What the hotel doesn’t have is an all-day dining restaurant. “I have preached this for many years and it’s the first time I get to put it into practice,” says Fraser-Smith. “As The First Group, we will not be doing all-day dining restaurants. Every restaurant has to the have the ability to stand on its own. It’s driven by its food and its price-point. Anyone who uses the term all-day dining, that’s money in the swear jar. It’s a dirty word.”
Fraser-Smith is keen to avoid the impersonal and wasteful nature of buffet-style concepts: “My big belief and the foundation of the food and beverage division within The First Group is concepts with soul. Which has been my mantra for many years. It’s got to have heart and buffets these days just don’t do that for the casual diner. We want to be able to cook your food fresh and have it delivered to your table.”
This ethos is perhaps not what people would expect to find in the up-and-coming neighbourhood of Barsha Heights. The area isn’t currently on the dining radar but a slew of hotel openings and the recent rebranding of the area is set to change all that. Just 10 minutes down the road is a perfect example. Fraser-Smith says: “Look at JLT. You provide the right concept at the right price point and people will come. The location is terrible but Alex and Fay (restaurateurs behind Mythos Kouzina & Grill and Nola Eatery & Social House), hats off to them because that’s where we’re wanting to position ourselves. In that space where it might not be A1 premium real-estate but if the product is good, the service is good and the staff is knowledgeable, then people come back. It’s that emotional connection.”
Not content with breaking the rules with regards, to concepts, pricing, location and management structure, Fraser-Smith has also turned the hotel’s F&B organisational structure on its head. “One thing I have done is I’ve removed all the F&B infrastructure. So there is no executive chef and no food and beverage manager. There will be a chef de cuisine and there will be a restaurant manager and they will be accountable for the performance of their restaurant.
By doing this, Fraser-Smith aims create a mentality of independence without actually operating each of the hotel’s outlets independently saying: “Each outlet is accountable and reportable for its performance. As the result, the talent that we’ve been able to attract in those key positions has been phenomenal.”
The Wyndham Hotel Group has appointed Esmeralda Van Wyck as cluster director of restaurants and bars with each outlet reporting directly to her. Fraser-Smith elaborates: “Each outlet will be responsible for the promotions they want to run, how they want to run the business, its set against metrics and we will incentivise them openly to perform. So we’re disrupting the market.”
“What I enjoy and what I look forward to enjoying more is being challenged. We did this fairly quickly but now we’ve got a team in place with the Wyndham Hotel Group so I can throw an idea at them and say ‘What about this?’ And they can say ‘No, I don’t like that.’ And that’s good. It’s checks and balances along the way.”
Despite his impressive track record, Fraser-Smith concedes that he isn’t infallible: “I cannot say that everything that I put forward is going to be right. If I came up with a concept and went to The First Group and said this is going to cost AED 8 milion (US$ 2.2 milion). I think it’s going to work but it’s going to be a huge risk. I would probably talk myself out of it because that’s not where we play. Give me a room with no marble flooring, give me a space with no false ceilings. That excites me now and that’s where I think we can go.”
According to Euromonitor data in KPMG’s Hungry for More? 2016 UAE Food & Beverage Report, the UAE’s F&B industry will be worth AED 82 billion (US$ 22.3 milion). by 2020 up from AED 52 billion (US$ 14.1 milion). in 2015. The figure is no-doubt bolstered by the influx of tourists as a result of the Expo 2020 Dubai. He says: “In the next three years we’ll open 35 more outlets. Some, we will look to franchise off as concepts and then there’s something very big in the future that I can’t talk about right now.”
Something else he can’t talk about is The One Dubai Marina. Opening in Q2 of 2018, The First Group put out an official statement saying that the property is set to ‘wow’ the market with a ‘global first’. All Fraser-Smith is at liberty to say is that “It’s worth the wait.”
Still, it’s no good having ground-breaking concepts and industry-disrupting operational structures if the customer-facing staff fails at the final hurdle. The property has an informal approach to hospitality and Fraser-Smith has placed a particular importance on training and education: “I need to get the team on the ground engaged. If they’re not engaged, it’s never going to work. I’m actually doing a training session for all the staff on my hospitality vs service theory. We’re engaged in the act of communication with our guests and customers, not the act of serving them. That will be the difference.”
As he talks, that wide-eyed excitement about the industry that Fraser-Smith must have felt as a 10-year-old is palpable. “I was absorbed by it. It sucked me in, and still does to this day,” he concludes.
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