The pair behind Oklava have found an ideal partnership

It can be a tricky balance, ensuring excellence in the food, drinks and service while also understanding that they are providing a livelihood for a team of people. It is always a work in progress; both Christie and Kiazim have a clear vision, which means they have to be flexible and responsive.

New beginnings

Oklava, a Turkish restaurant in Shoreditch, London, was opened by Christie and Kiazim in November 2017, just in time for the Christmas rush. The original plan was to open three restaurants across five years. But as everyone embarking on this journey knows, finding a location can be one of the most challenging parts of the venture, so as soon as Oklava was open the pair looked for a new site and found a site in Fitzrovia, where they opened Kyseri in 2018.

Although Kyseri was a success in terms of what Kiazim and Christie wanted to achieve – and it was loved by its regular guests – it wasn't the right fit for the location. The restaurant, named after a historic city in Turkey, offered Turkish pastas made fresh each day and wines from the region, which didn't quite cater for the business and lunch crowd that dominated the area. Therefore they decided to re-think the offering. "That was how the bakery concept came about, as a slightly more casual thing for office workers," Kiazim says. "And, you know, for the eight weeks it was alive, it did really well."

However, the timing could not have been worse, as the country went into lockdown not long after Oklava Bakery & Wine opened. Kiazim explains that the restaurant was too young to survive.

Like everyone in the industry, Kiazim and Christie have grown and adapted, but now with an urgency that the ever-shifting landscape that Covid-19 has brought on. They started their restaurant business together with an understanding of their own and each other's strengths, and what they wanted to achieve, and this has been helpful when faced with the last few years and the need to re-group and rethink.

Turkey via the Thames

Kiazim had been working with chef Peter Gordon at the Providores between 2008-2010 when she started to do pop-ups in London under her own name in 2013. These included six months at Trip Kitchen in Haggerston and three weeks at Carousel, exploring ways of cooking food that looked to her Turkish Cypriot heritage.

"London is so multicultural, you can find food from most cultures – it's an incredible thing. And at work, I was cooking food from all around the world. But it felt natural to me to go back to my heritage when thinking about my own restaurant," says Kiazim.

"There weren't that many places doing Turkish food. There were kebabs and meze, which I love, but what about the other aspects? What about taking the ingredients and the cooking techniques and showing the different things you can do with that?"

Kiazim is a Londoner, born and bred, with classical French training from Westminster Kingsway College. She credits Gordon for further training and from adopting his restaurants' global outlook. Her food is rooted in her heritage, but also reflects the extensive culinary knowledge and Kiazim's London location. For her it was about bringing together all the things she loves.

One evening Kiazim did a guest chef night at Ember Yard, where Christie was operations manager for the Salt Yard Group. Christie says: "All the chefs working with her that evening raved about her food to me." She sent Kiazim an email and the two met up to discuss what the future held for them both.

"We discussed not only her specific plans for Oklava but also our wider views on hospitality and what kind of employers we wanted to be. It was also unusual to find another woman of a similar age to me, with the same rough plans, so it felt like quite a natural partnership from the start," Christie explains.

Kiazim echoes this: "You're a chef for a reason; it takes a lot of dedication to learn your craft. I think there are very few chefs who would say they're also experts on finance or in front of house and all the essentials that it takes to run a business. It's a restaurant, but ultimately, it's a business. And so I really wanted to share that with someone, because I wanted to keep my focus on what I knew I was good at."

Kiazim and Christie took research trips to Turkey and Cyprus as well as neighbouring regions such as Georgia to contextualise the food, wine and culture. "I wanted to focus on Turkish Cypriot food, putting that front and centre, rather than being broad and saying it was ‘Levantine food'," says Kiazim.

Christie created a wine list entirely of Turkish wines, found through their trips to Turkey, from speaking with winemakers and understanding the obstacles, which included lack of governmental support around Brexit. A big part of this was overcoming expectations, both with winemakers and guests. Winemakers were surprised to hear that English people would be interested in buying it, as the English tend to see Turkish wine as cheap. "We had to ask – where is the good stuff? We want to showcase your good stuff! We found it in the end, it was a fun project,"says Kiazim.

The wine list has now broadened: "Over time this has become quite restrictive – both creatively, to keep a moving and interesting list, but also practically, as Turkish wine makers have been hit with red tape to export and the impact of Brexit and Covid on logistics," Christie explains. But the list is very much reflective of the region and continues to bring a cultural context to the restaurant.

No charge

With the pandemic other factors have come to the forefront for the pair. The mental and physical toll on people in the past years is a point of concern, Christie says. "I worry about the financial strain on our teams, who endured months of 80% pay during lockdowns."

This is compounded by the fact that furlough did not cover service charge, which pushed forward a conversation in the industry around how to operate without it. This is a topic the pair had discussed previously and coming back after the first lockdown, it seemed time to implement their plan: to incorporate service charge into their menu prices. Kiazim explains that it was hard to do, when they first opened, as they didn't have the confidence to buck the trend. "Then the pandemic happened and the rulebook got torn up," she says.

What complicates the conversation around service charge is that people don't really know what it is. "If you ask five different people, you will get five different answers, from ‘it's a tip that goes to waiters', to being a charge for service delivered. But this idea that we're held to this daily ransom for a proportion of our staff's wages is completely absurd."

In the end getting rid of service charge was an anti-climax – the change went through with barely a hitch. Part of creating Oklava, and any subsequent restaurant ventures, was putting a focus on the wellbeing of staff. "From the very beginning we have always set the tone from the top that we are a professional workplace with professional standards of behaviour. The priority for us is not just maintaining these standards but trying to find ways to improve and respond to the world around us," Christie says.

This is about having an inclusive work environment, and not having a ‘hard party vibe' that is often associated with the industry. A few years ago the business joined an external employee assistance programme, which staff can access for free and confidentially, for advice on everything from work, home life, and legal and money issues.

An issue that Christie thinks doesn't get acknowledged enough is the concern staff can feel about getting home late at night. For her, it is a key responsibility as an employer to ensure that safe travel home is possible.

"Following the horrific murders of Nicole Smallman, Bibaa Henry and Sarah Everard we knew staff – particularly female staff – were concerned about starting work again post lockdown, especially as the night tube was no longer running," she says. They then launched a get home safe policy. This policy includes a leave time for guests of 11.45pm so that staff are able to finish at a reasonable time, a bike loan, a report system for when last trains and buses are so they aren't missed, and a ‘down tools' arrangement "as work can always be picked up next shift if necessary" Christie explains. They also subscribe to the Stay Safe app, which staff can use for free (in their personal life as well), which allows users to check in to say they are home safe.

We've grown with confidence in what we're doing, and what we believe in. It is then that you can slowly start to shift

Working hours is also something that is on the pair's mind. They can both relate to the long working hours the industry can expect and decided early on that neither of them wanted to work like that. Christie would like to start thinking of ways of making the job more suitable for working parents, to keep talent in the industry, and believes that these changes come down to confidence.

"We've grown with confidence in what we're doing, and what we believe in. It is then that you can slowly start to shift. Once you've established yourself, I think people start to take you seriously," says Kaizim. Many restaurants now close for two or even three days a week, but change is slow – do they think enough is being done, or even talked about?

"Whether it's restaurant owners or people working in hospitality, there needs to be more voices about everything that goes on within the industry," Kiazim says. "The cost of food, for example. Take a plate of food and think about how it got there and the various supply issues we have that affect cost."

The fuel crisis and lack of truck drivers near the end of 2021 helped guests to begin to understand the wider situations affecting the hospitality industry, including the staffing issues. "We had Priti Patel calling us ‘low-skilled', which was a real kick in the teeth. The UK doesn't exactly scream ‘hey, come and work here', it is not the friendliest place right now."

The pair are not standing still and have recently launched hospitality consultancy Quince + Co (see panel), but the next 12 months is about steadying the ship. "We will try and navigate whatever Covid has left to throw at us, while also working out how to survive mounting costs which are about to hit the industry, never mind inflation. Now it is spring, it is time for us to reassess and plan the next few years," Christie says.

For Kiazim, it has been essential having each other to depend on: "We have a great relationship where we respect each other's expertise, and boundaries. If I didn't have Laura by my side, someone to bounce ideas off, to have those tough conversations with… it's important to have someone like that. We pull each other along."