How Not What

Stop it with the ideas. The last thing our glorious F&B industry needs is more ideas. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a passionate advocate for bringing hotels to life with F&B, it’s just that I’m not sure that doing that has got much to do with the actual idea. You see having spent the last year talking extensively to guests, and some of our most revered operators, I’m worried we’re all focusing on the wrong thing. How often have we seen beautiful hotels with expensive, over designed restaurants sitting empty, while free standing restaurants, often across the road are packed. This was starkly illustrated to me on a recent visit to a newly opened property, whose F&B is empty and already in crisis, while the two restaurants and a bar literally next door were packed. I’d love to tell you about their food but couldn’t get a table - for a week. While I’ll admit to citing an extreme example to make the point, the guests repeatedly told us they care far more about how the experience feels than what it is. The simple truth is that places like this are not buzzing because of what they are, their idea; Italian, French, Latino, Pan-Asian etc, but because of how they feel through ambience, vibe, cooking and service, in other words?their brilliant execution. And yet we seem, as an industry, to be obsessed with the idea, the what rather than working relentlessly on the how - is it time the focussed shifted?