Food heaven

THERE’S no room for the faint-hearted in the restaurant game these days.

After a decade where business thrived with packed dining rooms and glamorous new openings every week, the industry has now come full circle with closures and cutbacks the unpalatable specials on the menu of 2011.

Last month, the Irish Restaurants Association revealed that one restaurant is going out of business each day — a figure they predict could rise further resulting in a possible €700 million loss to the economy as well as putting 21,000 jobs at risk. The association added that 80% of Irish restaurants are running at a loss.

“The figures are very serious, and make for a major challenge to the industry,” says Blathnaid Bergin, owner of the recently opened School of Restaurant & Kitchen Management in Abbeyleix. “My experience has been that the restaurants that are doing what they do very well seem to be surviving well at the moment. For those places in trouble, one of the weakest links I have consistently found is the lack of good management of kitchens in restaurants. While chefs are very good at cooking, they all too often do not have the required kitchen management skills which can create tremendous financial problems. The other area of potential problems is the proper training of staff, and the lack of necessary upskilling at regular intervals.”

A business lecturer at the Ballymaloe Cookery School since 1996, Bergin is a specialist in food service operations management, and has advised hotels, restaurants, cafes and pubs as well as working with Hospitality Ireland, the Licensed Vintners Association, and the Entrepreneur Show.

“In these straightened times, people still eat out, but they want value for money and only give the restaurateur one chance to get it right,” she says of the changed consumer reality. “Restaurants that are not reaching an expected standard are in trouble because money is too precious to waste on second chances.”

While people continue to eat out regularly, they are spending less — a fact impacting directly on a restaurant’s bottom line: “Restaurants have to look to their costs, their menu composition and their staffing — all the while delivering that sense of theatre that customers are looking for. It’s a new reality that many establishments are having great difficulty coping with.”

The 12-week course at her School of Restaurant & Kitchen Management is aimed at owner/operators of anything from a tea shop to a five-star restaurant. Designed to focus on key areas of cost control, hiring, interior design, property location, equipment purchase and menu composition, the school was a direct response to the demand in the market.

“Over the years I would have had many people approach me for advice on how to get into the restaurant business, often having been successful in other areas like finance, IT or the professions, and looking for a new challenge. They were experts in their own fields who wanted information and instruction in a relatively quick way.”

Bergin’s first batch of students graduated in December, including a Norwegian who intends setting up a cookery school in Germany, an entrepreneur from Carlow looking to expand his garage forecourt trade with the addition of a quality food service offering, and a lady from Wicklow planning to open a coffee shop. Yet, while a thorough grounding in management and purchasing skills can transform the fortunes of most ailing businesses, personality remains one of the vital intangibles of the trade.

“One of the things I’ve observed consistently over the years is that there are many in the restaurant business who don’t like people. You really need to like people to be a success in this industry, it’s one of the basic ground rules. The best food served by the wrong person equals a dreadful dining experience

“And in this era of austerity, customers are very quickly vote with their feet.”

What makes a great restaurant

“Trying to define what makes a restaurant great is like trying to catch a moonbeam and hold it in your pocket,” says Blathnaid Bergin. “Is it the lighting, the food, the service, the decor, the ambiance, the pictures on the walls? Or is it the orchestral feeling you get when every instrument is in tune and the conductor is totally at one with it all? There are many restaurants and cafes the length and breadth of Ireland creating pure theatre every day of every week — and making it all look like a piece of cake.”

In these times of seemingly relentless gloom and doom, restaurants offer us a place of rest, of relaxation, of refuge from the unending tales of woe, she believes. “We need to be grateful to all of these people who day after day get up, cook, serve, smile and forget about their own troubles so we can forget about ours.”

Where are these great places and how do they do it? “Chances are, there is one in your village, in your neighbourhood.”

Café Sol, Kilkenny: Tucked away on William St, its name alone can make the heart feel better. A room brightened by huge windows, zany artwork and a small glass porch, it is bright, cheerful and comfortable, serving simple, great food and proudly supporting local and seasonal. They pay attention to detail, the hallmark of a well run restaurant.

The Oarsman Pub, Carrick-on-Shannon: Probably the best food in a 50-mile radius, with staff dressed refreshingly in smart gray plus the bright and proudly worn Good Food Ireland symbol to signify their commitment to local producers, to Irish produce, to being the best. Comfortable, nourishing, warm, familiar, great food, smiles all round.

Café Hans, Cashel: Hansie and Stefan Matthias run this charming little café in the shadow of the Rock of Cashel and do it as effortlessly as their father Hans did with Chez Hans, the café’s big brother restaurant. They are there five days a week minding you and me, making sure we get that great food just the way we like it. Making sure their refuge is ours.

The Kitchen & Food Hall, Portlaoise: Jimmy Tynan and his sisters and staff again make it all look so easy. A roaring fire, bright space, art on every wall, food like mother used to make. Apple tarts, crumbles, roasts, stuffing, mash, gravy, brown bread.

And In Cork….

The Farm Gate: The food, the welcome, the poetry wall, the black and white producer photos, the multi strands of Cork popping in and out, the owner’s obvious love of what she has created — all coming together to create that indefinable atmosphere.

NASH 19: The staff wear pink cotton shirts and ra ra skirts with long aprons — what a relief from all that black! What is it with all black — we generally don’t wear black well yet the vast majority of the food service industry is dressed head to toe in this colour. Why?

ISAACS: On a very busy street with no parking, Isaacs has broken all the rules in relation to location and is thronged day after day because they have that indefinable “moonbeam” quality. The huge windows, the beautiful room, the simplicity in decor, the consistently great food in a room which is electrifying in its energy.