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Jason Atherton, AA Chef’s Chef of the Year, talks about the value of recognition, industry perception, and hard work

Jason Atherton is the man behind The Social Company and deserved winner of a number of Michelin stars. His flagship restaurant ‘Pollen Street Social’ opened in April 2011 in Mayfair and was awarded a Michelin star within just six months of opening,

Image of Jason Atherton in his restaurant

The Social Company’ has grown into a globally renowned restaurant group, employing over 650 people, with a portfolio of restaurants which include the Michelin-starred City Social, as well as Social Eating House, Little Social, The Betterment and Berners Tavern – named ‘the defining restaurant of the decade’.

Caterer.com caught up with Jason, winner of the 2019 AA Chef’s Chef of the Year award, a unique award voted for by all AA Rosette-awarded chefs who decide which of their peers deserves this accolade, based on their performance over the previous twelve months.

Winning AA Chef’s Chef of the Year 2019

Jason was the last recipient of the award., sponsored by Caterer.com. We asked him how it felt to be recognised by his peers.

‘It’s a huge honour to be recognised and really heart-warming. I don’t consider myself to be a young hot chef anymore on the tip of everyone’s lips. I’ve been around a long time, and you know, I thought maybe it was going to slip away from me.’

Jason continued, ‘I think it’s important to recognize excellence in whatever shape or form. For example, the awards that came out a couple of years ago, Kitchen Porter of the Year, where they can win fantastic prizes and be celebrated in our workplace. Anything where people can strive to be better through an award system or through education or whatever it may be, I think it’s 100% the way forward.’

‘I understand how important it is when chefs aspire to three Michelin stars. It’s the Holy Grail for chefs, for their restaurants and their teams, and I think it’s extremely important.’

The perception of hospitality as a career

Jason has strong views on why young talent is put off joining the industry. ‘The past two years haven’t been easy, and we’re still tarnished. We’re not sharing the amount of change that’s already happened and movies like Boiling Point don’t help, showing the industry like that, when that much drama doesn’t happen in one day.’

‘We have beautiful career opportunities that can take you anywhere in the world. You don’t have to have an MBA, you don’t have to have a degree, you don’t have to go through personality training to be in our industry. You work hard, use a bit of common sense and show a bit of determination and you can go on and do great things. I don’t think we shout about that enough.’

‘We need to address the idea of unsociable hours and long days. That’s gone, even in top restaurants. Swearing in kitchens is another one – we don’t allow swearing under any circumstances throughout the company while, if I’m honest, that wasn’t the case four years ago. Hospitality has changed, it’s a different landscape now.

‘Our industry is so diverse and there’s nothing that can give you a better career. You can be a chef within five years, rise to Master Chef and within 10 years you could be running a Four Seasons Hotel in Egypt. The number of people I know who started out as a chef and are now General Managers of five-star resorts! Not many industries can give you that.

Lack of government support for hospitality

The hospitality sector is a major contributor to the UK’s economic wellbeing. Jason feels that more could and should have been done to support the sector during the pandemic.

‘I’m extremely disappointed with the way the government handled things. In terms of perception, the articles that appeared are very selective and didn’t show enough respect for what we bring to this country as one of the best restaurants and hotel offerings in the world.’

‘The government hid behind furlough which ended up costing restaurants like ours, and so many others, a lot of money. Money we had to borrow from the bank and the whole thing was badly handled. In comparison when you look at France, and how important tourism as a career is. French chefs were given money to keep their businesses alive, to pay their staff and not have to pay it back. They understood the need to come out of the pandemic with Michelin star restaurants intact and ready to attract tourism, to bring people back to the country.’

Building a partnership with Haringey College

An exciting new development for The Social Company is a partnership with Haringey College with the first graduates joining Jason’s team next week. Jason chose the north London college and sees this as an opportunity to encourage young talent into the industry. ‘We have six people joining the kitchen on a trial basis and if that works out, we’re going to create the Jason Atherton Academy, focusing on both front and back of house within our company, with up to 40 students, and we’ll co-fund an apprenticeship scheme.’

‘The reason we chose Haringey College is because I wanted to help people who needed it the most, who come from more difficult backgrounds, to make it in our industry. I felt we were equipped to help people so that’s why we chose Haringey. It can be difficult for students from Haringey to get into companies like ours, so we want to work with them, raise the profile of the college and make it a place kids want to go to.’

What advice would you give anyone thinking about hospitality as a career?

Jason had some great advice for anyone thinking about opportunities in hospitality. ‘You’ve got to be serious about it. A lot of people see our industry as a bypass to something else. But the problem with that is if you don’t take it seriously, it’s too hard. It takes a lot of time, concentration, and hard work.’

Don’t be average. ‘I always wanted to be a chef and decided, at the age of 16, that I was going to do it for the rest of my life.  I was going to do it, and do it properly, so for me it just seemed like the logical thing to do. I needed to be good at it. There’s no point being average at anything.’

‘My ethos is to do better tomorrow than I did today. If you can do that every day you can’t help but succeed.’

AA Hospitality Awards 2022

This year the AA Hospitality Awards take place on Monday 26th September 2022at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, where the next AA Chef’s Chef of the Year will be announced in front of some of the industries finest chefs. Caterer.com are delighted to sponsor this award again which recognises excellence, hard work and a passion for fine cuisine.

Source: www.jasonatherton.com 

 

Image Credit: John Carey
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