Woz wizardry
The opening of Woz earlier this month marks the return of Antony Worrall Thompson to the restaurant scene. While the restaurant is a lot smaller (only 65 seats) and set in a less glitzy part of town (Golborne Road in north Kensington) than most of Worrall Thompson's earlier eateries, there's no doubt that fellow chef-restaurateurs will be watching keenly to see whether one of the country's most intuitive chefs has still got his finger on the pulse.
Worrall Thompson has been at the forefront of many of the capital's culinary trends ever since he opened Ménage à Trois in Beauchamp Place, where his novel menu offering "just starters and puddings, no intercourse" was an instant hit with the well-heeled customers of Knightsbridge in the early 1980s.
Following a phase of serving light, delicate "nouvelle"-style food, aimed particularly at women, Worrall Thompson moved into his robust Mediterranean era - initially at 190 Queen's Gate and the adjoining Bistrot 190, and then more latterly at Zoâ's, dell'Ugo, Café dell'Ugo, Drones and the Atrium, among others. Through these outlets, he offered innovative and decent food at affordable prices and in relaxed surroundings.
But in January this year, he quit as managing director of Simpsons of Cornhill, the restaurant division of Baldwin's, which operated the 16 restaurants of which Worrall Thompson had been the culinary mastermind.
The period he has had away from running restaurants on a day-to-day basis has been useful to Worrall Thompson in planning his return. "I've had time to contemplate all the mistakes that I've made over the past 24 years and hopefully with Woz I will be able to rectify all those niggly things that customers hate," he says. "Basically, it's about giving restaurants back to the people and providing them with a neighbourhood, family eaterie, where they are known and are not just a number."
If this sounds like an antidote to the growing band of mega-restaurants in London, then it is meant to be. While Worrall Thompson admits that he is full of admiration for what Sir Terence Conran has done with the likes of Quaglino's, Mezzo and more recently Bluebird, he feels that the market for vast eateries is now saturated.
"I won't be doing any more big restaurants - the life span of glitzy restaurants is too short," he says. "I'm now interested in recession-proof restaurants. There is a place for upmarket restaurants, but only a few, like Aubergine and Marco Pierre White. I want to see personalities back out front, allowing customers to sit at their tables for as long as they want, providing them with a deal where they know exactly what they are paying for."
To this end, Woz (a shortened version of Wozza, the affectionate name for Worrall Thompson first penned by the London Evening Standard's Fay Maschler and quickly latched on to by other leading food writers) is serving a set-price, no-choice dinner, for £22.95. Five courses are served family-style, with all dishes presented on platters or in dishes on the centre of the table, from which customers can help themselves. Mineral water and coffee is included in the price, with wine being the only extra to pay for. Tips are at the discretion of customers.
"I wanted to offer dinner parties without the hassle - after all, you don't get a choice when you go round to friends to eat," says Worrall Thompson, who admits that his decision on set menus is also economic. Fewer chefs are needed to operate the menu.
"Service of the menu is paced according to how the customers like to be served," he says. "Basically, customers have their table for the whole evening - none of this nonsense of being thrown out after two hours."
While a set-price, no-choice menu is not unusual these days - Sally Clarke has been doing it successfully for years at her restaurant, Clarke's, in London's Kensington Church Street - the informal style of family service is a little different. A successful forerunner was Le Grand Gosier in Brighton, a popular haunt in the early 1980s. What Worrall Thompson is able to offer as a bonus is his distinctive Mediterranean, robust food, with flavours that pack a punch. French, Italian, Spanish, Lebanese and Moroccan dishes will all appear from time to time.
The five-course dinner starts with a selection of around five to six antipasti dishes, very much in the style of tapas. On offer one evening during the first week of opening was a bowl of marinated black and green olives, cannellini bean salad, steak tartare Lebanese-style, mozzarella with herbs, shredded courgette with Parma ham and Caesar dressing, and chillies stuffed with salt cod, together with a selection of freshly baked bread.
To follow is either a soup (such as gazpacho), risotto (maybe with leeks and mascarpone or wild mushrooms and bacon), or a pasta dish - for example, spaghetti with rocket and bottargo (dried mullet roe) - all served in one large bowl for the whole table.
The meat or fish main course makes use of large ingredients, maybe a whole cod, a large portion of salmon, a whole shoulder of lamb braised with beans, or a roast chicken served with lentils and zampone (pork sausage encased in a boned pig's foot). These are usually served with either a bowl of salad, frites or rice.
The cheese course offers one different cheese each day, in peak condition, such as Gorgonzola served with quince jelly, while the dessert may be a simple fruit tart, ice-cream or stewed fruit, such as apricots with honey and yoghurt.
"While we can be quite bold with the antipasti dishes," says Worrall Thompson, "we have to play safer with the main course and offer a widely recognisable cut of meat or fish - we can't put on something like kidneys."
The lunch menu offers an eclectic selection of snack-style dishes, with all-day brunch available on Saturday and Sunday. "We're basically going to watch and listen to what people want during the day and react accordingly," says Worrall Thompson. "We're a neighbourhood restaurant and are equally as happy to serve just a coffee and a croissant, as we are to do two or three courses. My aim is to get bums on seats."
If all goes well with Woz, Worrall Thompson expects to open a further six or seven in London residential areas such as Barnes and Islington, but not in the West End. "There are lots of pockets of London which are presently underserviced by good local restaurants; Café Rouge is the only company that has successfully captured the market so far." Then, beyond the capital, cities like Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds are also possibilities for expansion, where chefs would work from a portfolio of recipes created by Worrall Thompson.
Setting up Woz has cost £80,000, all self-financed by Worrall Thompson. He presently has no intention of getting involved with backers. As well as purchasing the leasehold of the site, he has bought the right to use the name of its former occupant, Tabac, to perhaps use it for the name of a chain of French-style local eateries.
Worrall Thompson expects to be fully involved in the running of the first Woz until December, supported by a team of 10 staff: five chefs and five waiters, headed by head chef David Massey, previously head chef at Café dell'Ugo, and restaurant manager Amy Prior, from dell'Ugo. His wife Jay will also be involved in the front of house operation.
In the meantime, Worrall Thompson will also continue with all his other commercial activities - from the opening of chocolate shops to consultancy work for companies like Letheby & Christopher, which he has recently advised on the revamp of its restaurant at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. And then, of course, there is his particularly lucrative television work.
He has filmed two series of programmes for Carlton Food Network, Antony's Scotland and Simply Antony, and makes regular appearances on BBC TV's Ready Steady Cook and Carlton TV's Quisine. In addition, he is increasingly being asked to do one-off appearances.
As one of television's busiest chefs, Worrall Thompson, unsurprisingly, believes the medium has benefited the image of chefs, bringing some welcome glamour to the industry and, most importantly, creating busier, more vibrant restaurants.
"Customers are now more interested and educated about food because of television," says Worrall Thompson, who is quick to dismiss critics who say that television chefs are demeaning the industry.
"Chefs and food on television give an awful lot of pleasure to people - what is wrong with that? The good thing is that television has made us all a lot more approachable - something the serious chefs don't like because they think we should remain untouchable."
