“Trust me, they wouldn’t in Newmarket,” I said. “For all the earthiness of racing and its reputation for bad language, those within it value being given their due respect. Trainers may swear at their stable lads, but they wouldn’t dream of swearing at their owners. The horses would disappear quicker than you could say abracadabra.”
“But I’m not talking about Newmarket,” said Mark, getting us around to the real reason for our dinner. “It’s time you came to London to run a place like this. Time you made your name.”
We were in the restaurant of the OXO Tower, on the eighth floor overlooking the City of London skyline. It was one of my favorite venues, and, indeed, if I was to run a restaurant in the metropolis then this would be the sort of establishment I would create, a combination of sophistication and fun. It helps, of course, to have an interesting and unusual venue, and this was it. According to the brief history printed on the menus, the restaurant sat atop what had been a 1920s warehouse built by the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, who made OXO beef stock cubes. When the company was refused planning permission to put up the name OXO in lights on the front of the building to shine across the Thames, an architect incorporated the word in the window shapes on all four sides of a tower built above the warehouse. The meat extract company has long gone from the site, which now contains design shops, residential accommodation, as well as four different cafés and restaurants, but the tower remains, with its OXO windows. Hence, the name.
“Well?” said Mark. “Lost your tongue?”
“I was thinking,” I said. “It’s quite a change.”
“You do want to make your name, don’t you?” he said earnestly.
“Yes, absolutely,” I replied. “But I’m more worried at the moment of making it in the tabloids as a mass poisoner.”
“In a week it will be forgotten about. All anyone will remember will be your name, and that’s an advantage.”
I hoped he was right. “What about the girl that’s suing me?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “Settle out of court and it won’t be reported. Give her a hundred quid for her trouble and move on. Stupid idea anyway, suing over a bit of food poisoning. What does she hope to get? Not much loss of earnings through the night anyway, not unless she was on the game!” He laughed at his own joke, and I relaxed a little.
We were sat in the round-backed, blue leather chairs of the restaurant at the OXO, and I was enjoying allowing someone else to do the cooking for a change. I chose the foie gras galantine, with a fig chutney and brioche, to start, and then the rack of lamb with sweetbreads for my main course, while Mark went for the lobster to start and the organic Shetland cod for his main. In spite of his choice of fish, Mark was a red wine man, so we sat and took pleasure from an outstanding bottle of 1990 Château Latour.
“Now, then,” he said once the first courses were served, “where shall we have this restaurant and what style do you fancy?”
Why did those questions ring alarm bells in my head? Mark had stuck absolutely to his deal over the Hay Net. He had provided the finance but given me a free hand in everything else: venue, style, menus, wines, staff-the lot. I had asked him at the time to give me an indication of an overall budget for the setting up and for the first year of operation. “More than half a million, less than a million,” is all he said. “And what security?” I had asked him. “The deeds to the property and a gentlemen’s agreement that you will work at the venture for a minimum of ten years unless we both agree otherwise.” In the end, I had used nearly all his million, but his fifty percent of the profits for the past five years had paid back far more than half of it, and he still held the deeds. Over ten years, at the prepoisoning turnover rate, the Hay Net would provide for a very healthy return on his investment. I, of course, was delighted and proud that my little Newmarket establishment had proved to be such a success, both financially and in terms of “standing” in the town. However, what had been more important to me than anything was my independence. It may have been Mark’s money that I had used to set it up, and he ultimately owned the building in which it was housed, but it was my restaurant and I had made all the decisions, every one.
Did I detect in Mark’s questions his intent to have a more hands-on role in any new London venture? Or was I jumping to conclusions? Did he not mean where shall you have the restaurant? Not where shall we? I decided it was not the time to press the point.
“I would have a place like this,” I said. “Traditional yet modern.”
“It can’t be both,” said Mark.
“Of course it can,” I said. “This restaurant has traditional values, with white tablecloths, good service, fine food and wine, and a degree of personal privacy for the diners. Yet the décor is modern in appearance, and the food has an innovative nature, with Mediterranean and Asian influences. In Newmarket, my dining room is purposely more like one you might find in a private house, and my food is very good but less imaginative than I would attempt here. It is not that my clients are less sophisticated than London folk. They’re not. It’s just that their choice of restaurant is fewer, and many come to eat at the Hay Net often, some every week. On that regular basis, they need to be comfortable rather than challenged, and they want their food predictable rather than experimental.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” he said. “I’m having cod. Surely that’s predictable.”
“Wait and see,” I replied, laughing. “I bet you look at it twice and ask yourself if it’s what you ordered. It won’t be a slab of fish in batter with chips that you would get wrapped in newspaper at the local chippie. It comes with a cassoulet, which is a rich bean stew, usually with white haricots, and a purée of Jerusalem artichoke. Would you know what a Jerusalem artichoke looks like? And what it tastes of?”
“Hasn’t it got spiky leaves?” he said. “That you suck?”
“That’s a globe artichoke,” I said. “A Jerusalem artichoke is a type of sunflower, and you eat the roots, which are tubers, like potatoes.”
“From Jerusalem, I assume.”
“Actually, no.” I laughed again. “Don’t ask why it’s called the Jerusalem artichoke. I don’t know. But it definitely has nothing to do with Jerusalem the city.”
“Like the hymn,” said Mark. “You know, ‘did those feet’ and all that. Nothing to do with the city. Jerusalem there means ‘heaven.’ Perhaps the artichokes taste like heaven too.”
“More like a radish,” I said. “And they tend to make you fart.”
“Good,” said Mark, laughing. “I might need my own train carriage home.”
Now, I decided, was the moment.
“Mark,” I said seriously, “I will have absolute discretion in any new restaurant, won’t I? Just like at the Hay Net?”
He sat and looked at me. I feared for a moment that I had misjudged things.
“Max,” he said, finally, “how often have I asked you how to sell a mobile phone?”
“Never.”
“Exactly. Then why would you ask me how to run a restaurant?”
“But you do eat in restaurants,” I said.
“And you use a cell phone,” he countered.
“Fine,” I said. “I promise I won’t discuss cell phones with you if you promise not to discuss restaurants with me.”
He sat in silence and smiled at me. Had I really outflanked the great Mark Winsome?
“Can I have a veto?” he asked at length.
“On what?” I asked rather belligerently.
“Venue.”
What could I say? If he didn’t like the venue, he wouldn’t sign a contract for a lease. He had a veto on the venue anyway.
“If you provide the finance, then you get a veto,” I said. “If you don’t, then you don’t.”
“OK,” he said. “Then I want to provide the finance. Same terms as before?”
“No,” I said. “I want more than fifty percent of the profit.”