years on, is something Galton and his team cherish.
'To close on a Monday and a Tuesday would've cost £500,000 a year.'
However coveted, the accolade isn't a fix-all; while one would think having a star would help with staff retention, the chef said that this is not necessarily true.
“I’ve had very very good chefs coming through here and they’re going from here and progressing and it’s brilliant, I can’t knock it, if they want to go to The Fat Duck, it's an amazing restaurant, but they’re difficult to replace, the quality of a sous-chef is a difficult one to replace.”
To address the problem, Galton is trying to improve working conditions for his team.
“We are all having to think of ways of changing to make it slightly easier.”
However, this isn't easy: having to open seven days stops them from improving working conditions, which in turn inhibits them from retaining staff.
"If I had masses of staff, we’d be able to work less hours but I can’t, so we can’t,” he said.
“Somebody like Sat [Bains] for example, he’s only open four days a week now. We tried – because we’re a hotel and a restaurant, we open seven days a week. We have a month off in January but that’s it.”
“I said to Greg, shall we look at closing on a Monday and on a Tuesday, so he did this exercise and looked at the figures, and to do that would’ve cost £500,000. We just can’t afford it."
What do you think chefs? What can restaurants do to improve staff retention? Share your thoughts in the comments!
