Art food
Tom Moran, general manager at the Portrait restaurant in London's National Portrait Gallery, pulls down the blinds against the sun even though the wall-to-wall windows behind him offer a panoramic view over Trafalgar Square - the sort of view restaurateurs kill for. But Moran's seen it all before.
He acknowledges, though, that the view is one of several advantages he has over high street restaurants. "More than a million people [a year] walk through the gallery door, so we only have ourselves to blame if we're not attracting a good percentage of that - the high street has to attract people off its own bat," says Moran.
Moran works for Searcy's, which has the five-year contract to operate the 100-seat fine-dining restaurant. He says about 70% of his customers come to the restaurant rather than the gallery. The restaurant, which opened in May 2000, also attracts a lot of MPs because it is handy for the Houses of Parliament and is quiet.
"We've been full every day since we opened," says Moran. "Once the initial ‘wow' has fallen away, you need the quality. We have a high return rate - I would guess 60-70% - and since 11 September we get mostly Brits. If you walk into the West End, restaurants will be struggling to get 20 covers at lunchtime."
But the job is not without its challenges, one of which is the fact that the Portrait has to close when the gallery closes. "We'd love to open in the evening, but we are inside someone else's building," says Moran.
Security costs are the main hurdle. The restaurant can therefore serve dinner only on Thursdays and Fridays, when the gallery stays open until 11pm. But even then it's not straightforward - diners have to be seated by 8.30pm and ready to leave by 10.30pm.
Moran, who has been at the Portrait since February 2001, makes the most of business when it does open. The restaurant serves an average of 220-230 covers a day, rising to 400 on a Saturday and 500 on a Thursday and Friday. A three-course lunch without wine costs £25-£28 and sandwiches start at £3. Functions for 100-500 people are held in the evenings, business for which Searcy's has to compete.
The Portrait, with its cool design and AA rosette, is at the top end of the market and is designed to meet what Moran describes as the "increasing pressure from galleries to maintain individuality and flair". Searcy's, like its competitors Digby Trout and Milburns, specialises in catering in art galleries, museums and historic buildings, but each restaurant is deliberately run individually. None is branded, and menus are driven by each unit's chef, rather than head office.
The Portrait's menu is modern British, cooked by the nine-strong kitchen brigade, and includes black pudding served with mushrooms on toast and poached egg for £7.50. There are 15 front of house staff.
Searcy's pays a percentage of its £1.7m annual turnover to the gallery and, like many such landlords, Moran says the National Portrait now recognises the benefits of catering.
Milburns' operations director, Nigel Hutson, agrees that in recent years, art gallery landlords have become more commercially minded and now need to drive sales in areas such as catering and retail. "We pay the landlord a commission based on the volume of sales," he says. "In a typical contract, this might be 8% on the first £250,000, and between £1m and £1.5m we would pay 15%. That encourages us to work with the landlord to build the business in their interest."
Tendering is another issue, adds Hutson. Offers are bound by the rates of commission and the length of the contract, both of which relate strongly to the caterer's capital requirement. "Our offer on a new contract might be £200,000 to modernise the kitchens," he says. "But to get the capital back, we would need a five-year contract and a certain number of sales."
Milburns invested £100,000 front of house when it took on the five-year catering contract at the new £30m Manchester Art Gallery last May. The 24-seat café and 100-seat restaurant are run by northern operations manager Chris Holder. Turnover in the first year is projected at £600,000, which includes £100,000 from banqueting. Although the gallery closes on Mondays and never opens in the evenings, Milburns has the sole rights for banquets.
"It's free entry now, so catering has gone from being secondary revenue to primary. Catering can also be used to pull people into the gallery in the first place," says Holder.
This is good news for the big players - Milburns, Digby Trout and Searcy's - but there is a finite number of art galleries, so is competition tight?
Hutson admits the options are limited. "We know our competitors and are always looking over each other's shoulders," he says. "Clients may even take on a B&I caterer, but that's a risk for both sides. The landlord misses out by not getting as much commission from a more experienced gallery caterer and then obviously the caterer misses out. It also keeps us on our toes."
B&I operator Everson Hewett took on the self-service caf‚ at the National Gallery, but its two-and-a-half-year contract at the Gallery restaurant will end next year when the gallery's east wing completes a £21m refurbishment which, among other things, will create a 300-seat restaurant due to open next year. Digby Trout's eponymous company has won the £1.5m-a-year contract to run it.
Trout says it will be a few notches up from the café-style operation that was there before. "It will be half café and half restaurant and there will be waiter service," he says.
More significantly, the National will be one of the first galleries to give its catering operation street access by having doors onto Trafalgar Square. "There is a move by the National Gallery to use the restaurant to bring people in who wouldn't otherwise use the gallery," says Trout. "They want to attract a new crowd."
In the frame
Milburns(part of Compass)www.compass.co.uk
Manchester Art Gallery
Seats: 24-seat café and 100-seat restaurant
Turnover: £600,000 (projected this year)
Digby Trout (part of Elior)www.digbytrout.co.uk
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, London
National Gallery (opening next year), Trafalgar Square, London
Searcy'swww.searcys.co.uk
National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London
Seats: 100
Turnover: £1.7m
In-house
Tate Modern, Bankside, London
Seats: Café Level 7 (200 seats); Café Level 2 (240 seats)
Turnover: £6m
Tate Britain, Pimlico, London
Restaurant and café
Turnover: £2m
Tate Liverpool
Café
Turnover: £1m
Tate St Ives
Café
Turnover: £1m
www.tate.co.uk
Lowry, Manchesterwww.thelowry.com
Turnover: £2.25m
So what's it like to work there?
Although redevelopment at the National Gallery means Everson Hewett's days there are numbered (see main story), general manager Kitch Davies can't believe how much he's enjoyed working in a commercial outlet.
Davies, from Wales, previously operated a contract for Everson Hewett in a law firm. "It's different here," he says. "More commercial, like a high street. In other contracts, the client dictates the budget, but we don't pay for electricity, water or space as we do here."
Davies gets a buzz out of the fact that everything, from staffing levels (he has 30 staff front and back of house) to the bottom line, is much more critical. He says it would be strange to go back to a B&I operation. "I would consider working in a high street operation now that I've been here. I have got the confidence now. I had never imagined myself anywhere so intense and with such high volumes."
And Davies is not exaggerating about the volumes. We are having to talk in a tiny office off the kitchen because every one of the café's 200 seats is taken by people eating lunch.
The self-service restaurant sees 1,200 food transactions and 1,500 coffee transactions a day and turns over £30,000 (excluding VAT) a week. Hot food is cooked in-house, and prices include £4.50 for pasta and £3.25 for soup and bread. Sandwiches are made by a supplier, and 400-500 are sold each day. The restaurant closes at 6pm every night except Wednesdays, when it is open until 9pm. No hot food is offered in the evenings because uptake is low.
One surprise for Davies was the fact that some regulars are there four or five times a week. This is largely because the restaurant is better value for money than the high street. Davies has to have the pricing agreed by the National Gallery Company.
He is on more familiar ground with hospitality, providing refreshments for events for 120-350 people. He's not guaranteed the work, but in February alone it brought in £10,000.
While Davies has clearly enjoyed the transition from B&I to galleries, Nigel Hutson, operations director for Milburns, says he would think twice before recruiting from the B&I sector - even though that was his training ground. Before Milburns, where he has been for four years, he spent seven years at the House of Commons overseeing a £19m refurbishment. Before that, he worked for High Table in the City.
"This is not as cushioned as working in a directors' dining room," he says. "We are open seven days a week - even New Year's Day." And the financial burden is shared in B&I. "Losses hurt us directly, whereas in B&I it hurts the client as well," he adds.
Hutson acknowledges that B&I contracts do hone useful skills, however. They often have excellent facilities - particularly for directors' dining - because they see it as a staff-retention tool. "In B&I you see the same people day in and day out, so you need a different menu. Galleries are different - you need only have seasonal menus."
Arguably, the transition from high street to galleries is easier. Searcy's Tom Moran reckons being general manager of the Portrait restaurant in the National Portrait Gallery gives him the best of contract catering and the high street. He was previously general manager at Marco Pierre White's Criterion restaurant and restaurant manager at L'Escargot before joining Searcy's five years ago. He says he wouldn't go back to the high street now.
The insiders
Tate Catering chief executive Duncan Ackery doesn't mince words. "We're unique," he says. "We're the only major that is 100% in-house and we've got the biggest turnover."
The four Tate galleries generate a total of £10m a year in catering. The Tate Modern contributes £6m, Tate Britain £2m, and Liverpool and St Ives produce £1m each, and there's £1m from special events catering.
Ackery, who is responsible for all four sites, claims the Tate also has the highest average spend per gallery visitor at £1.79 compared with most, which have £1-£1.20.
He says the Tate prefers to keep the catering in-house to maintain control. "We have worked endlessly to integrate with the galleries side. Catering is the soft underbelly, so we've decided to run in-house so we are in control."
In short, Ackery doesn't see why a contractor should walk away with all the profits. "By doing it ourselves, it reinforces that we are the Tate," he says. "We make seven-figure profits and all the money we make is ploughed back. He adds that 75% of diners at the two London galleries are there to eat, not view.
And Ackery should know - he's had the experience. Back in his native Australia, he ran four restaurants and a catering company. His first restaurant was in the Museum of Applied Art and Sciences in Sydney.
