While the majority of the industry has taken its foot off the expansion pedal, the Ivy Collection, the Richard Caring-backed, fledgling restaurant business, is taking the opportunity to build its estate. Executive operations director Yishay Malkov talks to Mark Wingett about what comes next, whether the group is in danger of diluting the iconic restaurant name and how involved its famous backer is
Let’s cut to the chase immediately and dispel one pre-conception, Richard Caring, the serial sector investor, former backer of Côte and current backer of Bill’s and the Ivy Collection, does not sit in his spacious Mayfair office, stroking a cat, working on world domination of the restaurant sector. If so, he would probably have picked a quieter period in his restaurant-owning life to launch the concept that is more personal to him than any other, especially one that had been a decade in the making.
As with most things, timing was key. Caring had already made his mark in Covent Garden, backing the launch of Keith Mc-Nally’s UK outpost of his Balthazar restaurant, when a further site a few doors down became available some months later. At the time, according to Ivy Collection’s executive operations director Yishay Malkov the investor had a “number of plates spinning”, with Bill’s expanding at a pace, his investment in Côte having just completed and the launches of new concepts Grillshack and Jackson & Rye under development.
Property and timing
Too close to some of his other Caprice Holdings outlets, and not wanting to pass up on the property, Caring had found a site for his long mooted Ivy Café project. As Malkov admits it was all about “property and timing”. “Richard had been thinking about this project for a decade, but timing wise it was always finding the right place, which happened to be in Covent Garden. That’s when the Ivy Collection started.” The Ivy Market Grill opened near the end of 2014, but Caring was already thinking of expansion.
Malkov says: “Richard signed the second site in Chelsea before we opened Market Grill. So we were opening an untried concept and before that he had signed up another site. In hindsight it really gave us the ability/edge to go here’s another site and another. We opened Chelsea four-and-a-half months after Covent Garden. Market Grill delivered and still does. It is the most distilled vision of what we envisioned the concept to be when we started out. You look at it now and it looks a little old school. Chelsea was different, it took off from day one. Chelsea was the reason we ramped up quickly from second to sixth gear, but Market Grill is the foundation for why we are here today.”
That foundation was built and developed on by Malkov, former restaurant director of Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s and general manager at Roka Restaurants; former Gordon Ramsay Holdings group executive chef Mark Askew, who was with Caring at Grillshack and Jackson & Rye; and finance director Sean Byrne. Long-time trusted Caring lieutenants Andy Bassadone and Chris Benians were also drafted in to see the concept’s birth.
Malkov says: “Unlike the other projects, this is Richard’s. Andy and Chris were there at start with the technicalities of the concept and there to kickstart it but, more than any other project, I deal with Richard direct. The Ivy name is more associated with him, more than anything else and is very dear to his heart. The level he works at here is at a chairman level, he’s not on the ground level hiring and firing, but it is his vision. It wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t saying I need this done and this done at a certain time. This wouldn’t have happened otherwise, because there was so much going on.
“First of all, of course, it helps when you are starting out to have someone with the resources of Richard. The other part of it is his ability to say ‘why are you thinking that this won’t work’, that ability to have a different take on what is going on or should be happening, that entrepreneurial feel.”
Brasseries and grills
Caring’s initial idea was based around the Ivy Café format, but as Malkov points out Caring’s vision of a café, and indeed people’s perception of a café is probably different from that of say someone in Nottingham, hence the brasseries and grills.
“Initially, when we were setting this up, Richard’s idea was based around launching Ivy Café, but Covent Garden and Chelsea were too big for that vision,” says Malkov. “When Marylebone came about we had the chance to do a distilled version of what we believed a café should be. In effect, what happened was that as a product we thought it would be a trimmed down version of a brasserie but it is isn’t at all. It is exactly the same thing, the expectations of the guests are the same thing and the offering is the same. The names are more a reflection of where they are, rather than what they are.”
The company currently has 13 sites open, with up to double that number of sites either secured or in the pipeline for the coming 12 months. Malkov says the company currently has in place the infrastructure to double its estate over the next 18-24 months, but is already looking to put in place the people to make the leap to 40 restaurants across the UK and Ireland if the right opportunities arise, with each new site vetted by Caring himself. He says that all the group’s openings are performing above expectations and all are “in the black”.
Malkov believes the Ivy Collection’s strength, is that it has the ability to fulfil a lot of needs throughout the day for a lot of different people, but “still feel special”.
He says: “We are still learning what this business can do, it’s potential. We are at 13 now and will have a few more by the end of the year. There are a lot of things happening. Richard is keen to test the limits of the brand and how flexible this concept is, and that is the same with other brands he has. What we have found with the Ivy so far is that it is a lot more flexible and translates well to different cities and populations.
“In terms of how big we can be, well there is a good tension between the entrepreneur and operator. The latter wants slow and steady growth, the former wants to it be quick and wants it now, Richard sees an opportunity and wants to go for it. If Richard had not been with us from the start, we would be at four sites, doing well but only at that size, so there needs to be that tension to move forward. Is this a 400-site concept? No I can’t see that – there is a radius around each site where cannabalisation will start and also dilution of the brand comes into play. We have to keep polishing the halo, keeping the brand as shiny and new as it is now.
We can’t stop
Malkov admits he would like to shift down a gear in terms of the speed the company is growing, but knows “Richard will be there, telling me to keep moving”. He says: “There are opportunities out there, it is similar to what happened with Côte in 2010 and its expansion as others pulled back. This is a time when we can’t stop, because if we wait it may be too late. This is our chance to get everything right, not just when it comes to property, but how we retain and train people, our product, everything.”
Malkov only has to think back to the furore about the opening of the first site to have a reminder of what he has in hand. “At the start it was all about how we were going to mess with the Ivy name and damage it,” he says. “Richard said it would be fine and we opened the first and people said OK you can do one but not any more, and then they changed their minds again when we opened Chelsea and so on. Part of it was the media and part was people waiting for Richard to fail. It is a heritage brand without doubt and there was fear about what we were going to do with it, but I look back now and it is a stronger brand now than it was then. I am extremely proud that we have safeguarded it. The original Ivy restaurant is as strong as ever. We rode its coat tails for a while, but I think we are now giving something back to the mothership.”
