Roundtable: Dubai restaurant managers

The restaurant managers of some of Dubai’s top outlets tell Caterer what makes their outlets successful and share their concerns for 2013.

Industry Experts:

• Rajan Malik, Asha’s
• Cedric Toussaint, La Petite Maison
• Zaigham Haque, Scafe
• Amit Goel, Hakkasan
• Laurence Fernandez, Trader Vic’s DFC

Responsible for ensuring the day-to-day success of their outlets and keeping all staff happy — which in today’s industry is a challenge in itself — restaurant managers carry nothing short of a burden on their shoulders.

From keeping an eye on the menus, to ensuring each customer has an incredible experience and that the outlet makes a profit, there are a number of things a manager is accountable for.

As more and more pop up on the backdrop of the regional F&B landscape, competition is yet a further concern. So how do they ensure their outlets are a cut above the rest? We find out at a roundtable hosted at the luxurious Hakkasan Dubai in Jumeirah Emirates Towers.

Let’s ask the age old question – is it concept or location?
Rajan Malik, general manager, Asha’s WAFI Pyramids: Honestly? It’s both, and more importantly, it’s consistency. 10 years ago, Asha’s was lucky because of the footfall it received from the WAFI Mall.

Now things have changed, especially with the emergence of Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates. They might not have the best concepts but the kind of turnover they do because of the footfall is phenomenal. The one thing that has kept us going is consistency — in our food delivery, our service, our ambience and our attention to detail.

Cedric Toussaint, restaurant manager, La Petite Maison, Dubai: Consistency — it is why people go into a non-hotel restaurant. Where we are, in DIFC, yes it has really helped having Zuma and Roberto’s there — the restaurants are more a ‘destination’. Concept? Let’s take Roberto’s. It’s a new guy who chose to do a new restaurant. He’s doing pretty well. Location is the first thing. You got no footfall, forget it.

Zaigham Haque, founder and restaurant manager, Scafe: If you take the JBR walk, it doesn’t matter what type of restaurant you are operating, you could be serving rubbish food but you’d still get footfall. JLT doesn’t have that at the moment,in a couple of years it will become a more desirable location than the marina — the roads will be finished, it will become more spacious. One of the fastest growing things there at the moment is food outlets.

Laurence Fernandez, general manager, Trader Vic’s Dubai Festival City: Success is our main objective and has been for more than 70 years worldwide. In Dubai we’ve now got four outlets. The first one being 18 years old. People look for consistent design and features. We have the Chinese oven, recognisable only at Trader Vic’s — people come for this sort of consistency.

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So how important do you think the brand name is in guaranteeing a restaurant’s success?
LF: You’ve got a lot of people in Dubai that are well travelled and do come to us saying they’ve been to the Trader Vic’s in Washington or London. There is a percentage that comes down to brand recognition, but the volume is not enough to say this is all the success is down to.

Amit Goel, general manager, Hakkasan Dubai: We’ve got Hakassan London, and the brand’s now expanded to the US too. Is that why people come here? It helps that they know the brand and it encourages them to try the Dubai version, but at the same time it puts pressure on you because they expect you to be the same and on par — living up to that expectation, is the biggest challenge.

What’s the appeal of non-hotel outlets?
RM: The hotels focus more on the rooms of course, that’s the max-revenue for them. As independents we focus 100% on our food, restaurants, attention to detail as the guests are coming specifically for that.

CT: As a hotelier, you need to look at the performance of the whole hotel. As a hotelier, my focus depends on which avenue I am going down. Is the owner asking me for quality? Is he asking me for quantity or profitability? As a non-hotel outlet, my focus isn’t on profitability. I believe once I’ve got the revenue, the profitability will come. Service? That takes about 10 years to perfect. My service is not spot on, I’m working to improve it every year.

AG: Appeal is also a big thing here — and that comes through people seeing a full outlet. No one wants to come to an outlet with empty tables and chairs. Non-hotel outlets’ primary focus is on filling tables and chairs — we can’t necessarily afford the same amount of time focusing on service.

CT: Thats why I say mentality is changing. I’ve worked in Michelin starred restaurants before, I’ve done 14 tables on a night. Now if you give me a 14-table restaurant, I’m dying!

Will the future will bring lots more non-hotel outlets?
CT: Well the problem is there’s not really anywhere to go. Here the licensing is an issue too.

AG: It limits in terms of location too. When finding a place for your restaurant, you need to look for places where it is easy to obtain a license. That’s a big part of the reason we opted to attach ourselves to a hotel.

ZH: Licensing is a concern for any new outlet. It has cost us some business, particularly where catering events are concerned. What’s interesting is the grey matter surrounding this area. When setting up the school, SCAFA, I was speaking to the Dubai Economic Department and explained we used alcohol as an ingredient during teaching — in a controlled way. I wanted to know if this was acceptable. The response I got was: ‘the only advice I can give you is be sensible’. It is very complicated.

LF: Getting the license is tough, even though we are connected to the hotel it took us six months to obtain the license. You need a strong company to survive six months without a license — you are paying a payroll with no revenue coming in, still paying rent — it’s not easy at all.

CT: If I’d opened unlicensed for six months and not being active — I’d have lost lots of staff. That’s a long time and you lose the concept.

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But licensing issues exist everywhere in this region. What if you expanded to Qatar or KSA?
RM: It’s all about the market — here people want to dine in an outlet where alcohol is an important element. In other GCC countries, it’s different. The cultural norms are like that so it is different. Alcohol is of limited importance so the food becomes the focus — The Qatar restaurant in the Villagio mall in Doha, footfall and revenue is much higher than any of our other restaurants.

AG: It comes back to the concept though — we can’t open Hakkasan in Saudi.

CT: Without the wine glasses on the table, the whole dimension of the room looks different, when we have the dry night here, the restaurant doesn’t look at its best.

LF: We did Trader Vic’s in Riyadh and just served mocktails — it goes back to consumer understanding. They know they won’t have alcohol — when you make the concept of TV in Riyadh, the bar area is much smaller, we have a large mocktail menu instead — it works well.

Where do you stand on discounting?
RM: For my restaurant I’d encourage it — especially since the footfall at Wafi Mall has dropped, the market has changed, I can’t expect to rely on footfall from the mall. We need to raise our awareness, be it through the Entertainer book, magazines — all these kinds of key elements and promotions. Again it depends on the location of your outlet, the footfall, and accordingly you tie up with various discounters.

AG: If you have enough footfall you’re against it. If you don’t you have to do something to create that footfall. You have to make the figures, whichever way it comes.

LF: It’s to fill up those gaps — you have a quiet two hours, it’s better to offer a happy hour to fill up those gaps — you’re still paying overheads and electricity at the end of the day.

What are your biggest concerns for 2013?
AG: I think our biggest focus, stemming from retention concerns in the industry, is treating our staff well. If you look after your people, they have no reason to leave.

CT: You have to take care of your people. It’s not like before, it’s a new generation of people, they are thinking completely differently.

AG: We have to be prepared for turnover — it happens. It’s generally young people, they’ve not seen the world, they want to explore more, you can’t even stop them. But things have changed. It’s all about your experience, what you’ve seen, where you’ve been and how much you know — we know this is the case, we just have to live with it. When you have a couple of restaurants you can move people around and show them growth.

RM: You need to understand it from their point of view — they don’t want to work as hard anymore. You have to accept that and go a little easier!