John Torode: ‘I got everything wrong’

John Torode in the Luxe, his second attempt to open a second restaurant in London

John Torode, 44, is the ebullient embodiment of just what a chef with talent, determination and the gift of the gab can accomplish. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Torode left school for catering college at 16 before coming to the UK 20 years ago to look for work.

Today, he presents the BBC’s popular Masterchef television series. His first restaurant, Smiths of Smithfield, has just celebrated its 10th birthday and still caters for 8,000 customers a week. On top of that, his cookery books have been bestsellers.

But Torode also bears witness to one of the restaurant industry’s few universal and incontrovertible maxims: that anyone’s second restaurant is always the most difficult. The problem is that the business doubles in size and the first restaurant cannot financially support an adequate management structure to run two. The second restaurant can be, and often is, a recipe for disaster.

Eight months ago, Torode opened the Luxe in Spitalfields, close to Liverpool Street, his second attempt to open a second restaurant. After a difficult few months, this one looks as if it has all the hallmarks to be a success.

Like Smith’s, the Luxe is spread over four floors. The ground floor serves hearty, simple food from breakfast until late. Above is a more expensive dining room with an emphasis on the use of a grill and well-sourced ingredients, all cooked without too much fuss. The other floors incorporate areas for those who want to drink, party or hold a private dinner.

When I meet Torode, he is chatting to his receptionist, wearing a loud, checked shirt and a pair of jeans, which he describes as his lumberjack look. In fact, with a good head of hair, chiselled looks and broad smile, he looks more like a country singer than a chef to me.

Over a glass of Kung Fu Girl Riesling, his favourite on the wine list alongside a Boom Boom Syrah, both from Washington state in the US, Torode recalls how, after opening Smiths in 2000, he was naive enough to believe he could open Cafeteria in Notting Hill Gate, west London, a year later.

“I got everything wrong,” he says. “The partners, the building, the timing, even down to not appreciating that the restaurant’s location on the street was completely wrong. I now know never to open a restaurant with a bus stop outside because when it rains, everyone comes and shelters by the front door, blocking the entrance,” Torode explains.

After eight months, Torode managed to extricate himself but suffered great financial loss. Fortunately, he had the kitchens at Smiths to fall back on, where he was putting into practice an approach to restaurants he had brought from Australia.

Torode says a restaurant has to be more than simply a building serving food and wine. It has to live and breathe, to have a heart and soul – and the only way it can successfully achieve this is to demonstrate an egalitarian approach to its customers. No restaurateur can afford to be elitist, as many were in London a decade ago. And that, Torode believes, was his opportunity.

“When we opened Smiths I decided to open the ground floor for breakfast against, initially, my partners’ wishes. It was difficult for the first few weeks but then, suddenly, it caught on and it’s been packed ever since,” he says.

Being approached to present Masterchef in 2004 was the final step in his redemption after Cafeteria’s failure. Torode plays down the impact that appearing in front of more than 5m viewers has on his restaurants. “Neither of the restaurants carry my name and the food we serve is different from the more intricate food the amateur cooks deliver with such enthusiasm,” he says.

Despite all he has learnt from his experience at Cafeteria, however, Torode now realises he was partially responsible for the Luxe’s difficult start. “I simply wasn’t strict enough with the designers and, when we opened, the restaurant looked too elaborate, too posh and expensive, too off-putting. All this has been corrected and now we’re busy.”

The menus at both Torode’s restaurants are strikingly similar. The graphics are clear; each dish is made up of no more than three constituent parts; and nothing is included that will prove too challenging.

He also understands what many British chefs still do not: the importance of appealing to women. For that, he hands all the credit to his wife.

“Jess and I went out for dinner a long time ago and she looked at the menu and promptly said there was nothing on it that appealed. Everything had been cooked in oil or butter and what she wanted was a piece of grilled fish and a salad. I took this to heart,” he says.

This approach has been a cornerstone of the restaurants’ success, he believes. Women are less forgiving than men, he argues, so that if they do have a bad meal they are much less likely to return. And they have definite preferences. For example, there will always be an Albariño on his wine list because it is an uncomplicated, fresh Galician white wine that goes well with grilled fish.

These principles have allowed Torode to realise a dream he never thought possible when he arrived in London, that of establishing restaurants that have subsequently become part of the capital’s fabric. “I’m very proud that if you ask any taxi driver to take you to Smiths, they’ll know where it is immediately. I now want to achieve the same for the Luxe.”

Smiths of Smithfield, www.smithsofsmithfield.co.uk

The Luxe, www.theluxe.co.uk

nicholas.lander@ft.com

More columns at www.ft.com/lander

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Take two: ‘Comparisons are made’

“Your second restaurant teaches you that many of the survival tactics you learned the first time around are precisely those that no longer work,” says the renowned New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. He admits to having had a “difficult time” when he opened his second premises, the Gramercy Tavern, following his successful Union Square Cafe.

“If your road to success was personally to take every reservation, seat every guest, edit the wording for every menu item, select every wine for the list and tweak the lighting at every service ... you are in for a comeuppance. Those things still must be done, but your new priority is to teach, rather than to do. Your delegation and time management skills are tested, and there’s the challenge of trying to be in two places at once.

“There’s the expectation that the new restaurant will exceed the success of the first, and that can lead to sibling rivalry developing between the teams.

“Finally, and perhaps most difficult of all, is that immediately comparisons are made between the two restaurants, some justified but some less fair. And that applies to guests as well as journalists.”

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