Right place, long time: what are the secret ingredients that help a restaurant last for years?
The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent (pictured above)
Opened in 1999
The Sportsman is one of the restaurant world’s great romantic stories. The plot: self-taught chef Stephen Harris takes over a shabby seaside pub and, inspired by Pierre Koffmann’s cookbook, Memories of Gascony, transplants cuisine de terroir to the north coast of Kent. Seawater is harvested to make salt. Butter is churned from local cream. Seasonal Kentish produce is prized. Such intense focus on all things local and Harris’s dual role as chef and artisan felt extraordinary in 1999 and as word spread through nascent web forums, Seasalter, near Whitstable, became a site of pilgrimage for food geeks. “It’s crazy good,” Noma’s René Redzepi told Restaurant magazine and, by 2008, the Sportsman had the Michelin star which would help propel it to, this year, its 25th anniversary.
“Everyone tries to be cool and say Michelin doesn’t matter,” says Harris. “It’s massive.” He says he might have become “bitter and resentful”, in that way chefs sometimes can, without that star. Instead, it confirmed what Harris, who had sharpened his palate in 1990s London, knew: “We could really cook. Like Marco Pierre White, almost.” Although that is “only one part of being a successful restaurant”.
The Sportsman would be nothing without Harris’s creativity, but that work – aimless walks on the beach, dreaming up new dishes, or tinkering “like a Victorian scientist” to finesse those ideas – would be impossible without a sound business structure and team around him.
A former financial adviser, Harris was 37 when he and his brother, Phil, opened the Sportsman. It has always been run as a tight ship. The brothers grew up locally and, helped by friends, renovated the pub for a relatively modest £30,000, loaned to them by a third brother, Damian, founder of Skint Records, home to Fatboy Slim. For years, the Sportsman looked like what it was: a tired old boozer. Unlike with some restaurants, there was no profligacy in chasing a Michelin star. No bank loans. No outside investment.
“There’s a lot of loose money flying around restaurants and, I suspect, a lot of pissed-off investors,” says Harris. “We’ve managed to avoid that – and bad business decisions made under pressure to pay money back.”
Instead, the brothers had total freedom. Pressure was relieved in other ways, too. Early on, Phil told Stephen to stop Googling the pub (“Best thing I ever did.”) and after watching him cook solo for six months, suggested bringing chef Dan Flavell in: “It was hard and lonely; I needed help,” admits Harris.
Today, Flavell is the Sportsman’s head chef. He runs the kitchen, while Harris concentrates on sourcing ingredients, dish development and chef training. “I’m not a player-manager any more,” says Harris who assists and oversees during service.
“I’m in good nick for 62 but restaurant cooking takes it out of you,” he says. Stepping back from leading each service was also a matter of priorities. In 2013, Harris had a son and, to help his wife, Emma, he started heading home around 5.30pm for a few hours before returning to the Sportsman. It’s a routine he has maintained.
Owning a restaurant is an immersive lifestyle, he says. You need people around you who understand that: “A series of partnerships: me and Dan, Phil, Emma, have all contributed to the longevity.”
Maintaining a hinterland helps, too. This one-time punk musician plays guitar, collects wine and follows Tottenham Hotspur. Professionally, he likes side projects such as his executive chef duties at London’s Noble Rot restaurants, which create a “feeling of moving forward”.
“I’m wary as you get older, you get less curious,” he says. “I don’t want to be an older chef who doesn’t progress.”
He is still ambitious, still pursuing dishes that, like his “self-contained, perfect” seaweed butter slipsole, may become classics. “That doesn’t happen often; you’re lucky if there’s one, two a year,” he says. “When it does, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
Melton’s, York
Opened in 1990
‘No, I didn’t take to it immediately and, yes, it was a shock,” says Michael Hjort, recalling his early days in restaurant kitchens during the 1980s. A late-starting history graduate, Hjort has still not come to terms with split shifts “which, to this day, I intensely dislike”.
Yet 40 years later, the chef, who co-owns Melton’s and York’s Walmgate Ale House with his wife, Lucy, is still cooking and remains fascinated by the knotty challenges of running restaurants: “I like problem solving. I like leading a team. I like running an organisation delivering something distinctive, of quality. If we’re not doing a good job, even if we’re making money, I feel that’s a sellout.”
Opened in 1990, just outside York’s city walls, Melton’s was a quietly ambitious modern British restaurant with an informal, neighbourhood feel – then a relatively new concept. It was, says Lucy, its manager and sommelier, “more a social than culinary statement – good food could be accessible”.
The Hjorts were wary of chasing a Michelin star, fearing burnout or perceived exclusivity. “We want to feed customers not guidebooks,” says Lucy.
In 2018, Michael moved from Melton’s to run the Chopping Block, the Hjorts’ more affordable Anglo-French bistro above Walmgate Ale House. He has always maintained a varied work life (he’s been creative director of York food festival since 1997) and felt, stylistically, he had run his course with Melton’s.
Over time, it had become “significantly more fine dining. That’s fine. I enjoy the place immensely. Just personally, I’m not a great fan of putting micro herbs on things with tweezers. It doesn’t suit me, temperamentally.”
A younger colleague, 39-year-old Calvin Miller, was appointed head chef. “It keeps it fresh,” says Lucy, whose wines and service had to evolve with Miller’s “modernised” menus.
Similarly re-energised, Michael (like Lucy, now 60), set about fine-tuning the Chopping Block, by, for example, introducing a 24-hour roast beef process for Sunday lunches that’s part sous-vide, part traditional roasting. “There is a bit of ideology here,” says Michael. “I’d rather serve a very good meal to 100 people than a truly excellent meal to five.”
Not working together during every service has benefited their relationship. “It’s easier not dealing with the tiny flare-ups that inevitably happen,” says Michael. Or as Lucy puts it: “I have to be very nice to Calvin because, obviously, he’s not my husband.”
Down the years, big decisions have been made easier because, after selling their house near London, the Hjorts were able to buy the Melton’s property, and later the Ale House building (originally opened in 2001 as Melton’s Too). Unlike many restaurateurs, they have not had landlords or dramatic rent rises to deal with and, says Michael, “that’s given us enormous stability”.
These practical details are important for long-lasting restaurants. York is Michael’s home and so he and Lucy had family support in raising two daughters, now in their 20s. The eldest daughter once gave a speech at an anniversary party, recalls Michael: “She said nice things about us, then thanked a family friend, Margaret, for bringing them up. She meant that in jest. But running a restaurant as husband and wife we did need a lot of babysitters.”
“I wouldn’t have done anything different. Our children have grown up pretty independent,” says Lucy. “I’m proud of that.”
It has been a fulfilling life for the Hjorts. Running Melton’s and sharing her love of wine “affirms me”, says Lucy. “I’m a people person.”
In hospitality, job satisfaction is crucial, says Michael because, “clearly, you are able to earn more money elsewhere.”
Lucy would like to reduce her hours at Melton’s in the coming years – “it is exhausting, currently” – but neither she nor Michael are thinking of retiring. Considering a future of slow days in front of daytime TV, Michael asks, rhetorically: “What the hell would I want to do that for?”
Prashad, Drighlington, Yorkshire
Opened in 2004
‘It’s a psychological disorder,” jokes Bobby Patel, when discussing why his wife, Minal – who, this summer, will have cooked at Prashad for 20 years – loves being in the kitchen so much.
“It’s in me, my heart,” says Minal. “I get bored on my day off.”
None of this was planned. Not Prashad’s longevity, and certainly not Minal turning it into one of Britain’s best Indian restaurants.
Rewind to 1992, and Prashad was a newly launched deli and catering business in Bradford. Bobby’s mum Kaushy was the flavour “magician”, creating awesome vegetarian Gujarati food for weddings. Dad Mohan, “was the superman of the sous chef world”.
That formidable team had educated their children for professional careers rather than 6am starts in the kitchen. But by 2001, Bobby was disillusioned with corporate life in communications company and keen to join the family business.
“Coming home to strangers saying, ‘Your mum’s food’s the best’, made me feel way better than the salary I was pulling in London,” he says. Bobby set about modernising Prashad, with dine-in seating introduced in 2004. But that same year, it was marrying Minal that would transform Prashad’s fortunes.
Raised in India, Minal had never cooked professionally but immediately clicked with Mohan. While Bobby worked towards taking the reins, “he [Mohan] gave me the key,” says Minal, laughing. “There wasn’t any discussion. After one week, I felt this is mine.”
Bobby sighs: “That’s charming, Dad.”
A period of mentoring and several years of part-time study at catering college followed. By 2010, when Prashad finished runner-up on Channel 4’s Ramsay’s Best Restaurant, this was very much Minal’s kitchen. The aftermath of appearing on TV was intense. “We were fully booked in every sitting for six months,” recalls Bobby. But Minal was already thinking ahead.
Ambitious for recognition from the leading restaurant guidebooks (“That’s where we got our momentum,” reckons Bobby), Minal sought advice from Gordon Ramsay and did work experience at one of his restaurants, Pétrus, in London. “I wanted to develop myself,” says Minal, who was eager to refresh Prashad’s menu using local produce and modern presentation.
So, in 2012, Prashad was reborn as an 85-seat restaurant in Drighlington, halfway between Leeds and Bradford. “It’s all about giving your customer something new,” reasons Minal, who, instead of samosas, serves sanku (samosa pastry cones filled with deftly seasoned vegetables); spiced, fried pattra parcels made using chard leaves; and sakham tikki patties of locally grown oyster mushrooms, seasoned with Prashad’s 18-spice garam masala blend.
Prashad holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, a standard some chefs can find tricky to maintain. Not Minal. Where the old Prashad could serve 250 people a day, says Bobby, Minal has fewer guests now: “Her dishes come about in that freedom.”
With a loyal team around them, Bobby and Minal work manageable hours, too. On weekdays, Minal starts at 2pm and is home by 10pm. “It’s graft but she can be full of energy, focused, do what needs doing and get out. It’s not as hard as it was,” says Bobby.
Similarly, where once he was “back up for everybody”, constantly plugging gaps in the kitchen or restaurant, Bobby’s role is now more strategic business management. It is a deliberate move into the back office that enabled him (his presence at Prashad being less essential than Minal’s) to spend more time with their 11-year-old: “Our priority has to be that our daughter has a full life. Not one where we’re always saying: ‘Sorry, we’re busy.’”
Happily, Bobby’s parents are hugely proud of the current Prashad, and are not ones to interfere. “They’ve left us to it for a long time,” says Bobby, who has now run Prashad longer than they did. “Twenty years have flown by.” (Success runs in the family: younger brother Mayur co-founded Indian restaurant brand Bundobust in 2014.)
Will Bobby and Minal, now in their 50s and 40s, one day pass Prashad on? Could younger staff or their daughter helm its third phase? It is certainly possible, in 10, 15 years, says Bobby: “We’re custodians. It’s its own entity.”
