“Keep moving all the time,” says Ramsay. “That’s the exciting thing about cooking in this country: we are seasonal, so every three months there’s a move. We’re moving from spring into summer and suddenly the food becomes a lot lighter.”
For Ramsay, summer means no more brown chicken stocks in his restaurants. Instead, he’ll use lots of light vinaigrettes to season his dishes. Likewise, fish and salad will replace heavier winter stews. Then, once September comes around, the slow roasted meats will begin to make their appearance again, and the food will become a little richer. But, whether it is the restaurant business or any other, Ramsay highlights the importance of keeping your business fresh and up with the times.
Just because your company may not rely on seasonal ingredients like Ramsay, his lesson is an important one. Without the proper attention paid to the changing times and new trends, your business could easily fall by the wayside and lose ground to its newer competitors. To that end, however, Ramsay is also quick to suggest that a company that loses its focus and tries too many new things at once will also find itself confused and slip off the radar.
“There are two things, the level of consistency and not becoming static,” says Ramsay. “You can't be good on a Thursday, and then not bad on a Friday.” At Ramsay’s Royal Hospital Rode in Chelsea, a three Michelin star-rated restaurant, he has only twelve tables. But, he has 55 staff to oversee even the smallest detail. He refuses to let his business fall behind.
During one of his televised interventions, where Ramsay comes to the aid of failing restaurants in a bid to turn their fates around, he discovers one restaurant that was once at the top of its game, but had since begun to fade. It was not the ambiance, nor the menu itself. Rather, it was the owner’s inattention to keeping up with the changing times that was costing his business dearly.
“[He] was out of his depth, and more intent on playing golf than putting in the hours of food preparation,” says Ramsay. The owner’s new luxury car, with a license plate that read A1CHEF, also took Ramsay by surprise. “I came out of the kitchen and saw it and was absolutely gobsmacked. If I saw a car like that outside Claridges, I’d stone it with eggs,” he says. “He was so carried away with the cosmetic and glamour side of cooking. And there’s nothing glamorous when you’re busting your nuts off.”
The chef of that failing restaurant had gotten distracted away from his business, and as a result, it was losing ground – and money – fast. That is not to say, however, that Ramsay focuses on every aspect of running his restaurants. His father-in-law, for instance, is now in charge of much of the business side of his empire because Ramsay recognizes that his niche is restaurants, not producing television shows or the like. So, when you know you are not up for the job, what do you do? “Employ somebody to do it for you,” says Ramsay. “Play on your strengths, and improve your weaknesses.”
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