Restaurant Business in London

Restaurant Business in London

London is a city with a large number of restaurants, with a wide variety of food available in them. The choice that is available is probably not available in many other countries, and the reason for that may be the development of the country and the city as a center of attraction for a variety of people from all over the world. The situation of restaurants is now changing and giving way to fast food restaurants.

During the last ten years or a similar period, there have been a lot of new restaurants that have come up in London, in terms of both quality and choice of food. The first point to note is the choice of the restaurants in terms of area. In the West end area there are a number of expensive restaurants like Mirabelle and Claridges in addition to the regular budget restaurants, vegetarian restaurants like Country Life, pizzeria and fast food restaurants. The East End is not normally visited by tourists, but there are number Indian restaurants, especially around Brick Lane. The food served here is good and cheap and thus not a strain on the budget. Soho also has a number of expensive restaurants like Mezzo and Quo Vadis, but also a number of cheap restaurants including Pizza Express which is the best source of Pizzas in London. (London Restaurants, Cafes, Pubs and Bars - Reviews and Online Restaurant Booking)

Here in spite of their efforts, the fast food restaurants are not settled in this region as this is not viewed as a family area. Still there are a number of eateries, pubs and cafes. Next comes Chinatown and that is the best place for eating for the budget tourist and the restaurants there offer very good dim sum, crispy duck and set menu meals. A very good restaurant in this are is Wong Kei and here the service is very fast, but the quality of Chinese food is very good at low prices. Then is the area near Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. This area has a lot of middle range priced restaurants and among them are the famous Planet Hollywood and the Rainforest Cafe. There are also a number of fast food restaurants in this area and pubs. (London Restaurants, Cafes, Pubs and Bars - Reviews and Online Restaurant Booking)

Next is Covent Garden which has a number of trendy eating areas and the best here are outdoor pizzas where one can sit outside and eat in traditional European style. Outside the market there are a number of cafes, bars and pubs where all types of food are served including roasts and vegetarian take-away. The area near Aldwych and the Strand or Embankment houses the fast food giants as also the famous restaurant of Simpson's. Other restaurants like Bank and Axis are also very famous for their food due to the quality. In the area of South Bank, the most famous restaurant is the OXO tower which has been recently rebuilt.

There are also cheaper restaurants near Gabriel's Wharf, South Bank complex and a number of pubs and brasseries. There are also restaurants in the City of London, but most of them cater to only office workers and they generally close around 6 pm, and sometimes do not open on weekends. The cost of food is high in these restaurants, but low priced meals are available in the pubs and bar-brasseries. There are a number of sandwich bars which cater to an up-market audience and this sport a lot of queues at midday. (London Restaurants, Cafes, Pubs and Bars - Reviews and Online Restaurant Booking)

There are many restaurants in London - 6,700 in number. A tourist may expect to spend roughly 25% of his expenses on the eateries. The new restaurants have led to a lot of new menus, food styles and chefs. The most renowned chefs in the old days were Anton Mosimann, Michel Bourdin, Nico Ladenis, and the Roux brothers. For the ordinary public, the first famous chef was Sir Terence Conran and he started the first really large restaurant with Quaglino's. The present trend is however not for large restaurants, but for small ones and the most famous chef, Jean-Christphe Novelli has now only one restaurant called Maison Novelli. There are now also a lot of cheap places to eat. The only trouble is that there is a choice of 80 different varieties of food that is available in London, and only a few have been selected for reference in this paper. (London - Restaurants)

The most popular ethnic cuisine in London is the Indian cuisine of which there are thousands of restaurants. The time for breakfast in London restaurants start from 7:30 but this is only at Workmen's Cafes and sandwich bars for office workers. The big restaurants serve breakfast only from 9:00 and continue up to 10:30. Serving of lunch takes place between noon and 2:30 and the restaurants serve it only during that period. Tea is served as a separate meal between 4:00 and 5:30 and supper is served between 7:30 and 9:30. Only some ethnic restaurants especially Indian, serve meals till midnight. The expected tip is between 10 and 20% of the food bill, but there is no tipping in the bars. The wise thing is to avoid eating beef in restaurants, or choose only items which have a low risk of contamination. Many restaurants are closed on Sundays. During Christmas period, the whole city shuts down and meals are available only in hotels. (London - Restaurants)

Starting off with American food, the best choices are at Christopher's, New York Joe's London branch, and Smollensky's on the Strand. The first restaurant will give the images of an American restaurant with pancakes, steak, eggs and fries to salmon cakes and Caesar salad. The feeling is like being in Manhattan. The restaurant sometimes gets quite crowded and the average lunch costs between £ 7 and £ 12. The second restaurant is probably the oldest and is now twenty years old. There are choices of soups like poblano peppers and black-bean. They are the only restaurant in London to have corn muffins and monkfish with sun-dried tomato salsa. Even in the desserts there are choices of typical American fare like grilled banana bread with ice cream and hot caramel sauce. The prices start at the same level, but reach higher levels of £ 18. The last is an American style bar cum restaurant and the restaurant also provides the service of clowns and magicians at lunch on weekends. The meals are mostly red meat with steaks of various types, along with fries and sauces. There are also choices of potato skins, salads and other vegetarian meals, and the menu is a reflection of all America. (London - American)

The most famous of all restaurants in London are the Indian restaurants and the reason for their success is probably that they give the customers some fantasy versions of the British Raj, and this is continued with giant palms and wicker armchairs. There are special dishes here like nalli gosht, meaning lamb on bone; Goan chicken curry with mint and coriander; masala lamb; and chicken tikka. The service in these restaurants are normally good and even the desserts are quite filling. The famous restaurants in this category are Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy. The menu is for brunch and the cost is about £ 15. The dishes of both fish and the main course are quite aromatic. (London - Anglo-Indian)

Looking at the business aspects f restaurants we see that most of them are owned in the main by private owners and are in the form of sole ownership, family ownership or in partnership with some others. There are also important differences between the small cafe type restaurants and the up-market restaurants. In the medium section of the market, there are a number of chains who are engaged in the provision for the workers, travelers, shoppers and tourists. In the entire country there are now specialized restaurants which provide food of European tastes, or Oriental, or American/Mexican styles and even other specialist types. The present tendency of these restaurants is now to provide food which is authentically of the style that they claim it represents. They are no longer modifying the food so that it becomes palatable to the ordinary Englishman. The widest range of food is provided in the French style as this was the style that first came to England. The French restaurants range from the small corner shop to the high class gourmet restaurants that are mentioned in the Michelin Guide. The only common factor among them is that they prepare food in the best tradition of French cookery. It is probably wrong to even classify the French restaurants as a national class as most of European cooking has come from the French style.

In the French style, the food is not prepared in the style of any particular French province, but the total method of cooking and presentation incorporates a style that is totally French. The chef in France is known for being both innovative and the existence of the restaurant is totally around the chef. The style of the chef is clearly marked in the preparation of the food and that also determines the dishes that are prepared. The reputation of the restaurant depends on the capacity of the chef. The latest trend in French cooking is to go in for what is known as nouvelle cuisine and in French that means new or trendy cooking. The main concept of this cooking is to treat food itself as an art form, and give a lot of emphasis on presentation. (Business Economic Notes 17)

This style is now very popular and commands very high prices which have no relationship to the quality and material involved. Some feel that the conception of novella cuisine is only presentation and not so much of food. Here the ingredients that are put in the food are not the ones that give them flavor and this causes the quality and taste of food to suffer. The latest progress of French cooking is towards introduction of more technology and this is known as "sous-vide" cooking. The words themselves mean that the cooking is done under vacuum, and in the latest modification there is also fast chilling and vacuum packing. This is helping in providing a high quality gourmet service rapidly at many points. Food is being cooked by master chefs at one central point, then chilled rapidly, packed in a vacuum and then sent on to the restaurants. In the restaurants, the food is just being heated up in steamers before serving. This is helping the restaurants not to have a chef in every restaurant; it is speeding up the service time of the food into a matter of few minutes after taking the order; the size of the kitchen can be reduced which increases the seating capacity of the restaurant; and the question of waste is minimal as the food has a shelf life of 21 days.

The next important question to look at is the difference of French food and the traditional British food. The major difference does not come from the use of any meat and vegetables as they both use the same basic ingredients. The British style is plain roasting, grilling, frying or baking and then the food would be garnished with gravy or white sauce. The French style involves marinating of the basic material in wines, herbs and spices. This gives added flavors to all types of meats and vegetables that are cooked. The main sauces and garnishes used by them are based on wines. They also use a wider range of ingredients like onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms and truffles which are used only in French cooking. The main meats in French cooking are also beef and lamb. There are differences in the way the meat is cut and prepared and one of the main differences is in the fact that they have a practice of hanging meat so that the tenderness and appearance will be improved. In this process, beef is usually hung for 2 or 3 weeks and lamb is hung for 3 days to a week. During the process of hanging, the meat loses weight due to the evaporation of water, and the properties change.

Business Economic Notes 17)

Another very profitable section in the restaurant business is the selling of fish based items. The good fish restaurants only cook fresh fish and this gives better taste than frozen fish and is also cheaper. There seems to be a revival of demand for fish in the restaurants, but this is being restricted by certain cults that are associated with fish and other seafood. In the restaurants, fish is always treated as a gourmet dish and has an up-market image. This is especially true of certain fish like salmon, Dover sole, trout, crab, lobster and prawn. These have always been sold at premium prices. This is causing the development of fish as a major selling item in the restaurants. This is admitted by many chef-proprietors of restaurants who sell fish at prices of six and a half pounds for items which are bought at eighty pence.

Some fish like salmon are being bought at two or three pounds a pound, or farmed salmon are being sold at one and a half pounds, but the prices on the menu are still high. Another area of high growth and good profits is the health food restaurants and they provide good wholesome food and use ingredients which are not with additives. The vegetables are grown organically and the process of cooking also causes minimum loss of nutrients. These types of restaurants are mostly targeted towards vegetarian food, but some also use free range poultry, game, rabbit and sea foods. The sort of products which they do not use is commercially farmed meat. There are usually vegetarian dishes in most restaurants, but very few of the restaurants totally concentrate on vegetarian dishes. There is however a target nowadays towards vegan foods similar to health foods. There is also a tendency to now use meat substitutes like Soya meat.

Another type of restaurants that are becoming very popular is the American concept of having a restaurant which follows a particular theme, and the theme may be from history, special events, styles or country. This determines the decor and the food served in the restaurant. Menus are often not pure menus of the special theme, but are just variations of the regular items that are sold in most restaurants. They are also usually coupled with a bar service and it is difficult to judge these establishments as being primarily restaurants or bars. The separation between the bar and the restaurant is mostly marginal. Another profitable section that has come up are the special steak houses and these are normally operated by chains like Bernie Inns, Chef and Brewer, Schooner Inns, Angus Steak House, Beefeater Inns, among others. These are usually run as part of public houses, and they provide standard menus and have a special fixed price meal. This meal consists of a starter, main course, desert and coffee. The type of vegetables that they serve is chips and peas and these are brought in by them as ready to eat and frozen or as portions in vacuum packs. These restaurants do not prepare food at site except the cleaning and cutting of the vegetables for salad. There are also some independents in the field and they are normally ones who charge a higher price, but they are also the ones to usually offer better quality and a more varied menu. They also use fresh meats and vegetables instead of the frozen material. (Business Economic Notes 17)

According to surveys that have been done by Gallup on restaurant business under a commission by the Caterer and hotelkeeper magazine, there was a clear indication of some changing patterns of average covers for weekdays and weekends. The total change was also analyzed by them in percentage terms. This is given in Appendix 1. The survey clearly showed that the traditional English restaurants were loosing popularity, and there was a dramatic increase in the popularity of the fast food restaurants. There was also a substantial rise in the popularity of the trendy theme restaurants. (Business Economic Notes - 16) The section of snack foods is dominated by the relatively new outlets for fast foods. They have been regularly increasing their popularity since the middle of 1970s, and their growth has led to the gradual dying down of the earlier snack bars and cafe type of restaurants. The total turnover of the fast food sector is now given a value of £ 3 billion and the total employment by this sector is now 300,000. There are quite a few independent operators, but the dominant force in the market is the large fast food franchisees and multiple restaurant chains.

Under this category there are a number of foods like baked potatoes, Hot dogs, Burgers, Pizzas, Fried chicken, Kebabs, Indian snacks like samosas and bhajis, spare ribs, tandoori chicken and pork, tapas, and tortilla dishes. The natural emphasis of any fast food outlet is on high turnover, fast turn around of the customers, low costs of labor and least possible wastage. These essential features lead to their adoption of easy to prepare or already prepared foods, with limited menus, multiple service points and disposable serving dishes. The dominant products are fried chicken, burgers, hot dogs and pizzas along with chips and French fries.

These restaurants also retail products lie pastries, doughnuts, bread rolls, sandwiches, ice cream, milk shakes and both hot and cold beverages. The larger chains among them are also now trying to extend their menus by increasing items like chicken burgers, chicken nuggets, spare ribs and vegetable burgers. These restaurants have a compulsion to increase turnover and this is achieved by using the advantage of the take-away business, and keeping the restaurant open for a long period. Most of these restaurants are open for 12 hours in a day, and all seven days of the week. The expenditure in these restaurants was at the level of £ 2.70 in earlier years and the number of buying customers in a day was about 80. This made it easy for the restaurant to have a turnover of over £ 70,000 per annum.