'I'm very proud' - Tommy Banks on 20 years of The Black Swan at Oldstead
Tommy Banks said he is "very proud" to celebrate 20 years of The Black Swan at Oldstead, before adding: “I could definitely do this for another 20 years – what else could we do?”
Last month marked two decades since the village pub in north Yorkshire was first being run by teenagers Tommy and his brother James, under the watchful eye of parents Anne and Tom.
Six years after opening, in 2012, The Black Swan earned a Michelin star under chef Adam Jackson. Adam then departed, meaning a 24-year-old Tommy Banks took on the role as head chef and he successfully retain the star the following year. It made him the youngest Michelin-starred chef in Britain at the time.
The Black Swan has kept its Michelin accolade since, also adding a green star, whilst strengthening its farm-to-fork philosophy.
It is the authentic story behind the restaurant which has been a key bedrock for its success – Tommy growing up on his family farm in rural Oldstead.
After ambitions of a professional cricket career were curtailed by illness, Tommy turned his attention to food. Self-taught and learning on the job, he had the foundations for hospitality from an early age, with his parents running a local B&B whilst he was growing up.
While the focus is always on the future rather than the past, hitting 20 years was a milestone worth celebrating.
“You don't really look back,” Tommy told The Staff Canteen.
“You're always living it, doing it, trying to look forward. So it was actually quite nice to reflect on things.
“A lot has changed in 20 years, obviously in our business, but just generally in the industry.
“I am very, very proud. One thing we talked about and realised quite a lot is that you need a lot of resilience to get through 20 years, because there's a lot of ups and downs in that time.
"It's been quite a lovely thing to celebrate. But then also, very much, you think: wow, 20 years, I'm only 37. I could definitely do this for another 20 years, maybe more. What else could we do?"
Asked what he was hoping he could achieve when he started out at The Black Swan in 2006, Tommy admitted: "No idea, really. Your horizons are only as broad as what you know, and 20 years ago we didn't know really anything.
“I didn't know what a Michelin star was at that point. I was very inexperienced. So I think the expectation was just to run a good village pub, I suppose.
“But with everything you learn and every piece of experience, your expectations change.
"You move with the times, and your expectations of what success looks like change a lot."
He added: “I think the principles of hospitality will always be the same. One thing we sometimes talk about is Yorkshire hospitality: that warmth without any pretension. That's something I think we had from day one.
"When we started, I was 17, my brother was 19, so our parents were really the driving forces of the business.
“My mum has always had an incredible attention to detail, and that's something we learned from her that's gone right through, more than ever.
“My dad always had this real belief that you can just do anything, that there's nothing that can't be achieved.
“I think it comes from being a farmer: you have to fix things and make things happen. That philosophy has stood us in really good stead, because there was no right for The Black Swan, a tiny little pub in the middle of nowhere, to become one of the best-known restaurants in the UK. There's no right for that.
“You have to believe it's actually possible, and I think a lot of people wouldn't believe it could be achieved.
“His approach really influenced everything, and made us believe we can do whatever we want if we set our minds to it."
The unsung heroes behind The Black Swan’s success
As Tommy alludes to, the success of The Black Swan has very much not been down to just him.
“One of the beautiful things is that I was a kid when we started this, and there's quite a lot of people who we've all sort of grown up together with,” he said.
“I've got a young family now, but so many of my colleagues who have been in the company for 10 years or more have also settled down and had kids, and you can feel an ecosystem in that respect.
"It always feels terrible to single out people, because there are so many, including people who've started in the last year and brought masses to our business.
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"Will Lockwood has been with me since 2013. He was head chef at The Black Swan and he's now at Roots.
“His wife Rachel is our head of marketing, and she's been in the business for a similar length of time.
“Someone like Paul Wanless, who nobody knows because he's totally behind the scenes, has been with the company for 14 or 15 years.
“We've grown these things together.
“On The Black Swan specifically, the impact that Callum Leslie and Alice Power have had in recent years has been massive. I'm always so proud of their personal development.
"I'd also mention Dana Ungureanu, who has been with us since 2010 – more than 15 years. She's a pot washer and housekeeper. It's so important."
How The Black Swan has stayed so successful
The Black Swan at Oldstead is no longer Tommy’s sole focus – running various other pubs, restaurants and events businesses.
Asked how he has kept his flagship Michelin-starred venue so successful for such a long time, he said: “There are a lot of farm-to-table restaurants now, but the unique thing to recognise is that we were farmers first.
“There was a farm here, and the restaurant and the hospitality businesses we've built are effectively the way to market for that farm, a way for our farm to go direct to consumer.
“I don't think many, or any, businesses are really set up that way.
“When you come from generations of farming, there's a different approach, and that's probably led to more of the creativity and the unique perspective that we have."
He added: “All of the things which are restrictive to our business can also be a positive.
“We're in the middle of nowhere, but you have to make a real journey to get here, and that's actually part of the experience.
“If you want to only cook with things you've grown or foraged, that's very restrictive, but it's a huge catalyst for creativity.
“You can create things that are massively outside the box, things other people couldn't imagine, because they aren't bound by those same restrictions.
“All of the contributing factors that a lot of people could view as negative have actually gone on to shape what it is that's made it successful."
Asked if he has had to reinvent the offering to keep it relevant across the past two decades, Tommy said: “That's a really interesting way of putting it, reinventing. I've never really thought of it like that.
“I think everything just organically progresses. If you have the right mindset, you're always looking to make things better, and you have a passion for it, so it naturally happens.
“A lot of legacy restaurants can get to a point where people stop coming, and then they reinvent themselves and come up with a new offering.
“It's never really been something I've considered in that way, because it's always organic.
“Last week we trialled a totally new way of doing service, because we were thinking about how we could change it and how the guests would perceive it.
“Last year we took the decision to remove fish totally from the menu.
“I don't feel like we're at a point of reinvention, it's just that you wake up in the morning and think, should we give this a go?
“I still feel very new with it all. I don't feel like we're anywhere near a finished article, not because I don't think what we do is really good, just that I don't know if you can ever finish it."
Tommy is set to be part of The Staff Canteen Live stage at the Catering Innovation Show in London on Monday, October 5.
Click here to register to attend the show and see Tommy’s live demo.
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