Now simply scroll down
Now simply scroll down
Judge for the Best Foodvenience store in the World 2025
'Thought Sherpa' for Des Hagues' thinking academy
delighted to accept the invitation www.deshague.com
Member of the HRC advisory board for 2026.
Hotel Restaurant Catering Excel show
Stadia support & design
Champions League & Premiership Award Winning F&B Stadia
The Commonwealth Stadium was finally handed over to the English owners of Manchester City Football Club after the Games. We were involved for nearly twenty years, spanning three ownerships, eight football managers, and two contract caterers.
John Benson-Smith, together with Manchester City Football Club, were very ambitious towards F&B and Hospitality with their new Stadium. We were engaged before the then-new Stadium opening to drive the radical alterations internally and externally that needed to be made.
We created, proposed and guided the F&B and Catering offer for all areas, including Hospitality, Concessions and all of the associated features, including the first team. Our original groundbreaking pioneering work in UK Stadia set the best in class standard and pace, which other Clubs and Contract caterers both in the UK and Europe then mimicked and copied over many years.
Over twenty years, our remit covered the following, and we finally hung up our boots at Etihad in January 2023
:
- All Catering layouts and designs, Inc., Concessions, kitchens and all associated
- Areas of design and fit out relative to Restaurants and front of house
- Every concept, and participated in crafting brands
- External Catering Inc. fans zone City Square
- All zones of the new build city football academy training ground
- Every Catering area, including the new CFA Mini Stadium
- All staff feeding, including first team, Academy, Women's, Directors, and Youth
- Occasional input into New York City FC
- Initial hotel and new associated build
- Encapsulating the complete Eastlands site to include the new arena site, Co-op Live under one caterer.
Our involvement also then covered the following Clubs -
Crystal Palace FC - Fulham FC - Watford FC - FC Bayern - Real Madrid FC - Birmingham City FC - Hull City FC
Tottenham Hotspur FC - Manchester City Football Club - Scottish Football Association - Leicester City FC - plus various others, including UEFA, Healthy eating
New Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Our year-long, detailed involvement encompassed supporting, evaluating and driving an estimated £50m Catering tender contract for the Tottenham Hotspur FC at the newly built Spurs White Hart Lane stadium.
This new award-winning stadium is London's largest, which also hosts the NFL.
New Pier at Fulham FC
Our F&B Catering involvement was over eight years and two ownerships at Craven Cottage, London, with Fulham FC. It captured many renditions &designs of this startling new stadium stand and its very unique 365-day use.
Fulham has a unique approach to its legendary customer care, often referred to as 'Fulhamish.' Its River Thames location brings back many fond memories of working with this fantastic client.
Hotel support
Creating amazing F&B in Hotels is so vitally important to the Customer. It is about creating mood, light, music, buzz, atmosphere on trend with smiles and naturally great food.
Our clients and experience have been extensive, spanning a vast variety of four- and five-star Hotels. These included:
- Concept creation in Aberdeenshire
- Hotel group in Scotland, Perthshire
- Boutique Hotel Perth
- Bartle Hall Country House in Lancashire
- St Michael's Hotel in Falmouth, Cornwall
- Victoria and Albert Hotel, Manchester
- Hotel Indigo Manchester
- IHG Hotels
- Atrium Hotels, Greece
- Callow Hall Hotel
- The ELH Hotel group in the Lake District
- Hazlewood Castle Hotel, Tadcaster
- Forte Worldwide Hotel Group
- Whitbread chain PI
- Brighton Hotels
- Black Swan Hotel, Helmsley
- London Five-Star hotels
- Granada TV Theme Parks and Hotels
- Variety of other Hotels
Instagrammable is the standard, but it is also about creating your own immersive venue of experiences and atmosphere
Over the last ten years, we worked with the fantastic award-winning bespoke Lancashire Country House Hotel, Bartle Hall, which sits in sixteen acres of landscape gardens and woodlands.
Our focus was to support the ownership with direction and commercial influence, as well as focusing on and improving the F&B menus to develop and create that exclusive Wow.
Bartle now offers many on-trend features heavily influenced by its private ownership. Examples are its winter Alpine Bar featuring luxury hot chocolate with kicks—the all-year-round outdoor BBQ kitchen designed and enjoyed with its curative event stylists for exclusive weddings.
It features the style of the main hall, the Coaching barn, and the Thicket Lodge.
1000 year old challenge in the golden triangle of York, Leeds and Harrogate
Back in 1996, the conversion of a derelict one-thousand-year-old Castle of great historical significance was no easy project.
Hazlewood Castle, set in 77 acres of land, was transformed into an award-winning hotel, restaurantcaféfé, conference, cookery school, event and wedding venue.
The Castle needed substantial repurposing and development. As a Grade 1 & 2 listed property, it was of great interest to English Heritage, the Elizabethan Society, and the Georgian Society. We needed to install all mains services, road and communication networks within a plethora of restrictions and challenges. The sympathetic and mindful conversion from a monastery into a commercial, privately-owned hotel, a hugely successful cookery schoolcaféfe and an award-winning fine dining restaurant and chapel, hosting conferences, nd events and weddings, which gained local and national recognition.
Formulating commercial opportunities in the face of significant challenges, including huge overheads that were heavily biased towards food and beverage, and establishing the business from scratch, which required a substantial level of commercial sales to survive and a clear understanding of the diverse range of customer profiles to thrive.
As the operational principals, we drove the business from zero to achieve significant levels of sales and reputation.
Restaurant support
Middle Eastern taste of one of our Restaurant concepts & creations
Working for the high-profile, Arabian Client Al Hajery to identify sustainable opportunities for an innovative Mediterranean-style Restaurant concept. Initially within Kuwait, then to roll out a limited number of restaurants, eventually throughout the Middle East.
We commenced by researching and understanding the market, trends, and competitors to build an authentic artisanal Mediterranean restaurant concept and pulling together essential values and a cultural ethos and identity that were developed into suitable dishes that would translate to the Middle Eastern market.
We opened two sites for the Client, one in Kuwait's exclusive high-profile Phase 4 Avenues Mall and the second restaurant in Murouj. Kuwait's premier lifestyle destination. In addition, we designed and advised on a central production unit for the company.
The success of the two openings in Kuwait led us to being commissioned to work for the client's other F&B businesses in Kuwait with an overarching role in strategy.
This included :
- Adjusting the offering for the local clientele and customer demographics, working up locations/sites/sizing/return on investment
- P&L forecast and budgets, operational modelling,
- Food methodology, designing products, services, and their design approach into workflows, logistics and ergonomics.
- Including search, selection and recruitment,
- Internal details such as menu design, NPD and costings,
- Project management, working with interior designers, brand design agency, kitchen design layouts,
- Plotting spaces, specification of equipment, and tendering (challenging circumstances and individuals)
- Working with contractors on site, deliveries, fit out, installation, handover,
- Pre-opening, staff role play and training,
- Promotional marketing and working with the team operationally from pre-opening through day-to-day trading and into profit.
The expansion continued, and we opened two additional restaurants in U Walk, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with success.
www.gastronomica-me.com
We were delighted to work with the team at Gastronomica Middle East recently. A leading, award-winning Restaurant operator in the GCC region, including Dubai, KSA, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait, offering a total dining concept and experience.
Shortlisted in GCC for Restaurant & bar design awards 2023, proudly certified as a great place to work.
One of the 50 best Restaurants by S.Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.
Award winning innovation in Manchester
We were involved with Manchester City Football Club and its chosen caterer, F3 (jointly owned by USA giants Legends and Absolute Taste), regarding the design, fit-out, and mobilisation of the award-winning, stunning Asahi Super Dry Tunnel Club Premier. This was one of a multitude of Restaurant hospitality concepts created at the Etihad. The Tunnel Club is the most immersive Restaurant experience in the world of football, bringing you closer to the action than ever before.
Restaurants
The Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, comprising eighteen rocky, volcanic islands between Iceland and Norway in the Northern Atlantic Ocean
Totally backstory focused
We were working with renowned Nordic Photographer Arjan Wilmsen on a captivating project in the Faroe Islands. Our storytelling focused on the essence of a breathtaking archipelago of a hamlet Restaurant. The goal is to capture the essence of Faroese food with its heritage, simplicity, and traditions. Crucially telling the story of two characters, origin, charm, emotion and the stunning location. More to follow.
Arts & culture support
Food, drink and great service within the Arts
At F&B Business, our mission is to help businesses achieve sustainable growth, success and renown by providing them with expert business and management consulting services, whatever their food offering and facility.
Often, Catering can be the byproduct and not the main attraction or events, making the challenge of yielding profit, controlling costs, queues, staffing, flexing with price point and offering more of a challenge. The needs of different groups and clientele are paramount and need research and understanding.
Theatres
We have worked for clients within the Arts, including:
- West Yorkshire Playhouse
- Festival Theatre Edinburgh
- Birmingham Hippodrome
- Bradford Alhambra Theatre
- Octagon Theatre Bolton
- Grand Theatre Blackpool
- The Green Room Manchester.
The Arts council
We also conducted a 360-degree review of F&B Catering outlets for the Arts Council, which included forensically investigating:
- Gallery Oldham
- Victoria Theatre Halifax
- Touchstones Rochdale
- Manchester Art Gallery
- Urbis Manchester.