How Luke Holder and Angela Hartnett have evolved New Forest food offering

More than a decade on from being set up for a London lunch meeting, Luke Holder and Angela Hartnett’s business partnership continues to go from strength to strength in the New Forest.

Situated in the five-star Lime Wood Hotel, Hartnett Holder & Co restaurant offers guests Italian influenced dishes, made with local, seasonal produce. Within their business too is a big focus on creative a sustainable and positive work environment.

Angela is one of the UK’s most recognisable faces in hospitality. Having worked under Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing, she then went solo, launching Murano in Mayfair in 2008, as well as appearing regularly on TV.

In 2012, she teamed up with Luke, who has an eclectic background in the industry, previously working in Dubai, Thailand and London restaurants such as Orrery and The Sloane Club, as well as three-Michelin-starred Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence, Italy.

Reflecting on his first meeting with Angela, Luke told The Staff Canteen: “Initially it was driven by Robin Hutson, our chairman.

“We wanted to change the atmosphere in our fine dining restaurant, give it more hustle and bustle.

“Robin said ‘why don't you go out for lunch and meet with Angela?’ I'd never met Angela before, so I arrived 40 minutes early, thinking I'm going to meet this Gordon Ramsay protégé, Michelin-star chef. I got myself all suited and booted, ready for the lunch.

“Angela's very much like Gandalf - she arrives exactly when she's meant to. I was there, waiting, and Angela famously turned up about half an hour late, with her bike and bags. We were in Soho and went to three or four restaurants for lunch, had a few drinks, just chewed the fat and realised we really liked each other and got along.

“Humour has always been an important factor within relationships for both of us I think. If you can't get along with someone, then you're not going to work with somebody.

“Initially the lunch led to realising that there was a potential relationship here that we could work on. Then after the years, I spend a lot of time socialising with Angela now.”

He continued: “Angela’s had a huge influence on my belief in keeping things simple. I think when you're a young chef, you feel that you need to put a lot of technique into food and as you get older, you realise you need to spend more time sourcing it than cooking it.

“And I think the food now would reflect a more confident approach. When you look at the covers and the atmosphere in the restaurant, it's definitely worked.

“We got rid of the carpets and put the wooden floor in and that all drives atmosphere. When you go out, the food's important, but the atmosphere is important and setting the culture. That's where Angela has been a great mentor for me, in setting the culture within the kitchen and the culture within the business as a whole. You have happy staff and you have a good atmosphere from the staff working there and the guests experience that and feel that.

“We have a lot of staff retention. My senior team have been with me 10 years plus. They’ve grown hugely. They get the philosophy, what we're about and the approachability of the food.”

He added: “I've been at Lime Wood now 15 years.

“We used to have two restaurants – an English brasserie and a fine dining event. We had Michelin aspirations in one of them.

“What we really wanted to try and do was simplify and broaden the appeal of the restaurant, because the thing is, when we have country house hotels with Michelin-star restaurants, you've already got an issue with people thinking it's that big fancy hotel on the hill.

“That could be a stumbling block to bring in regular customers rather than just special occasion customers. So when we decided to change tact and join forces with Angela, Angela brings a lot of credibility to simplicity.

“Angela and I have a great love of Italian food. I've worked in Italy and obviously Angela's heritage is Italian. So we really wanted to try and make a much more approachable restaurant.

“We've had Hartnett Holder & Co for 12 to 13 years. It has evolved a lot. We're really in a nice stride.

“There's a clear understanding of who we are, what we are and what we do. It's a much more fluid evolution of the menu nowadays.

“We tend to try to write the menu every day. The produce comes in from the farm and then at 5 o’clock we'll all sit around the kitchen table and eat.

“Then we'll decide from the produce that’s come in what we're going to cook the next day.

“One of the things I think we’ve cracked quite successfully with HH & Co and working with Angela is making the restaurant appealing to the local community, so you can just pop in and have a bowl of pasta or a glass of wine. You don't have to be signed up for a two-and-a-half hour tasting menu.

“Ultimately, chefs are just middlemen between great producers and great guests.”

That philosophy highlights Luke’s approach to the hospitality industry.

An advocate for sustainability and ethical workplaces, Luke has been involved in various recent schemes at Lime Wood. They include working with local allotment Four Acre Farm, for their upcoming ‘Forest Kitchen’ series of events with chefs such as Jorge Paredes and Tom Brown, launching the #chefsagainstplasticcampaign, as well as partnering with purpose-driven suppliers Belu Water.

Luke is a long-time partner with Belu Water, who have launched Served with Purpose, which brings together hospitality leaders who are delivering positive impact while commercially thriving. They are also this morning launching a podcast, with Sabrina Gidda and Anna Sebastian, discussing how hospitality professionals can deliver positive social impact in their work.

“There's definitely change in the industry and it’s certainly needed,” said Luke, when discussing such issues within the hospitality sector.

“We were living in the dark ages for a long time and I think there's a lot of people berating the young people coming in and their expectations, but we do need to normalise the industry. If I look back at my career, I spent about 20 years working 40 hours a week for free. You learn your craft that way, you learn hard work and you learn what you needed to.

“But I think nowadays the industry is definitely focusing on better working conditions. Driving your business with compassion and patience and consideration, but without shying away from standing there saying, hospitality is still hard graft, you still have to come in and push. You still need to be productive.

“I still see pockets of people who are miles behind it. I ultimately think that the future looks bright for hospitality though. We can get stuck in the mud about all the things that are going wrong and the challenges that sit in front of us.

“But I think with the advent of AI, human-to-human interactions are going to grow as a premium.

“I think people are going to, and rightfully so, start to come to terms with the fact that it costs more to eat out.

“You'll pay a premium to have something that’s not monocrop grown, huge manufacture grown and accepted that you're going to pay a premium for that and have it cooked by human, served by human. Those things are going to grow in value.

“So I feel quite positive about the future.”