buck or anything like that. They do it because they love cooking, they love hospitality, they love looking after people and the thrill and the buzz of restaurants. Of course, all that has changed a lot over the years since I opened my restaurant in 2001. But I guess you, you, the, the first thing you do is go and locate a site. And that's kind of what we did first. We went out and we found a site that was appropriate for us, um, within your sort of price bracket. So that was the first thing we did. We found a site in, in Clapham in SW4. I'd never been to Clapham before, but it was quite close to home and it was a great site and it was operating as a restaurant. So I had to buy it off the current restaurateur. So the next thing then unfolds is finding money. So then I've gotta go and finance that. So we went about financing that restaurant and then we, then you're sort of leading up to doing a refurbishment because every restaurateur wants to sort of make it their own and call it their own name and give it its own identity. So you do the refurbishment, you buy your pots and pans and your, and your clatter and stuff, and you, and you write your menu and you, you come up with some form of sort of marketing plan. This is 2001, by the way. So things are very different now. There wasn't mobile phones weren't even around, I don't think then, let alone anything else. So it was, it was very much an analog world then. And then you just invite a load of people to come along and sample your wares. Hope they enjoy it. Hope all the systems work. And then you start about trying to market your restaurant and open to the public. And there you go. And then I guess you, you just cook your heart out and give us, give the best value hospitality you can and hope that people repeat on your, on your goods.

And what do you think of the challenges that you faced when opening Trinity, Bistro Union, or now Brasserie Constance? What were the most unexpected of those challenges?

I think it's all, I think Building works and contractors, we always, always, always underestimate how long that's gonna take. The sort of the extra things that come on, what is opening those cans of worms, taking walls down and not realizing that when you take walls down, other things appear. And so there's often delays to do with construction and things like that. But, um, and that's fairly common. Other than that, I think the time creeps up on you very quickly. You, you work towards this sort of deadline in the sand of when you want to open this restaurant and you think you've got lots of time, but it runs away very quickly. And there's often a lot of delays. Things take a long time to arrive. If you order plates, pots, pans, they come from Europe. And if you order those in July, Europe closes in August. The delays are, are often via other sources and they're often sort of down to basically not planning far enough in advance. But that's generally the only issues that you come across. And then of course, once you open a restaurant is a whole lot of nuance. It's 150 different moving parts at the same time. So it's very easy for one of those cogs to slip and something to not go right. But your And my job as this sort of owner or the head of this thing is to try and sort of stop those cogs slipping really.

And what's the biggest difference would you say between running one restaurant versus managing multiple venues? And how has your role in those restaurants now changed?

Well, it changes it. It's a whole different job, a business. When you are running one restaurant, you are at the helm, you're at the stove, you're doing your thing, you're running the pass, you're greeting the guests, you're Managing every aspect of their business, probably doing the payroll and the VAT return and taking the booking and doing some marketing and, and doing the whole thing. And that's a, that's a wonderful, joyous thing. And I've done that for over 25 years and I enjoyed that very much. You've got to grow and you've got to kind of go on and, and, and go to other, other venues and, and, and running a multiple site and running sites remotely is a skillset that most chefs don't get taught, and you have to learn, and you have to kind of go through a lot of pain to work that part out. But that really comes down to having great people, being an amazing communicator, being a great leader. And my role now across 8 restaurants is really about recruiting the best people, marketing those restaurants, and giving steerage and support to those that are at the helm in those restaurants. That's really my role now.

And you speak about hiring great people. You've mentored some incredible chefs. And now in your role as Chairman of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, of course, you're always on the lookout for new talent. What do you look for when taking someone under your wing for the first time?

So taking, taking a young chef on into the restaurant, really, I'm just looking for attitude. We can teach everything else. It really is about a work ethic, a willingness to learn, a humility to understand that there's, there's a lot of people inside this room that know what they're doing. And you wanna learn from them. And I think it's all really, you know, it's a bit all been said so many times, but it's integrity, attitude. Can you show up for work every single day on time and bring positivity and a willingness to learn is the biggest attribute, honestly. I don't really care where you've worked or what you've learned before that. I care more about your willingness to learn.

And obviously you've mentored a lot of these new chefs and taken a lot under your wing. What do you think the new generation of chefs are getting right and where do you think they still need a bit of guidance?

It's a good question. I think a lot of young chefs these days have an expectation for a better work-life balance, and I think they're right about that. I think that's a good thing. And it's, it's, it's been the, the sort of jerk that the industry has needed to get itself back into line and become a profession, a professional profession, if you like. So that's a good thing. However, that does sometimes come at the, at the sacrifice of Um, you know, just repetition of hours and getting very good at cooking or the craft of cookery does require repetition and it requires man hours and it requires just doing things over and over and over and over until you're, until you're brilliant at them. And it might well be a little bit of the sacrifice of that. But then there's the other part that I worry a little bit about, which is that sort of classical foundation cookery that I feel slightly getting lost in the industry. Because that style of cookery is very process heavy. It's very craft heavy. It's very labor intensive. And all these things, of course, are very much against the tide of where the industry is and what's available to the industry to spend on those kind of things that make restaurants great. So that's a worry for me.

And obviously the hospitality industry over a long time now had a difficult history with mental health. What, why do you think that is? And what do you think young chefs, and what do you do personally to make sure that you can manage your mental health while being a chef, business as owner and mentoring all these young chefs?

Well, I don't, I don't think the mental health issue is limited only to hospitality. I think it's rife everywhere. And I think it's just something, I don't think it's worse or better now than it ever was. I just think it's more talked about and that's a great thing. And people are much more willing to share. They're much more willing to talk to each other. They're much more willing to sort of say, listen, I'm having a difficult time. Which then of course then is the knock-on of that is that there are then other things out there. There's, there's help out there, support out there. It becomes more normal for people to talk about these things. And yeah, it's, it's a big thing, but I think it happens in every industry. I think it's everywhere. And people just having a work-life balance that allows them to get the space they need to cope with things is, is super important. And ultimately, we're all different and we all have a different makeup, brain makeup. And some of us cope brilliantly with masses of pressure during service. Some of us can't stand that part of it. Some of us love the prep end of it and the, and the, and the graft and the adrenaline of getting ready for service. Some of us hate that part of it. It's a kind of working with people to see what their skill set is and leaning into that a little bit. But overall, I think it's a, it's a really big subject and we work really hard in my business to make sure that people are getting that kind of support and getting the work-life balance that it requires to do that. However, there is also a mental resilience part of this. There's a responsibility for your taking responsibility for yourself. So, you know, if I'm struggling with things to cope with things, I'm struggling with the pressure of things, you know, I've got to make good choices in the way that I choose to deal with that. And, and the way that I deal with that actually is through running and fitness and things like that. But they, they've been super helpful for me as a person to try and help me balance work and life and get space and to process— time to process things and things like that. So they've been super helpful for me, and I something that I desperately wish I knew back when I was in my late 20s. But I think talking to people, getting out in the wild, in the countryside, getting out in the open air, that's super helpful for people. Just going for a walk, getting blood flow in the morning, just walking around doing stuff. I think all these things are super helpful. There's lots of stuff out there for people, but there is, there's got to be a sense of responsibility and a sort of, people have gotta take responsibility for themselves and they've gotta, um, make sure that they're, they're putting in play things to protect themselves from getting into a dark place. It's really important.

And you spoke about resilience and building resilience for yourself. What do you think helps to build that long-term resilience in the industry? Would you say it's based on mindset, training, support, or something entirely different?

I think it's, it's a number of those things. I think I'll go straight back to the previous point. Actually, the running and exercise part for me is that it, it, that's where the resilience comes from. That's a, that's resilience training. I think resilience is like a muscle. It can be trained like in the gym. If you run a marathon, you need so much resilience to do that. Mental resilience. You're basically spending the, you know, the, the thick end of 4 hours arguing with your brain about something it doesn't want to do anymore. And, and if you can overcome that and win that battle with yourself, that sort of resilience training is, is the, the very best way in my mind to try and become stronger than that. Because if you can basically run like that, or do something like that that's incredibly uncomfortable, when the difficult stuff comes along in normal life, work life, whatever it is, you're much, much more prepared to deal with the difficult stuff. And you've got— you've, you've already done the hard stuff. You're used to doing difficult things. And ultimately, all the good things in life are on the other side of uncomfortable. That's where it— that's, that's how it is.

Mistakes happen in every industry, and bad services often happen in the hospitality industry. How do you help your teams bounce back from these mistakes without them losing motivation or morale?

Oh, I think we— what we mustn't do is shy away from making sure people understand when it's wrong. When things are wrong, they're wrong. And if people have made mistakes because they've just not understood something, that's absolutely fine. We need to be tolerant to that, and that's down to us. We've got to make sure we're training people properly and looking at people. But if people make mistakes because they repeatedly can't focus or can't— or can't just grasp the certain thing, you've got to look at that employee and wonder if we can— if they're in the right role. Are we setting them up for success? Once you've dealt with those two issues, and then look at the whole, the whole picture, speak everyone in, you know, as a group and just say, listen, these things happen. People make mistakes. Today it was your turn to make a mistake. Tomorrow it'd be my, my mistake. And you've got to pick that team up and you've got to look positive and look forward. Picking people up and holding them and making them feel secure and making them feel like tomorrow is going to be a better day is a much better motivator than just ripping the team apart and ripping the heart out of it for the next day. In general. Difficult though.

A fun one now. Do you remember where you were when you earned your first Michelin star with Trinity?

Yeah, I was, I was invited to, um, it was a theater. Um, it was a theater. It was the very first time the Michelin did a live announcement of Michelin, and it was in a theater, which was just by the Savoy. It was just off the Strand. And we were invited into a room. I had no idea we'd been being awarded a star. Obviously I had suspicion about that. Puts us into a room, and then the audience are below, and then we're sort of wheeled out one, one, one another. That's the way they did it the first time they ever did it. What was lovely about that day was that John Williams also got a star that day for the first time. And for me, that was a great thing. He's been a great mentor in my life.

Let's go back to technology. You spoke about in 2001 when you were first opening Time, was it, that there was not even mobile phones that were common at the time. How has technology impacted and changed your kitchens? All the way from equipment to reservations and then back to inventory?

Well, there is a lot of, there is a lot of equipment technology available, and I think it's very difficult actually as a restaurateur to sort of sift through the wheat and the chaff here, because if you embraced every piece of technology, your technology bill would be greater than your turnover. So you gotta be quite careful. And you know, back in those days I had a full restaurant. And I had no stock taking system, no reservation system. I had no EPOS system. I took orders on a check pad. I took reservations on a diary. The restaurant was full and we were profitable. Now I have a reservation system, an EPOS system, a PDQ system. I have a payroll system. I have a planned day system for holidays. I have a system for electronic system for ordering, electronic system for stock taking. I have all of it at our disposal. And all of those come at a cost and everyone's trying to sort of take a little piece out of your business. So you've gotta be very careful. And very selective. And of course there are systems that do all of it or the majority of it, but it's incredibly expensive. And sometimes I do wonder how much of that labor is being saved actually on a lot of this technology, or a lot of it is just invented for the sake of technology. So gotta be very cautious, gotta do your research and get references from other peers in your sector as to whether or not that technology has actually saved any time and whether or not the support system from that technical company is there once you've signed on the dotted line, because often it's not. Because also being, being also acutely aware that most technology companies, unlike restaurants, open to grow and get sold. So you are just part of their journey to get sold. Their investment in you is quite rare. I know that sounds quite negative, but that has been the case many times over.

And what role do you think social media now plays in a chef's career? Should young chefs think about building a personal brand?

That's a really tricky one. I I don't think the answer is yes to that. I think social media has a really good place in making your restaurant relevant and making enough noise about your restaurant that people hear about you, and you can tell your story, and you can get your message out there, and you can relay that information to the, to the guests of your business. In terms of actually building a brand as a chef on social media, I think there's a lot of problems with social media in terms of what it brings. I don't like a lot of what social media brings, but as a, as a person who owns a business and needs to market that and make noise about it, I think there's some real positives, some great stuff that can be taken from it. I entered into this whole social world pretty late on in my very late 40s. And, um, and it's been great for us as a business. It's been fantastic. I enjoy telling stories. I enjoy cooking the food that I cook on it. If I'm honest, I do prefer more like the YouTube channel side of it because it's longer format. I get to tell the story in its full interpretation, which I prefer actually. But there is a place for it in terms of getting, getting, uh, your restaurants out there and making noise around it. And sadly, I don't know if you just open a restaurant and cook fantastic food and don't ever tell anyone about it. I don't know if that's enough to get you over the line anymore, which is really quite sad.

But you have to think there's, um, 30, 40,000 restaurants in London, so Going back a little bit to that leadership side, what separates a great chef from a great restaurateur?

You know, I think it's possible to be a great chef and a great restaurateur, but there's, there's not that many that succeed at that because the two, weirdly enough, do conflict a little bit because a restaurateur is running a business that is in the business of making profit. And chefs inherently, the good ones, are just people who love cooking and are super generous and want to feed people and want to be hospitable and want to be generous. Stress. And that stuff is not necessarily coherent with running a tight, dialed-in, bulletproof, smart restaurant. So it actually could— to combine the two, and it's completely possible to do that, but it takes a lot of work. And we don't get trained on these things. You have to sort of learn them by, by fault and learn them by growth and things like that. So yeah, difficult one.

And how do you develop leadership skills within your teams in high-pressure, high-stakes environments like the kitchen?

Well, leadership is, leadership is everything. Leadership is the difference between, you know, a bunch of people and a team. And for me, when I've got people in senior positions, what I'm looking for first and foremost is great leadership. I'm looking for people that can inspire other people, lead other people, be someone other people to look up to, a standard bearer, someone who's inspirational, someone who loves seeing other people succeed and takes joy from that. That's leadership and someone that can stand up and make decisions and someone that can make hard decisions and have uncomfortable conversations comfortably. That's what leadership is. And we don't get taught that as chefs. We get taught to cook pieces of sea bass. We don't get taught how to be leaders. So actually teaching the, you know, the younger, more senior chefs in my team how to be great leaders is paramount for us to succeed as a business as we grow.

And how do you view risk as a chef and as a restaurateur? Do you try and lean into it or try and minimize it?

No, I lean into risk. I like risk and I like risk, but I also know when I'm beat and I also know, I know when the odds are against me. I'm not, not a risk taker for the thrill of it, but I'm a risk taker because I feel pretty confident in myself and my ability to get myself out of a hole should I land in one. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely. And how do you keep innovating while also preserving consistency? And quality in a restaurant like Trinity?

Well, that's a good question. I think when you're across multiple sites, innovation, progression, R&D, those kind of things are super important. And keeping your business fresh and innovating or evaporating essentially. But I guess for me, like the videos that I do, the cooking I do at home, the wine dinners that I do when I launch a new restaurant, that sort of gives me the space to do that creativity. Do that really beautiful R&D piece and working on new dishes and new projects. I love that piece. And You just gotta carve out time and space to do it. And ultimately, when I'm in a space where I'm cooking, I'm at peace. And, uh, when I'm at peace, I can create.

Moving almost towards now the sustainability side of having a restaurant, how are you incorporating sustainability throughout your restaurants, whether it's sourcing, preparation, or even menu design?

I think the whole word sustainability is designed for people who have really bad practices. In actuality, a restaurant like mine Yeah, we might use a bit of cling film. I get that. That's a problem. But we cook rigidly with the, with the seasons. We're not, we're not flying things in from all over the world. We're cooking with the seasons when food's supposed to be around. We're buying responsibly. We're only buying fish when it's in season, only buying vegetables in season. We're buying our animals from really sustainable sources where the husbandry is great. The numbers are small, slow food movement, things like that. You know, we, yes, we can be better. We compost all of our food. We do lots of food waste and we do lots of great things that I know are the right thing to do, but only not because we're kind of trying to tick some form of box or win some form of award. We're doing it because that's the right thing to do and it fits with our business ethos. But actually, I think a lot of this sustainability thing is being blown out of proportion because there's a lot of people doing pretty poor things and they do need to bring it into order.

And do you think that buzzword sustainability is something that diners really care about, or do you think it's more of a chef-led mission at the moment?

Uh, no, I think, I think diners, the smart diners, know when a restaurant is being responsible with the way they work and their working practices, and that matters.

And a final question on this topic: what does a truly responsible, future-facing restaurant look like in your eyes?

Well, it's a good question, that. I think, um, There are lots of them out there and it's about having a place where diners get a fair price and pay a fair price for what is super well-sourced food, beautifully cooked food by a team that have a great work-life balance in an environment that is comfortable for everyone, staff, customers alike. Shareholders get what they're supposed to get out the bottom as well. And, uh, and everyone's got a happy ending. But that, that's a very tricky equation to get right. A very tricky equation, especially in the current climate with the pressures that are on restaurants right now. We'd all love that. Everyone's seeking to make that restaurant, but often one or two things have to give because it's incredibly difficult and the numbers are incredibly tight. And, uh, and we as an industry are incredibly unsupported by the current people in power.

And on that topic, how do you continue to generate cash flow and meet customer expectations while the cost of ingredients and a workforce continues to increase?

Well, that's the never-ending question. That's the question that every restaurateur, every restaurant hospitality owner at this time is thinking about. How much can be passed on to customers without pushing our limits too far? How much of that is about cost cutting? Unfortunately, I think you'll find there'll be a lot of people made redundant. There's going to be a lot of jobs lost in hospitality. There already is. And that's a really sad thing. But ultimately, those costs have to come down. Revenue needs to go up to cover the costs of what needs to go into the government's coffers. So something's gotta change and I don't suspect it's gonna be for the better of a guest experience.

And for a 15 or 16-year-old young chef looking to get into the industry with no previous background and just drive, is there a career path you would recommend or a set of actions that you would recommend?

Yeah, I, I 100% support apprenticeships, especially for chefs because it's a very hard, it's hard work. It requires stamina, we call mental stamina. I think getting into a college gives you that soft entry level into the industry and gets you industry ready, gets you work ready before you actually land in a, in a, in a busy kitchen. And I think it, it's really important. I think there are some amazing apprenticeships out there. The Royal Academy of Culinary Arts does one of the best apprenticeship schemes there is. Yeah, that's, that's how I would enter into the industry.

What's something that you believed early in your career that you've now completely changed your mind on?

Well, I think I used to believe that the harder I work, the better I would be. But actually, the answer to that is work smarter, not harder.

And what do you hope your legacy is as a chef, as a mentor, and as an entrepreneur?

I'd like to be remembered as somebody who made a lot from not a lot, and someone that gave back more than he took.

And what's next for you? Are there any new projects, passions, or ideas that you're exploring?

So many. Yeah, we're opening a lovely florist here in Floris shop here in, in Constance, in the, in the, in the below the restaurant here. That's exciting. We've just bought another restaurant in South London, so we'll be launching that in September and going to the press with that in quarter one of next year. That's super exciting. And then there's a sort of chef series stuff with all of my team doing some more of those kinds of things. There's lots and lots of activations going on at Browns Hotel. So it's just so much going on. It's just, it's wonderful stuff. And I've also Halfway through my cookbook. So we're writing a cookbook for the 20th anniversary of Trinity, which comes out in July, August next year. And that's just an incredibly exciting project. Enough going on to keep me busy.

And a quickfire round to finish. What's one ingredient you couldn't live without?

Olive oil.

A chef, past or present, you'd love to cook dinner with? Biggest misconception people have about the restaurant world?

That it's a place to get famous.

Go-to comfort meal after a long day? One piece of advice every young chef should have, and favorite person you've cooked for or had in one of your restaurants. And finally, who's your favorite chef you've ever worked with?

That's hard to say. I'm going to cop out slightly and say that favorite chefs I've ever worked with is pretty much the current team of head chefs I have working across my restaurants.

Thank you very much.