Johnny and Mary

The Photorealist food & diner paintings of Ralph Goings

By @jameslewisland

When I was growing up my parents had a framed picture of Ralph’s Diner (first pictured below) on the wall (along with the obligatory Edward Hopper Nighthawks), and for years as a kid I thought it was a photograph, until my Dad explained one day it was a painting, and it was photorealism.

Photorealism is a style of painting which does nothing but attempt to accurately portray a viewpoint as closely as possible to that of a photograph. It’s enjoying a bit of an ironic renaissance these days, but back in the 80s it was deeply unfashionable, naff even. Think teenage bedroom walls with athena posters of coke cans. But my parents always were style evangelists.

Food scensters, restaurant-goers and hipsters in love with the current American diner scene should love these paintings. I do.

All paintings late 1960s - early 1970s.

Google and the Zagatization of restaurants on the web

By @jameslewisland co-written by @gauthiersoho

The restaurant industry has been a difficult animal for the internet, most specifically Google, to monetize. Still driven by an old-fashioned consensus formed by a wide range of guides, review sites, discount deal sites and other more traditional forms of marketing, no single force has managed to really control the market in any real form. Until perhaps now.

Google has long realised that the restaurants industry does not spend on its traditional sources of income - banners, adwords etc simply don’t work well. Google needs to control the monetization of the result of a search. They think like this. You search, I give you the result, the information, and in the process, I make money by monetizing the result I’ve given you.

It’s the same with social media. Facebook pages for restaurants aren’t really working. (To test this survey, we spent $2000 dollars on Facebook advertising for a restaurant in 2010, got 6000 ‘likes’, with pages views through the roof etc. Conversion into bookings? Zero.)

So Google has been wondering for a long time ‘how do we capitalise on restaurants, or eating out, in the same way as in other industries? How do we tap into this market?

The entry, I believe, is the restaurant review business.

Sites like Tripadvisor have been the leading force for many years now - people trust user-generated consensus style reviews. Simply put, Google needed a user-generated restaurant guide to give them a back-door ticket into this potentially lucrative but difficult market.

So, in September 2011, Google acquired Zagat, probably the biggest restaurant review guide in the world. 

Why Zagat? For switched-on Americans, Zagat has been the de-rigeur restaurant guide for many years now. 

Reflecting the freedom and empowerment of post war America as a refreshingly democratic alternative to the more snooty, exclusive and overall more European Michelin guide, since the 80s Zagat is the one you are not ashamed to be seen using, think Patrick Bateman in his Manhattan apartment, listening to Genesis, desperately trying to book a table at Dorsia. 

Zagat has also been imitated in various forms across the world, famously in London with a similar guide by two brothers.

Zagat was perfect for Google. The right image, and as all reviews ‘constructed’ by a spread consensus of public voters, exactly the right approach: let them do it themselves. People trust each other.

When you used to search for a restaurant on Google, a typical search would be ‘Italian restaurants Mayfair’. What you would get would be (apart from the paid for chain ad listings, which everyone ignores) a list of various review/booking sites, typically Toptable, Square Meal etc each pointing to one of their recommendations, and then a sprinkle of websites belonging to restaurants who have made an effort to implement some kind of SEO.

Now, things are different. Do a search now you get a direct map driven list of restaurant websites straight away, and a ‘score’, which if Zagat have reviewed them will be a ‘ZAGAT rating’ actually underneath each search result. Click on the highlighted ‘score’ link and it takes you to a pre-formed Google+ page, with a list of Google user reviews. Zagat will power these reviews if applicable.

Lower down is a list of ‘more reviews’, which looks basically a little sad, by this time you’ve probably made up your mind. The other review sites simply don’t get a look in.

So what does this mean? Well ever since the publication of John Battelle’s 2006 book on Google ‘The Search’, we’ve all known about Google and how they gather data, act on and essentially monetize searching.

But they have come a long way since then. No longer do they rely on cleverly placing ads for flour and sugar based on the content of an email from your mother about an apple pie recipe. Google plan to use your activity online in a much more sophisticated way.

Harnessing the ‘eating out’ culture via Zagat gives Google the opportunity to tap into people’s social lives much more accurately. Many more intricate choices in your life will be recorded.

What we probably don’t know is that Google has already decided to make the next step, which is to control the booking activity of the online restaurant industry. It will mean investing in another specialist, and it will surely be another gargantuan North American company, a leader in its field, already working in cities influenced by Zagat such as Opentable. Surely it is just a matter of a signature on the contract!

And the day we start hearing about it is the day they buy an integrated point of sale operation system already working hand in hand with Opentable.

It’s also the moment when Google ‘close the loop’ as it were. 

From the moment I start thinking about eating out, Google will know

1. What you search for (including how you search for it, the key words and phrases that lead you to your result)

2. When you search for it.

3. Where you are when you search for a restaurant.

4. What time of day you book a restaurant.

5. What kind of booking you usually make.

6. Your special requests/personal dietary requirements.

7. What kind of food you order.

8. What kind of wine you order.

9. How much you spend.

10. How you pay for it (and of course your bank details).

11. What you thought of the experience.

12. Who you told about the experience.

Probably lots more. And the possibilities of what Google can do with this information are simply astonishing. For instance, from a restaurant’s point of view, being able to target customers directly reflecting their search terms, previous purchases, tastes, etc will be invaluable. And one thing is for sure, Google will monetize this knowledge.

Now you’re probably thinking you’re immune to this kind of big brother style monitoring. You’re thinking “Well, I’m different, I’m not influenced by others, I make my own decisions”. Well think again.

The Google+ social network angle is one of the most crucial parts of the whole operation, as it is this transparency of your ‘digital DNA’ that will be so valuable. The very thing that hinders Tripadvisor and its like - the suspicion of fraud, foul play and false descriptions - will be virtually impossible because Google+ is far too clever for that, it will use your constantly enriching profile to underwrite everything you do digitally, and fish out potential fraudulent activity by means of its well-known and highly sophisticated algorithms and even use this to its advantage.

And the genius of the whole thing is they don’t even have to convince you to sign up. Have a Gmail or Youtube account? Use Google maps? Most people are using Google+ and building its knowledge without even knowing it. Chances are, unless you’re reading this on a printed piece of paper, you are already in it!

Jaguar Shoes v Jaguar Cars

By @jameslewisland

Dear oh dear, there’s a bit of a hoo-ha going down on Kingsland rd, with the hipsters of Shoreditch bar Jaguar Shoes getting their moustaches in a twist over a possible court case involving evil corporate giant Jaguar Cars.

Yes, it’s true, Jaguar Cars (of The Equalizer fame) have decided to sue Jaguar Shoes over the use of the name ‘Jaguar’. Excuse me while I spit froth of my artisan flat white all over your vintage Raybans. The bastards! As if a hugely rich international car manufacturing company could be possibly hurt or competed with in any way from a tiny, back street East London bar, with second hand furniture and fashionably tattooed customers who look like they’re permanently in an instagram picture.

Lets sign the petition and stop this act of bullying!

Hmm. Well I remember Jaguar Shoes (Or as it used to be known Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes) back in the early 2000s (or could be late 1990s) when it opened, a really cool place (still is), exactly reflective of the then ‘vibe’ of Shoreditch, that ‘stick-in-a-bar-and-have-a-party’ no-frills attitude which was so cool and fresh then. A perfect reaction to the ‘corporate clubbing’ bar pap that had evolved at the end of the nineties, with such cavernous establishments as the Bishopsgate Pitcher & Piano reputedly taking over £90,000 on a busy Friday night from coked-up traders at the hight of the dot com bubble.

Yes Jaguar Shoes was the alternative, its funky walls decorated by in-house artists (Banksy hadn’t yet made street art suburban coffee table fodder yet) and quirky beers flowed to trucker cap wearing creatives and employees of Dazed & Confused before magazines became extinct.

For me though, the thing that really defined them and made their personality special, was the name.

Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes. Inherited from two previous wholesalers who inhabited the site, how much cooler can you get? We are so cool we don’t need a brand. We don’t need a creative agency. I loved this, and frequently used them and others around the world as examples of what being really cool with your brand really meant.

So when I found out about this Jaguar court case thing I was naturally angry, and raced to support them. 

I’ve now looked a bit harder at the case and it transpires that the only reason Jaguar Cars have begun this case is the fact that Jaguar Shoes were attempting to register their name as a brand to ‘avoid imitation’.

And now they boast Adidas as advertising sponsors and all kinds of revenue streams are pumping in off the Jaguar Shoes brand. Brilliant, well done I say. Great when a little independent outfit does well.

So the name they ‘found’ when walking into their new bar and irreverently kept with a nonchalant air of confident ‘don’t give a shit’ ness is now proving rather lucrative and they wouldn’t want some young upstarts (or big bullies for that matter) to come along and cash in on it in some way would they? 

Well my little question is, in what way is this any different from what Jaguar Cars are doing? They too are protecting their brand from imitation. When you raise your profile so high, begin to attract huge brands’ attention, you put yourself on a very big stage, so you have to prepare to fight with the big boys.

Jaguar Shoes is a fabulous place, but please don’t be hypocrites guys.

Customer Sources at Gauthier Soho

We were instructed by Gauthier Soho to analyse their customers and provide information on where the real sources of business were coming from.
As any restaurant marketer knows, there has never been a broader range. Of course everyone will tell you differently, magazines will tell you that advertorial is best, PR companies say editorial, critics say reviews, discount websites say offers, bloggers say twitter.

We decided to do our own independent research. For the past six months, Gauthier Soho bookings department asked each returning customer the question: “Where did you initially hear about us?”, and each new customer “Where did you hear about us?”. (The in-house database easily allows them to see whether the customer has booked before). We also designed a discreet feedback form to give to diners with the bill (Please note these results do not include Private dining).

The results were very interesting.

What we have here is a crucial snapshot of where a Michelin starred restaurant, nearly two years old, really gets its business from. From this we can begin to accurately assess which market portions are growing or shrinking, and so what to concentrate on and invest in when planning the next year’s marketing strategy.

Click on the chart for a larger image.

Results

I think it is obvious that the lion’s share is ‘previous customers’, which is obviously based on the history and credentials of Alexis and his team, previous restaurants etc. What is interesting is the next biggest - ‘Friend referral’. This for us is the crucial one. People talking to each other is the single most powerful marketing behaviour in restaurants, and we firmly believe that most of ‘friend referrals’ will turn into ‘previous customers’.

‘Internet search/gauthiersoho.co.uk’ was also strong (no surprise) with results backed up with google analytics confirming Google organic search as still the biggest source of traffic on the website, with bookings happening direct from that. More analysis through Google analytics reveals very interesting keyphrase searches and traffic sources, but that’s another study.

Gauthier Wines was strong, probably boosted by the hugely successful Christmas offer combining a case of 12 wines with a free lunch.

The Michelin guide also came up strongest for guides (disproving all the cynics). The rest of the field, (about 12.5%) is made up of the enormous range of press, web platforms, review sites, social media, blogs, reviews etc which we monitor closely.

We’re looking forward to comparing this with new information in another six months!

Restaurant Presence on Twitter

Part of what we do at Johnny and Mary is to discern what people really want from a corporate account. Having seen far too many twitter vigilantes both outraged over bad customer service and overcome with happiness at great customer service (which is usually a pretty small but well-placed gesture), we know exactly what people want, and more importantly, what they don’t want. Such as:

Accounts that churn out automated feeds every day are, unless a massive corporate brand, largely un-followed or ignored. Such as the ones that only tweet ‘today’s menu’ or a dull fact about the restaurant, or update once a month with little enthusiasm. ones who never update their feeds so their account looks unkempt and boring and like they don’t really care.

Another undesirable road that a restaurant account can go down is to stalk their potential customers. They will not only painstakingly check their mentions every hour (which is fine), but will conduct searches of themselves and reply to anyone who is talking about them unfavourably. Instead of coming across like they care or want to engage with its customers, it looks creepy and a bit desperate. Sometimes even slightly unpleasant.

A common mistake that large corporate accounts make dealing with something that goes wrong, badly. To either ignore it, send the same stock reply to everyone and fill pages and pages with the same thing or post what is obviously a blatant lie to keep the peace is social-networking suicide as it will instantly lose many fans/followers’ trust. Of course, some huge companies have to wait for an important tweet explaining the situation to go through several legal hoops but if it’s more than a couple of hours, a lot of irrevocable damage has already been done. Social media is instant. Even a placatory message along the lines of ‘we’re working on it’ reassures customers. And if someone complains, always reply to them and find out more – otherwise, you look like you just don’t care.

There are a fair few good examples of the next one. As they haven’t been open for a long time, there is a lot of buzz generated from customers on Twitter, blogs and other networking. Their twitter, however, is quiet. The sporadically updated Twitter has a slightly brusque tone; not unfriendly, but not exactly encouraging conversation. Whilst they are doing well they will not need social networking, but in this new culture of restaurants needing to have a social presence, when they are wanting for customers, they might need to get back out there. And it will look a bit strange and inconsistent. Why are they suddenly doing this?

So what do we want from a restaurant’s twitter? We want to see what kind of place they are from the moment we get there. Which means that the background, username and picture need to tell us instantly. Then on looking at tweets, if there is an ounce of humanity in there, whether it be a joke, opinion or something that doesn’t directly relate to them trying to sell you something, it is probably an account worth following as they recognise that it is not all about them. Because that is incredibly dull.

The most important thing that a restaurant has to remember is that they are selling a lifestyle, a dream, even, to all of its followers. The distinction that it has to make, however, is that it cannot directly sell its product, like tweeting constant pictures of food or information that is readily available. In fact, the less about sales, the better. Its twitter is to, ideally, be like a person, a friend, to its followers. Another useful thing about twitter is its instancy. It can be used to great advantage – there is the baker that tweets when the bread is out of the oven, which is what people nearby would really want to know. Restaurants can tweet last minute menu changes, special offers and comment on the news or events they go to – anything. Twitter is just another way of reaching out to people who are, or might be potentially, interested in your business.

The account needs to provide the user with information and opinions that are not all about that brand. If they constantly link to their website or talk about their special offers in every tweet, the customers will get bored and ‘unfollow’ or ‘unlike’. There is nothing worse than seeing a restaurant twitter feed which is only talking about itself, with no hint of a human behind it (an individual voice is also important). They could discuss current issues, share links and talk to followers about anything, as long as they are engaging. Talking to other restaurants in the area is also important, as it shows that there is a community and that gives customers good faith in you.

We like controversy. What’s the point of saying what everyone else says and being safe all of the time? So what if someone disagrees with you? That’s not a bad thing. It’s good to have opinions on the current restaurant scene. Not everyone might like everything you read, but at least they’re reading, or talking about something other than how great you are. BORING.

Social presence is very important, but one size does not fit all. You have to consider all of the factors and most importantly, make people want to follow you and remain closely at the forefront of people’s minds.

5 Michelin Starred Restaurant Websites which do not Work on iPhones

By Charlotte Coxhead

With the amount of restaurants in London at the moment, restaurants need to do everything they can to compete. But restaurant websites that don’t work or aren’t user-friendly still exist, even at Michelin standard.

When doing some research recently, we found 5 Michelin starred restaurants that do not work on iPhones and 9 that don’t work on a Blackberry Bold. This is always because of ancient Flash technology still in place, something that has been not recommended since iPhones were first released as long ago as 2007! Where people use their Smartphones so frequently, this is surprising. Though perhaps not so surprising as many companies deem it pointless or a waste of money to pay for their website to be updated or adapted. But if a website doesn’t work on one form, it’s going to annoy people, may be struck off the list and never thought of again.

There are varying degrees of how user-friendly a website is. It may be too old to change easily so the maintainers may be forced to build a whole new website to bring it into this century. Some websites are just smaller (but difficult-to-use on Smartphones) and others build a whole new mobile website or because the web version is just too fiddly on a phone. 

(We actually recommend and use for our clients a technology called ‘responsive web design’, where a the website magically adapts itself to different devices by itself.)

Ease of access is very important and whilst some restaurants play on their ‘old-fashioned-ness’ as an excuse, it still loses potential customers. Having an online presence has never been more important – if a restaurant doesn’t have one, it is at a severe disadvantage.

5 Websites which do not Work on iPhones

Rhodes 24 www.rhodes24.com

Hibiscus www.hibiscus.co.uk

La Trompette (Additionally The Glasshouse & Chez Bruce) www.latrompette.co.uk

Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester www.alainducasse-dorchester.com

The Crown at Whitebrook www.crownatwhitebrook.co.uk

9 Websites which don’t Work on Blackberrys

Gary Rhodes www.rhodesw1.co.uk 

Hakkasan www.hakkasan.com 

Pied a Terre www.pied-a-terre.co.uk 

Le Gavroche www.le-gavroche.co.uk 

Locanda Locatelli www.locandalocatelli.com 

Pollen Street Social www.pollenstreetsocial.com 

Yauatcha www.yauatcha.com 

The Curlew www.thecurlewrestaurant.co.uk

The Longridge Restaurant www.longridgerestaurant.co.uk

The Nut Tree www.thenuttree.co.uk

Removing the burden of choice

One of the great things about eating in Spain, is its tradition of the ‘Menu del Dia’ (menu of the day), a 3 course lunch, first introduced by the right-wing dictator Franco, as a simple meal to be provided by local restaurants to all working men at good value.

Consisting of three courses, with limitless bread, water and wine, it is still available in bars and restaurants across Spain every lunchtime today. 

What you don’t get however, is much choice. The menu changes avery day, and there are maybe two dishes, meat or fish, and nobody complains.

In Spain, men don’t care about that. It’s food, it’s wine, it’s ok. Eat it and be quiet. 

This approach suits me perfectly, the simple relieving of the small insignificant choices of daily life to other, more expert members of society. And if sunny Spain offered the same undefinable magic as rainy old Blighty, I would probably live there, but unfortunately, it doesn’t, and this approach is hard to take here in the UK. Especially, it seems, when indulging in that most everyday of little luxuries, the purchasing of a pint of lager.

When I was a boy, I used to work as a wash-up in a pub. I can remember at the end of the night being allowed to go into the public bar and have a drink with the regulars.

It was at this bar, seated between blokes who would have quite happily punched me in the face for a laugh, that I began to learn the rules of being a bloke, and one of the first rules I learned, was that men, real blokes who did manual work for a living, didn’t order their drinks by brand, they asked for something very simple. They asked for ‘a pint’. 

Desperate to be accepted (for some reason) by people who arrived at the pub at seven for the night and put 40 Embassy No1 and a box of matches on the bar in front of them, I would watch with curiosity at what to say and what not to say, and studied their mannerisms and actions. 

They asked for a pint. 

The barmaid, generally a well worn-in old girl in her fifties with a cleavage and a mouth quicker than Pat Wicks, would know, by age they meant lager.

If you were not a regular, then you asked for a pint of of lager. Or if you were over about forty, maybe a pint of bitter, or really old, a pint of mild.

What you received was exactly that. A pint of whatever lager the pub sold cheapest. And that is it, that holy grail of drinks to a 15 year old kid from North Herts, a pint of lager. The drink of men. 

Since then, that is precisely what I have ordered ever since. And for a long time, that is precisely what I got. 

Gradually though, things have changed.

Over the years, the jolly folk at larger international breweries have decided to, or been instructed to by inventive creatives at branding agencies, define beers into an increasingly confusing and dazzling array of different varieties of pretty much the same thing.

And of course quite rightly so, it’s very good business sense and obviously that’s what I would do too.

But to the brain of the simple man, the aspirational part-time 21st century squire who wishes not to be burdened by this painful choice process every time he buys any sodding thing he encounters, this is another headache.

“A pint of what?” you are asked, by the well-meaning dopey eyed hipster behind the bar.

“I don’t fucking know” You think, shaking your head as the ridiculousness of the situation becomes clear. 

“You’re the expert, you work behind the bar, it’s your job to sell me things. By default, based on my apparent age, appearance and social status, give me the cheapest lager you have. If you are in any way a decent pub, it should taste ok. If you know of another lager, which for some reason you think I might prefer, by all means offer it to me. In fact, just give it to me, telling me I will prefer it. But don’t please ask ME what I want. I’m not a brewer, or a landlord. I don’t know.”

Obviously I don’t say that, because firstly, I’m British, and secondly, I’m not a self righteous pain in the arse, and anyway the barman doesn’t care, he’s just waiting to knock off so he can go out on the razz.

I, of course, politely look at the taps and point to the most elaborate shiny looking one.

I believe that in the end, what a bloke wants is simplicity. As you get wealthier and more successful, this bewildering array gets more and more concise. The range of clothes, cars, houses, boats you really want gets smaller. The field gets narrower and narrower, easier and easier.

With food and drink especially. Sommeliers, tasting menus, all here to remove the burden of choice. You get what you’re given, and it’s great.

What a luxury.

Rather like the Menu del Dia.

Do it Yourself

Discount deal website: A phrase that is a subject of many fended-off phone calls of to our clients. Our stance: be very careful with it. Signing up to a discount deal site can do irreparable damage to your brand. Once your restaurant appears on a discount deal site, you can never go back and undo that so you will need to think extremely carefully about why. When deciding on where to eat, there is one of three things that people look for: Somewhere that is either new and therefore cool, somewhere that is consistently good quality or somewhere that has been there so long you just know is good.

If you don’t really fit into any of these categories, you will need to concentrate on marketing yourself another way. For a quick fix, sometimes restaurants use sites like Groupon or LivingSocial where restaurants sell meal packages for huge discounts – offering such large discounts suggests that you will do anything to draw in customers and makes you look desperate – and once people have seen this, you will be ever known as the restaurant which is in trouble.

Any business so publicly needing business is weakening itself. Filling empty seats is the same in many ways to companies selling off dead stock at auction, a quiet and secretive practice which goes on all the time, but an activity that no company’s PR department would want the public to be aware of.

Marco Pierre White’s restaurant has made an appearance on Groupon, as has Gordon Ramsay’s. Lastminute.com also has a selection of restaurants with deals, such as Galvin at Windows having a meal package, and Seven Park Palace with three courses for the price of two. 

When discount deal websites first came to the media’s attention, it seemed like a great idea. The restaurant would have to sacrifice a little profit, but would have a full restaurant and hopefully, some of these customers would come back. The customer was happy because well, they got a half-price meal and could suddenly afford to eat at places that they couldn’t normally.

Unfortunately, restaurants quickly realized that this wasn’t as good as it sounded. Their restaurants weren’t making a profit. In fact, many were losing money. They had full restaurants for weeks after the promotion ended but no money was coming in – people were only eating their set ‘meal deal’ and not ordering wine or any extras – and never coming back, either. A friend of mine had gone for dinner with a discount deal voucher a few months ago and he swore that the portions he and his friend were served were far smaller than normal! Not only that, but it was making them look bad.

I have heard many horror stories from restaurant owners about these discount deals and so many have lost out on business and haven’t gained any new customers outside the deal – or say, those who have a deal on a certain day for a certain amount of time are inundated with customers on say, a Tuesday, when there is a two-for-one meal deal, but on other days, are totally dead.

There is another kind of discount website, such as Taste, which has been around for a while. The customer purchases a Taste Card for a one-off fee, and receives up to 50% discount on the whole bill in a multitude of restaurants involved in the scheme on presenting the card.

However, there are new methods for fine dining. This is a subject which was touched on nicely by Hugh Wright for The Telegraph last week here. Table 7 and Quisine are on a new level. Book on the website at a charge of £7 (Table 7) or £10 (Quisine) and save up to 30% off total bill at high-end and Michelin starred restaurants, and the discount is applied automatically when you are given the bill. This also helps to fill the restaurant in less busy time slots. With a heavy emphasis on the ‘top restaurant’, this could make it more acceptable to use discount services. Boasting restaurants on their books such as St. John and Gordon Ramsay’s Maze (seems like he’s covering all bases), there are some high-profile names signing on.

This could be right for some restaurants, but use very sparingly even so – we do not encourage doing this as there are plenty of other more exciting and less potentially damaging ways to market your restaurant. For instance, if you want to attract customers by putting a offer on, why involve a third party? With a little creativity, you can usually come up with your own offer, in-house, market it yourself and maintain complete control. 

Because it is done in house, it isn’t compromising your brand, in fact it can be an enhancement, cementing your integrity as a humble, caring business.

Simply put: In most cases you do not need to use a third party. Using the right channels, if the offer is good value and the product is good quality, the information will spread quickly and it will be successful.

Make-Up Artist Needed!

Johnny and Mary are doing a photo shoot in London, and we’re looking for a make-up artist urgently.

The concept is David Bowie Ashes to Ashes and Visage’s Fade to Grey style make-up. 

The shoot is on Tuesday February 7th in Soho. The successful applicant would get credit and is a paid job.

For more details or to apply, get in touch at info@johnnyandmary.co.uk or 02078519382.

We’ve also posted the Bowie and Visage videos below.

Top 10 Restaurant Menu Designs of the last 25 Years

Although it is currently fashionable to scribble your menu in pencil on the back of a cigarette box and throw it at your customers head whilst they wait outside queueing in the rain, in the past, menu designs have been one of the most considered parts of a restaurant’s marketing strategy. And today we still believe that a menu is an important part of the restaurant experience. Here is our selection of favourite menu designs of the last 25 years or so (photographed from our own collection).

Scott’s, London: 2005 The quintessential London menu. Unfussy, clever, straight to the point. User friendly. Also could easily be The Ivy.

Fouquet’s, Paris, France: 1990 The most famous restaurant in the Champs-Élysées. If you want to create a brasserie anywhere in the world, this is first place to look. More crazily different ingredients than any restaurant in the world. Classic 80s Paris.

Harry’s Bar, London: 2003 The real private club menu. Complicated, all in Italian with no translation, super expensive but refined to the extreme. Austere.

L’Oasis, La Napoule, nr. Cannes, France: 1994 Massive, (almost 1m2!). Unashamed in its vulgarity. Anyone who needs a “Caravane de Desserts” is not here to appear frugal. Classic flash Cote d’Azur.

Taillevent, Paris, France: 1991 THE menu. Spirit of Escoffier. Completely French wine list. So snobby, not even all of France is allowed. 100% Bordeaux, Bourgognes and a few Côtes du Rhône!

Pharmacy (Notting Hill Gate), London: 1999 (est) A great example of ‘trends’ in menu (and restaurant) design. Seems so dated now! Fun. Doomed.

Oustau de Baumaniere, Baux de Provence, France: 1990 So wide you need to share it to read it. From the L’Oasis school of ostentation. Commissioned illustration.

Jamin, Paris, France: 1991 Reflects everything Joel Robuchon stands for. Refined, smart, small, precise, thoughtful. Pensive. The 3 star confidence.

Maison Troisgros, Roanne, France: 1988 Beautiful. If you did this today you would be taken to court and charged with pretentiousness. Commissioned psuedo-surrealism fr watercolour illustration, Conqueror paper (illustration by Michel Granger, of Jean Michel Jarre fame).

Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse, Monte Carlo, Monaco: 1995 The Guv’nor. Faux baroque, embossed card. Possibly the antithesis of what is fashionable in London today, and quite the reason to love it. In 2025 it will probably look very similar. I hope.

Johnny and Mary Does Gauthier Soho for Masterchef Live

Interning at Gauthier Soho

(by Poppy Coxhead)

I’m currently interning in the marketing team of Gauthier Soho, so we work very closely with Johnny and Mary. We have been very busy at the offices for a number of reasons: it is nearly Christmas, the wine business (Gauthier Wines) is just getting off the ground and there has been a flurry of media interest stemming partly from some recent, ahem, controversial Twitter activity concerning certain restaurant critics (which I blogged about here). 

The online wine shop is still relatively new, so a large part of what I do is promoting and identifying what is special about Gauthier Wines. First, we had to identify the USPs of the business – and the best (and therefore most obvious) ones are as follows:

• The wine is sold in a Michelin starred restaurant (so it’s gotta be good, right?)
• It is very difficult to source the wines sold there elsewhere
• With every wine there are guidelines for food and wine pairing

I was tasked with watching every cooking programme there is (I know, hard life), conferring with the head sommelier Roberto and tweeting and posting on Facebook which wines would go best with the dishes cooked on that programme – it seems to be working so far. The key is engaging – if a potential customer is watching say, Masterchef, it would appear on their timeline that we have been tweeting about a wine that would go with a dish they’ve been serving!

Gauthier Wines aren’t available from Tesco, these are fine, hard-to-find wines. The ultimate dinner party impresser. However, to gain significant interest, and to show that Gauthier Wines is accessible, we made an offer the public couldn’t refuse. And they didn’t. You should see the boxes we have to trip over to get out of the office. There was also an incident in which the supplier was angry that we were selling a champagne for less than certain rivals – shock horror, we can sell champagne for however much we want, right?

Not to mention Alexis makes it so much easier for us to get talked back as demonstrated earlier by his often controversial Twitter feed!