TooTooMoo restaurant founder aims to create leading Asian food brand

Philip McGuinness, who helped launch Jury's Inn in London and has worked with Tesco, will open his first restaurant - TooTooMoo Crouch End - in north London at the end of this month. 

Named after a character in an Indonesian folk story, which tells the story of a friendship between a young girl and a giant who share a passion for good food, the 55-cover site aims to provide an all-day family-friendly dining experience to a local customer base. 

Ricky Pang, former head chef at Cocoon and Taman Gang and development chef at Yoobi, has joined the restaurant as executive chef and his menu will contain just 25 options, a mixture of noodles, soups, salads and small dishes with main dishes priced around £8-9 and children's menus for £5. 

Core values​

McGuinness said his aim was to build a brand, not just a restaurant and said it was also important that the company becomes part of the community it operates within.

"The tale of Tootoomoo and its core values are the backbone to the culture we are developing in our restaurant; passion for food, health and well-being, family, community, local enterprise, spreading the word, and creating ambassadors who share our love for Pan Asian food," he said. 

"The gap I see in the market is trying to deliver an all day concept to deliver fresh, healthy pan-Asian food. I don't think there's anyone doing what we are going to do out there currently."

While the restaurant will be core to the business, McGuinness said a takeaway service and retail products will also feature heavily and the TooTooMoo website would also be a central hub for the business. 

"The restaurant is a very flexible space," he said. "We will have a section selling retail products so that people can recreate the dishes at home. We'll also offer a takeaway service and I want to offer cookery classes. I'm passionate about what we are doing. We are trying to do something a little bit different with the brand." 

Neighbourhood restaurant​

The entrepreneur, who funded the project himself with some help from an investor in Asia, said he had deliberately chosen to open a neighbourhood restaurant, rather than choose a city-centre site.

"When someone leaves central London and heads out to the suburbs, where do they go? I wanted to create somewhere people could go when they came back from London, something that was part of a community."

Despite having ambitious plans to grow the brand, McGuinness said there were so far no plans to expand the restaurant to further sites. 

"I want to get the concept and the business totally right before we do anything more," he said. "The online side of the business will be important, so we'll be working hard to get that right first." 

Tootoomoo is currently advertising for an assistant restaurant manager and assistant delivery manager. View the jobs here. ​