Banker to baker

Hambleton Hall in Rutland

When Tim Hart recently sent out a card to mark the 30th anniversary of his purchase of Hambleton Hall, his country house hotel in the Rutland region of central England, I was struck by how much things had changed in the decades since I first visited in the mid-1980s.

The dozen small photos on the card show what Hart has achieved in the years since turning his back on a career in merchant banking to buy Hambleton with his wife, Stefa, for £110,000. The hotel, with its stunning lakeside setting, has held a Michelin star for 28 of those 30 years. The 17-acre garden is now much more lush, while Hart’s hair is greyer and shorter, and his bow tie has gone. There are marked culinary differences between the hotel’s first chef, Nick Gill, brother of writer and restaurant reviewer AA Gill, and the current incumbent Aaron Patterson. Today’s dishes are far more elaborate: a salad of crab with brown meat ice-cream, say, or Goosnargh duck with a watermelon and lime leaf purée, and a strawberry soufflé with strawberry sorbet to follow.

The country house hotel’s owner Tim Hart

Like a sensible banker, Hart has established a mixed portfolio of “food assets”. As well as Hambleton, he has opened Hart’s, a 32-bedroom hotel and restaurant in the centre of Nottingham. He is a non-executive director of the three London restaurants, Fino, Barrafina and Quo Vadis, which were set up by two of his sons, Sam and Eddie, with the initial funding he provided. And he has established Hambleton Bakery, with its three shops in Rutland baking bread and cakes to traditional British recipes.

With his long experience and extensive portfolio, Hart is in a strong position to talk about the state of the British hospitality sector. In spite of the current recession, it’s no surprise that business is doing best at Hambleton Hall, where the average bill is the highest by far. But it’s the bakery, where the financial return is the smallest, that is giving Hart the most satisfaction.

Hambleton Hall’s car park is full as I walk in at 12.30pm on a sunny Wednesday recently. Hart is quick to point out that he owes this popularity to his lunchtime special offers, which began 16 years ago when he took part in the FT’s “Lunch for a Fiver” promotion and continued with the launch of his own “Lunch for Less” deal. “It has transformed my business,” he says. “I saw some of my colleagues were doing it and I decided to have a go. Ten years ago we served 2,000 lunches and 10,000 dinners. Today, it’s 11,000 lunches and 10,000 dinners.” This is an unusual turnround – for most British restaurateurs, lunch business is not as good as it used to be.

“We are very fortunate here because we are selling to the ‘grey pound’, customers who are over 60, many of whom have gone freelance, sold their business, semi-retired or retired completely. They have the time to drive here from anywhere within an hour’s radius and enjoy lunch and an afternoon in the garden,” Hart says. A three-course lunch with coffee and wine costs between £35 and £40.

As we talk, a group of well-dressed women, standing in the garden with a glass of wine, break into a rendition of “Happy Birthday” as their surprised guest of honour arrives. Hart refers to them warmly as “my septuagenarian hooligans” and, judging from the noise levels in the private dining room, they are having a very good time.

In Nottingham, just 35 miles away from Hambleton, trading conditions are trickier. When he opened Hart’s in 1997, there was little competition. He then built a 32-bedroom hotel opposite. Today, the city not only boasts many more restaurants, including three opened by former chefs of his, but a shrinking restaurant market: the main customers at lunchtime, primarily professionals such as lawyers, accountants and estate agents, have less time and smaller budgets.

Hart admits that while there is little that he can do about this side of the equation he has been concentrating on the other, adjusting his Nottingham restaurant’s overheads to meet the level of demand. And, while he hopes that the city can develop a broader mix of tourists, business people and families, he does see signs of growth in the number of local biotech companies expanding on the back of the presence of Boots, the pharmacy chain, which has headquarters there.

Lack of demand has certainly not been the issue for Hart where his sons’ London restaurants are concerned. Rather, over the past 18 months, they have faced the same challenges as many directors of small companies in Britain and, ironically, this has taken Hart back to his career in finance. The problem is dealing with the banks.

“There’s no doubt we were undercapitalised when the crunch came almost two years ago. But it’s also very obvious to me that all the banks have wanted is to get their money back as soon as they possibly can so that they can recapitalise themselves and contract their exposure to what are effectively successful, growing businesses.” Although Hart explains that he and his sons have reached an amicable solution with their banks, there is no doubt that this has left a sour taste.

This seems completely expunged, however, by the success of Hart’s bakeries, which are part of a process he refers to as a “mirror of what Camra [the Campaign for Real Ale] did to restore the integrity of British beer a decade ago”. Hambleton Bakery is based in the Rutland village of Exton, with two shops in Oakham and Stamford, and over the past two years has created 17 jobs, including those for eight bakers.

In spite of his success, Hart is keen not to overexpand his business interests. Hambleton Hall still only has 17 bedrooms and, he stresses, there will never be one huge bakery with a fleet of vans. Small, Hart believes, is definitely tasty.

Hambleton Hall, tel: +44 (0)1572 756 991, www.hambletonhall.com

Hambleton Bakery, www.hambletonbakery.co.uk

nicholas.lander@ft.com

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