Pub classics at Merivale venue, The Collaroy
TALES FROM THE TOP
TOO BIG TO FAIL
Jordan Toft, Executive Chef of Merivale’s The Newport, Coogee Pavillion and The Collaroy
EXECUTIVE CHEF FOR THREE OF MERIVALE’S LARGEST VENUES (AND EX CHEF TO THE PRINCE OF SAUDI ARABIA), JORDAN TOFT TELLS CRAIG HAWTIN-BUTCHER HOW THE GROUP APPROACHES THE CRUCIAL BUSINESS OF FOODSERVICE.
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ubs have dramatically changed. Sure there are still pubs that trade in the old ways but like anything, I think they’ve had a renaissance in the last five years in Sydney where we’re trying to bring the families back. So how can we encourage what they were originally for as a public place? Especially on the larger scale that I look after, the philosophy is around the public space that we provide the food and beverage service. They’re about offering a greater experience than just offering a beer. That’s not to say there isn’t a time and place for pubs that have a very simple food offering and provide the service of sitting around the U-shaped bar, having a chat and meeting your mates for a beer or two. Encouraging the entire family to come in, they’re definitely wanting a better, more holistic experience. I’m talking about specific models to make it that meeting place. That has the added value of food and beverage, whether with your girlfriend during the day or a work meeting. Places that are easier, more fluid and easier to meet up. Daytime is getting really important, while evening dictates dinner and drinks. There’s no doubt that the business itself, depending on what your model is, is a hard graft. Albeit there are people making a good business out of it, it’s no easy feat to incorporate the price of fresh produce that’s moving north at a rapid rate, wages being pushed to pay people more. Like any business, you have wages, overheads and the cost of goods, and all
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those things are moving up. But that’s what our job is – to make a sensory experience and the commerce part is right as well. There’s a bit of this consumer index that says consumers are willing to pay certain amounts for certain things. … Even though it’s our job, we have to be even more ingenious with how to give the customer what they want and what they expect while heightening the experience… and staying within that right price point. Look at the price of meat – we’re getting e-mails from suppliers and overall the price of meat is going up… Can you imagine if I sent an e-mail to our [customer] database… saying all of our pricing is going up? We can’t do that. My big job is thinking like a guest – where are they willing to splurge? Or that price has to stay at that because it’s the marker of what bracket you’re in. How do we counter that? We do what we always do and that’s balance. Offering menu items with a higher margin for the business offsetting some of your other margins. I’ve got things on the menu that lose me money, that in theory if it’s all I had on the menu, would lose me money. But it’s also there as part of the offering. Staff training is a massive part of it – trying to increase our guest experience by guiding them to what we believe our best experience looks like, tastes like and drinks like. Call a spade a spade – we’re trying to improve the guest experience. That may be misconstrued as ‘you’re just trying to sell me more’, but we’re in the job to make people have a really good time. Guest experience is paramount for us.
“We have to be even more ingenious with how to give the customer what they want”