A template for success

What do you remember about 1993? Ireland won the Eurovision Song Contest yet again, Arsenal won the FA and League Cups, beating Sheffield Wednesday in both finals. And Quaglino's opened in London.

Yes, it's hard to imagine, but Conran's famous restaurant on the edge of Mayfair is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. There has been a restaurant on the site for much longer - since 1929, in fact - but it was Conran who transformed it into an icon of the post-recession London of the 1990s, the boom-town London that some say saw the city overtake Paris as the culinary capital of the world.

Conran waved his designer wand and turned a windowless basement into a significantly successful eaterie. It set a trend, combining style and elegance with good food at affordable prices. Of course, it had its critics - too big, too impersonal, too system-led, they said - but those critics have been constantly confounded by an unending caravan of customers.

It may have lost some of its sparkle, and the number of nightly covers may have dropped from the early peak of 800. Neither is it winning plaudits for its cooking - but it's still successful, and the bubble of "big" has yet to burst.

There are many reasons for Quaglino's success, but the primary cause has been simply that the fundamentals are right for what the restaurant sets out to achieve. Yes, it's big, but it's lively when full. Yes, it can be impersonal, but the service is of a high standard and customers don't get forgotten. Yes, it is system-led, but that represents good management in a restaurant that size.

The moral of this particular tale is to have a vision, make a plan and stick with it. It's not a formula that will always work, but boy, when it does, the results can be astonishing.

Forbes Mutch, Editor, Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine