Interview: Tom and Michaela Kitchin

Published on Sunday 9 August 2009 21:03

IT IS only 10am and Tom Kitchin's tiny, ahem, kitchen in Leith is already hot and seemingly jammed with staff busy cutting, slicing and boiling the day's menu. The man himself is preparing little black raviolis. The steamy smells of meat and herbs promise something delicious.

It has only been three years since Kitchin, 32, and his wife Michaela, an attractive Swedish national, opened their restaurant, yet already Edinburgh's dining scene is almost unimaginable without it.

The award of a prestigious Michelin star in the first six months of its opening – he was the youngest chef in Scotland to win one – set the tone. And although this friendly, unassuming young chef from Kinross is clearly delighted with the success and profile the award has brought, the ambitious husband and wife team behind the Kitchin are not surprised.

But as demands to make television appearances and a book deal – his first book From Nature to Plate will be launched at the Edinburgh Book Festival next week – increase, the hard working Kitchins now face the prospect of taking a big leap forward.

"We are at the bridge," admits Kitchin, who along with Michaela is taking a break from his kitchen duties to speak to The Scotsman. "It is a question of 'so, now what are we going to do?'"

The bridge to cross is the question of how to best manage the runaway success of the business and Tom Kitchin, the brand. After only three years of operation the restaurant, along with its recently-launched outside catering side, Your Kitchin, is bringing in about 1.2 million this year. But while the television and book deals bring punters from across the UK through the door, it presents Kitchin with a conundrum: more time spent on telly is less time at the stove. But unlike some celebrity chefs who you assume haven't actually cooked a meal in years, Kitchin can't imagine not cooking. "People said when you get a Michelin star, open another restaurant. But we are not," says Kitchin.

"We are going to concentrate on this and keep it evolving. We will invest the money back in the business, get the staff up to speed. There are so many deciding factors.

"When we did the book or the television, I was adamant that if I do that, I only leave the restaurant if it is for the benefit of the business. If Michaela says, 'do you fancy taking Saturday night off to go out for dinner?' it is never going to happen."

"I wouldn't ask it," retorts Michaela, who as the restaurant's general manager is as determined as her husband to grow the business. The day they speak to The Scotsman, they are celebrating their third wedding anniversary, but it won't be an occasion for romance. Instead, the Kitchins admit that they might be able to share some champagne – but not until well after midnight, when dinner service is over.

If Kitchin's new book is anything to go by, Michaela is well used to the long hours her husband puts in. In it, he recounts that while they were on honeymoon on St Lucia, he found a little restaurant that prepared flying fish. He spent hours a day there cooking, which might have driven a lesser woman mad.

However Michaela, who last worked at the ultra-luxurious Burj al Arab in Dubai before launching Kitchin, is a hospitality industry professional of some distinction in her own right. Tom calls her the brains of the operation. And while a lot of the book is in his words, it was Michaela who wrote it.

"She understands this is our baby," says Kitchin. "We are off Sundays. That is our family day. But a lot of the television work is on Sundays. This week we are going mushroom picking with a TV crew. We do it on a Sunday so we don't take away from the business."

They both take a pragmatic view of the demand created by Kitchin's rising star status. But initially they were reluctant. "If you said television to me three years ago, I would have said no," says Kitchin.

But a year into the business a persistent television producer won him over. The producer told him to speak to another talented young chef, Nottingham-based Sat Baines.

Baines, too, had been reluctant to spare any time for television, but the impact of it on his business clearly impressed the Edinburgh chef. "What happened to Sat's business after that was incredible," says Kitchin.

"People watched him on television and went to his restaurant. He said 'I know exactly what you are going through, but if you possibly can, try it'."

Luckily for Kitchin his former mentor – and if the account in the book is correct, tormentor – chef Peter Kauffman, whose restaurant La Tante Clair proved an essential training ground for Kitchin, came to his help. It gave Kitchin the chance to leave the restaurant in skilled hands that he trusted, although increasingly his own staff of carefully selected and on-the-job trained chefs are getting up to his high standards.

"It is great. People come into Edinburgh and why would they know about The Kitchin unless they researched it? But maybe they have seen me on telly. It doesn't mean I am taking my foot off the pedal, but it makes people come to the restaurant," says Kitchin.

The restaurant has a low-key kind of charm, different from the bluster – and cursing – of fellow Kauffman protege Gordon Ramsay. Not that Kitchin is against a few expletives, but he is softly spoken and was initially daunted by public speaking. He says he is now more relaxed in front of both his appreciative diners and the cameras. But it is clear where his heart remains.

"Now I am starting to accept the brand part of it," says Kitchin. "It has taken a while for me to come around because I am still working in my kitchen and I love that. I am a great believer that if I stop that working in the kitchen I am very conscious it can quickly fall around me. It is like adrenalin, a drug, which I love. It just keeps me going constantly."

When the pair finally decided to open The Kitchin, they were unsure where they would go. Reluctant to be a small fish in London's big restaurant pond, they chose Edinburgh. London, for one, would have been more expensive. "The people investing would expect so much more, you would never have proper ownership of the restaurant," says Kitchin.

"You would need lots of outside help to get it up and running. Investors who are not in the industry want their return very quickly or maybe want to interfere."

The pair also have the support of Kitchin's father Ron. A businessman in his own right, Ron runs Water of Leith 2000, which contributes to much of the regeneration in the Leith area. It is one of the reasons the Kitchins chose the area – opening up in something of a "graveyard", which had seen five restaurants come and go in as many years, on Commercial Quay.

In an effort to win backers, the Kitchins met several sceptical bankers. But Allied Irish took them on and provided them with some capital.

"They were the ones that believed in us. We went to four or five different banks with these amazing CVs we had. They asked 'what makes you different from the other restaurants?' – we have these CVs, this is what we are all about," recalls Kitchin with a touch of indignation.

The bank funding along with savings and some money borrowed from grandfather was enough to scrape together what they needed to start the restaurant with six employees – including Tom and Michaela.

Now they employ 24 and business is brisk, despite the economic bad times that continues to cut a swathe through Edinburgh's restaurant industry. Kitchin argues that although his famous tasting menu, which costs 100 a head, including matching wines, may be dear to some, it represents good value for money.

"Despite a global recession, we are still up 20 per cent which is phenomenal," says Kitchin. "People know about quality and value for money. OK it may seem expensive, but they know we are using pristine ingredients, great wine, great service."

Michaela, ever the brains, corrects him on only one point. Actually business is up 30 per cent on last year.

But while plans are still modest – in January the Kitchins will improve the restaurant and replace the crockery he inherited from Kauffman – Kitchin rules out nothing. Except becoming the next Gordon Ramsay. "I think there is a fine line. We are very ambitious, but to be honest I have no idea what we are going to do. Are we going to open more restaurants? I don't know. Are we going to do more TV? I don't know.

"We will probably do more television, we will probably open another restaurant some day. But I just don't know when. We are great believers in when the time is right we will know it is right."

KITCHIN APPLIANCE

&#149 Tom, 32, and Michaela Kitchin, 33, started their restaurant, The Kitchin, in June 2006. In the same year, they married. They have one son, Kaspar.

&#149 In 2007, the Leith-based establishment was awarded a prestigious Michelin star.

&#149 Tom began his career at Gleneagles Hotel near his childhood home just outside Kinross.

&#149 He trained with three-Michelin star chef Pierre Kauffman at La Tante Clair, with another three-star chef, Guy Savoy in Paris, and with Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo.

&#149 Tom has featured in BBC's Saturday Kitchen, UKTV's Market Kitchen and BBC2's The Great British Menu. In the latter Kitchin represented Scotland in the 2009 series. In February, he featured in the Masterchef final chef's table panel.

&#149 His new book From Nature to Plate will be launched at the Edinburgh Book Festival, Monday, 17 August.