Royal ties help top restaurant to write successful chapter

One of the country’s best known restaurants, Chapter One, continues to benefit from a royal dividend as a result of its chef patron, Ross Lewis, being chosen to cook for Queen Elizabeth last year.

New accounts for the Michelin-starred restaurant show accumulated profits rose from €234,019 to €252,695 in the 12 months to the end of Feb 29 this year.

Underlining the healthy financial performance by Chapter One last year, figures for Lindley Ltd show its cash balance last year rose from €379,676 to €526,515.

Earlier this year, Chapter One was named Ireland’s best restaurant for the fourth year in a row at the Irish Restaurant Awards — the seventh time the Dublin restaurant has won the title.

Yesterday, Mr Lewis said he was happy with how the restaurant had performed. Since Feb 29 the business had continued to grow, with Mr Lewis stating that profits and revenues should increase slightly on last year.

One of the factors behind the growth was the appointment of Mr Lewis as executive chef at the state banquet at Dublin Castle during Queen Elizabeth’s historic visit to Ireland in May of last year.

Asked if cooking for the queen increased business, Mr Lewis said: “Yeah, for sure. It reached broad and wide and became embedded in people’s minds. You can’t buy that. We didn’t do any major PR on it because that would have cheapened in and it was already out there.”

He said it was “impossible to quantify” the impact cooking for the Queen had on revenue, but said only last Thursday, “a customer from Scotland came to eat here and told me he chose Chapter One because he heard that I had cooked for the Queen”.

The accounts show the €18,666 increase in accumulated profits last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €106,389. The accounts are abridged and Mr Lewis declined to state the revenues for last year.

Mr Lewis said: “I am happy with how the business did last year. We are a pretty steady restaurant and the performance last year was in line with what we expected.”

He said domestic demand was down but tourist and conference business had filled the gaps.

“Lunch is a lottery at the moment and is more prone to peaks and troughs. We’re not city centre and we don’t do lunches for €20. It is one area of the business I am very sceptical about.”