Save
Stepping out of the kitchen to open your own restaurant is a dream of many people working in the industry today. To rise up through the ranks and eventually go it alone is the ultimate goal but it's also one of the hardest businesses in the world.
A huge number of restaurants fail, bad planning, bad location, just bad luck can all lead to problems and the video below explains this process very well. It features chef Clare Smyth at the MAD Symposium in Copenhagen explaining what it took for her to open her own restaurant in London, Core.
She talks honestly about planning permission, about building problems, licensing problems and mainly, about one really strange in which a national newspaper writer publshed a negative review without ever actually dining at her restaurant.
"Some people seemed to be professional complainers and it felt like everyone was against us," says Smyth as she explains that it felt like even the critics, who should understand the costs involved with running a restaurant in England's capital city, were anti businesses. She adds,"rather than calling out the critics...it fuels me to make them look ridiculous with Core's success."
On top of the absurd review revelation the chef also touches on how restaurants are changing, how jobs need to pay better and how she wants her restaurant to play a part in this change.
