Creative thinking: the group building a high-end London restaurant portfolio

In May this year Creative Restaurant Group opened the doors to its latest project 20 Berkeley, a British produce-led restaurant and bar close to Mayfair’s Berkeley Square. Given the group’s name, calling a restaurant after its address might seem on the prosaic side of creative, but it was deemed a more sensible option than the original choice. The intention, says Creative managing director Alex D’Aguiar (main image, right), had been to name the restaurant after the River Tyburn, a small tributary of the River Thames that once flowed under the building in which the restaurant is located, but a further internet search unearthed some less savoury connotations with the river and its name.

“If you Google the word Tyburn it throws up the Tyburn Tree, which was the site of many public executions, so we thought it was a bit of negative karma,” says D’Aguiar. “It felt quite risky, so we decided against it. Also, the address lends itself really well to the style of restaurant.”

With 20 Berkeley Creative, which is led by D’Aguiar and has Goodman and Burger & Lobster founder Misha Zelman as its chairman and Japanese sushi master Endo Kazutoshi as its chef patron, have created what is described as ‘a quintessential British house in the heart of Mayfair’. Located within a recently redeveloped office block, the 120-cover space is divided into four separate areas: The Pantry, Orangery, The Nipperkin bar and a 14-cover PDR The Drawing Room and has a feel that somewhere between an English manor house and a private members club. “Our goal is to be like a members club but with an open-door policy,” asserts Zelman. “You feel like you’re a member, but there’s no membership fee.”

Leading the kitchen is executive chef Ben Orpwood, most recently executive chef at Mayfair private members club Maison Estelle (which has no such democratic door policy) but who is best known as the launch chef of Gordon Ramsay Group’s Asian brand Lucky Cat as well as having worked at Roka and Zuma owner Azumi Group. Orpwood has put together a menu that celebrates seasonality and produce from the British Isles.

“The DNA of 20 Berkeley is that it is a seasonally-led restaurant,” says D’Aguiar. “This is not an uncommon approach by restaurants, but we effectively want to use the UK as our backyard. There are a lot of places in the Cotswolds, Hampshire, and New Forest where people seek to go and have that romantic relationship with the local land and the hospitality experience and that’s what we want to create here. It’s British food but not fish and chips and steak and ale pie.”

Getting the creative juices flowing

20 Berkeley (pictured above) is one of four restaurants that sit in Creative Restaurant Group’s portfolio, with a fifth in the works due to open at The Old War Office (The OWO) either at the end of this year or the start of 2024 (a separate sake bar is also understood to be in the works at the building). Given that the business only began at the tail-end of the Covid pandemic in 2021 it has been a busy few years for the trio, although it had a head start in the taking of Kazutoshi’s Michelin-starred sushi restaurant Endo at the Rotunda under its wings as its first project.

Launched in White City in 2018, Endo at the Rotunda was one of the many start-up restaurants that a tough time due to the pandemic. Creative was founded when Kazutoshi met with Zelman and D’Aguiar, who was working at Goodman Group at the time, seeking help to navigate the pandemic. “Misha invited me to join the conversation, and asked how I felt about starting a restaurant group together where creativity is the DNA of everything we do,” recalls D’Aguiar. Thus, Creative was born, with the group securing Kazutoshi’s expertise not just for his eponymous restaurant but for future openings.

 "It’s not enough to be Ronaldo; Real Madrid could put me in goal,
and they would be fucked. We work together”

These openings have come in relatively quick succession. In June that year the group launched SUMI, a more informal Japanese sibling to Endo at the Rotunda on London’s Westbourne Grove, which a year later expanded, increasing its covers from 45 to 61. This was followed by the launch of Mayfair restaurant HUMO at the start of this year. Led by Miller Prada, a former protégé of Kazutoshi, the wood-fired restaurant lit up the London scene almost instantly making its debut on the UK’s Top 100 Restaurant list just a few months later, ranked at number 64.

Taking its name from the Spanish word for smoke, HUMO sees Colombian-born Prada, who spent six years working alongside Kazutoshi, give as much emphasis to the wood he uses to cook with as the ingredients themselves. The 34-cover restaurant has a counter that surrounds a fully-open kitchen complete with a huge custom grill on which he cooks a menu that blends Japanese with a number of other international influences.

As such, Creative today operates an electric range of restaurants, some of which share Kazutoshi’s DNA while others are a bit more removed, an approach that has become more common in the London restaurant space in the past couple of years. Following in the footsteps of the likes of JKS, whose portfolio includes high-end multi-Michelin starred dining rooms, pubs and more informal restaurants, MJMK, whose group includes Mexican fine dining restaurant KOL and Portuguese restaurant Lisboeta as well as the more casual Casa do Frango, and Samyukta Nair and LSL Capital and its curation of very different Mayfair restaurants, Creative is all about thinking differently.

“Misha is extremely creative having been behind brands such as Burger & Lobster and Beast, and so is Endo san,” says D’Aguiar. “I wanted to create a restaurant group that had a meaning and that looked at things differently. It is a collection of creative people and brands and restaurants. We are giving the freedom to the team members to be creative - not only chefs but marketing people, general managers, everyone.”

“The proposition of being a chain business is in the past,” adds Zelman, whose Goodman Group operates three Goodman steakhouses and who has also previously seen the roll out of brands including Zelman Meats and Burger & Lobster. “The mass market is not part of our plan. We don’t want to build a big chain or impress with restaurant numbers or sales. We have an ambition to help people help themselves and be creative together.

“I’m a big fan of Ted Lasso and his vision of putting together a team. It’s not enough to be Ronaldo; Real Madrid could put me in goal, and they would be fucked. We work together.”

Organic growth

The growth of the business so far has followed no rigid formula – “if there is, you lack a level of creativity,” says D’Aguiar – with the restaurants coming to life in different ways. In the case of HUMO, Prada impressed with his idea of cooking over fire and taking inspiration from his learnings under Kazutoshi.

The group found a location and used its expertise in project management and design to create the space while at the same time following Prada’s vision and brief as closely as possible, including bringing his plans for the stove to life. “We worked together. If one person makes all the decisions, nine times out of 10 it will fail, so we found the build team but delivered what he asked for,” says D’Aguiar. It was the same with Merlin [Ramos, HUMO’s head sommelier], he had a vision for what he wanted to do. My role is to make sure it all makes sense and execute and deliver it for them.”

By contrast, the 20 Berkeley site was found before the concept and the chef has been agreed upon. Orpwood came on board having walked past the hoardings during the build and offering his services, discovering he was a perfect fit having not only worked with Gordon Ramsay as D’Aguiar had but also with Kazutoshi at Zuma.

The only culinary link between all four restaurants is Kazutoshi in the role of chef patron (which would more traditionally be described as executive chef). “While he might be a Japanese sushi master his palate is international,” says D’Aguiar of the third-generation sushi master. “He provides a lot of support to the team.”

"We don’t need another omakase
restaurant in London”

Conversations about the as yet unnamed restaurant at The OWO, meanwhile, came about as a result of Zelman’s relationship with hotel group Raffles, whose Singapore property is home to a Burger & Lobster. The OWO building will be home to Raffles London hotel as well as private residencies, with seven restaurants to be located within the hotel, including Milanese restaurant Paper Moon, Paris restaurant Café Laperouse, and Mauro Colagreco’s trio of launches, while Creative’s restaurant will occupy a rooftop space within the OWO building.

“Whitehall is not a destination for restaurants, but we are big believers that it will be,” says Zelman of the project. “It has attracted one of the top chefs in the world (Colagreco) and we will have great neighbours. Our relationship is not with Raffles but with the landlord, but we share the building and are collaborating a lot with the hotel.”

The new restaurant will have a 60-cover dining room as well as an eight-top chefs table and a PDR that seats an additional eight diners. The OWO also has four turrets that feature at the end of the Bond movie Skyfall when Daniel Craig looks out at the London skyline (Bond author Ian Flemming used to work in the building) one of which is within the restaurant’s space and which affords a 360 degree view of the capital – “you can see into Downing Street and the flashing lights when a party is going on,” jokes D’Aguiar. The rooftop restaurant will also have an uncovered outside terrace that will seat 30-40 people weather permitting. “To have a rooftop in the portfolio is fun,” he adds.

As for the concept itself, the pair are keeping tight-lipped. “It will be a high-end Japanese restaurant with a twist,” is all that D’Aguiar will say of it. “We know the concept but not yet the name. But it will be different. We don’t need another omakase restaurant in London.”

A Creative future

The pair are equally taciturn about their future plans. D’Aguiar says that despite operating restaurants at White City and Notting Hill their comfort zone is central London. “Endo at Rotunda came before us and SUMI is in an area that is very close to Misha’s heart, but central London is more our area. It’s expensive, risky, and a bit of a battleground but your journey tends to start in somewhere you feel safe, and we’ve worked in

Mayfair for a long time and know the area well.” Beyond central London, the team might look outside the UK at some point, he adds, but that short-term plan is to ensure the future of the first five ventures.

“Myself and Misha and a few key people have created this foundation and we are slowly building a house on top of it. It’s not a mansion yet, it’s a small house – but there is more to come.”

Zelman is even less expansive on the matter. “When people ask me about the future I always think of Woody Allen, who said ‘if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans.” Now that’s an answer more befitting of a group with creative in its title.