The dawn of Thyme

When Richard and Victoria Smith opened Smiths of Sheffield nine years ago, they knew exactly what they wanted: accolades.

Their dreams soon came true. The awards - three AA rosettes, a bib gourmand and five out of 10 in the Good Food Guide - came fast and furious.

"When we first opened it was all about kudos, getting your names in the guides and all that bullshit," Richard says. "We'd dreamt of having our own restaurant since we were 16 (when we met at High Peak College [now the University of Derbyshire] in Buxton) and because we'd wanted it for so long, we couldn't contain ourselves when it came to putting ideas on the plate. It was a crazy time."

But while the awards were a nice profile-raiser, the restaurant itself was only just making ends meet. Richard and Victoria were working flat-out creating a great product (as the awards illustrated), but they just weren't making any real money. So in 2000, after five years of giving it their all, they decided to refocus the business.

"We weren't making anything, so we took a step back from the business and gave it a complete overview," Richard says.

"Things were changing in Sheffield. People were talking more about food, supermarket shelves were changing the way people thought about food, and then there was the arrival of the celebrity chef. It made me realise that we had to do something different, we had to opt for a simpler approach. Smiths was quite complicated, there were too many superfluous ingredients - we realised we were over-gilding the lily."

With some money that Richard and Victoria had invested from well-paid jobs in the USA years earlier (working for Sir Bernard Ashley, owner of Llangoed Hall, Powys, at his Keswick Estate hotel in Charlottesville, Virginia), they ploughed a further £150,000 into refurbishing the restaurant, converting it from a fine-dining restaurant to a modern, everyday eaterie with bare tabletops, an informal style of food and service, yet high levels of customer care.

Today, while still clutching all their original accolades, the Smiths' restaurant, which they renamed Richard Smith at Thyme, is arguably the most successful restaurant business in the area. In its first year of trading back in 1995, it had turned over £180,000; last year it took more than £1m.

The Crosspool eaterie is the only three-AA-rosetted restaurant in South Yorkshire, and one of a few Sheffield restaurants to make it into the national restaurant guides. Ironically, the people who started out with very little business acumen are now recognised as local entrepreneurs.

In addition to the Crosspool restaurant, the Smiths now own their own outside catering company, Thyme Out. In September they launched their first bistro concept, Thyme Caf‚, which they opened with their friend and partner (who they also met at High Peak), Adrian Cooling.

It's Cooling who runs Thyme Caf‚. He worked for the Smiths earlier in his career, and it was inevitable that the three would one day do something together. And although Cooling had an enviable job, travelling the world as a development chef for Unique Foodservice, with a good income and a company car, he had always wanted to run his own place.

But now things are on the up, why would the Smiths share their success with a third party? "My theory behind that is that we cannot expand and be successful at the caf‚ and at the restaurant without having someone installed at the caf‚ who cares and who has a vested interest," Richard explains.

For Cooling, while the chance to travel to countries such as Japan and the USA in his previous job was very alluring, the offer of a partnership was too tempting. "I'd always wanted to do something like this. I remember coming to look at the site last year. Richard and I went to eat at Juniper [in Altricham]. Over dinner we decided to go for it."

The site (in the Broomhill area of Sheffield, close to the hospitals and universities) was a disused burger joint, Fat Jack's Rib Rack, when the Smiths and Cooling bought it. In three weeks, they gutted it ("we filled five, five-tonne skips"), refurbished it (at a cost of £75,000) and reopened using the same art deco-inspired logo used at the Crosspool outlet for the frontage, but with a more rustic, bistro-style wooden interior with blackboards on the walls offering a constantly changing menu.

In its relatively short life, Thyme Caf‚ has become a thriving business. It's packed morning, noon and night and despite its 50 seats, easily does 1,200-1,400 covers a week. Saturday nights regularly top 280.

For restaurant critic Robert Crockcroft, Thyme Caf‚ is right for Sheffield because it is "unselfconsciously informal and intelligent".

Writing in the Yorkshire Post recently, he said: "Don't let all that cutlery in a bucket and HP sauce on the table fool you into thinking this is just another clattery bar-diner. Other places do lamb shank, but how many braise it with spices to make a rogan josh? How many rivals take such trouble with a treacle tart? How many caf‚s have a brigade in whites on show in the kitchen? In short, it's clever, it's promising, it's fun and it's rather good."

Richard says that Cooling's contribution to the project has been more than just as a business partner. "What Aidie has taught me from his work as a development chef is to come at a project from the customer's point of view. Because he worked with the selectors of Marks & Spencer, Tesco and J Sainsbury, he made me realise that it's not what the chef wants, it's what the customer wants."

Richard says that his and Vicky's change of fortune has really come about because they've grown up. "By eating out and talking to people we've found that people really enjoy a simpler approach to food," he says.

A third outlet is now in the pipeline and the trio are close to signing the deal. "It will be along the lines of the caf‚," Richard says. "We like what that brings to the area, with its blackboard menus and laidback approach. We dream about having a boutique restaurant group, and by involving people we trust I believe we can grow our empire."

Sheffield's restaurant scene It's a clich‚, I know, but it's really not that long ago that Sheffield was a culinary dessert. For years, restaurant critic Robert Cockcroft would travel from Leeds to try new restaurants in the area, but he was frequently disappointed by the poor standards he faced. In culinary terms, Sheffield just didn't match up to its neighbour.

Part of the problem for Sheffield's emerging restaurant scene was the fact that historically, at least, it had a working-class community. "With no disrespect, it had more of a pub, caf‚ and eating at home culture," Cockcroft explains. "But there's been a social and educational change that has encouraged eating out. Eating out is now seen as a cool and interesting thing to do."

According to Cockcroft, Richard Smith was one of the first chefs "with any spark" to open in Sheffield. "Even though Sheffield College turned out really good chefs, they tended to move away," Cockcroft says. "But when Richard opened, so too did people such as Cary Brown at Carriages, and since then the guys at the Blue Room in Woodseats. Sometimes it takes one person to show a small critical mass that it can be done and it encourages others."

Cockcroft recently reviewed a tapas bar called Spinrocs for the Yorkshire Post, which he described as a great, sassy, buzzy place. "It simply wouldn't have been there 20 years ago," he says, "but I'd always thought there was room for an informal place like that."

Sheffield's eating out culture is certainly emerging now. It has a thriving ethnic restaurants culture in London Road (just off Glossop Road, where Thyme Caf‚ is located). Cockcroft points to the Dore road to Derbyshire as an ideal place for any would-be or established restaurateurs to set up. "I think that area through to Derbyshire is extremely affluent and someone like Richard Smith might do well opening up a fine-dining restaurant on that route. I think people would be prepared to drive some distance to it."

Thyme capsules Richard Smith at Thyme (formerly Smiths of Sheffield)
32-34 Sandygate Road, Crosspool, Sheffield S10 5RY
Tel: 0114 266 6096
What is it? A 60-seat neighbourhood restaurant (a further 30 seats are upstairs) employing 12 full-time staff and 15 part-time staff, open seven days a week.
Opened: 1995
Average spend: £35 including wine
Weekly covers: 600-800
What's on the menu?

Thyme Out
What is it? An outside catering company, which caters for everything from dinner parties to large-scale events (a recent wedding saw the company produce fish and chips for 250).
Launched: 2000
What's on the menu? Buffets including home-made terrines, mixed Tuscan crostinis, classic bruschetta, meat, fish and cheese platters; gourmet menus (£75) featuring canap‚s, Parmesan basket of wild mushrooms asparagus, shallots with white truffle oil and balsamic treacle, warm lobster mousse with a sea-scallop-caviar sauce, pink Champagne sorbet with strawberries, roasted fillet of Aberdeen Angus beef, seared foie gras, caramelised celeriac, r”sti potato, Madeira sauce, miniature dessert selection and petits fours.

Thyme Café
490-492 Glossop Road, Sheffield S10 2QA
Tel: 0114 267 0735
What is it? A bistro situated in the residential area of Broomhill, employing eight full-time staff and 12 part-time staff, and open seven days-a-week
Opened: 2003
Average spend: £12 at lunchtime, £18 in the evenings
Average weekly covers: 1,200-1,400
What's on the menu? Portuguese pork, chorizo and white bean stew (£9); seared tuna, mango, jalapeno salsa (£13); salmon miso, mizuna, French bean and sesame salad (£10); Mexican style chicken tortilla stack (£9).

Thyme Away
What is it? A take-away service operated out of both Richard Smith at Thyme and Thyme Café. For little more than the price of a supermarket ready meal, chefs at both outlets provide a range of dishes freshly prepared in the kitchens.