S3 Ep13: Jon Spiteri - The Genius Restaurateur On How He Created London's Great Restaurants Including; The French House, St John & Sessions Arts Club.

Today we're joined by arguably the most successful restaurateur in the country in Jon Spiteri who has created such institutions as The French House in Soho, St John in Farringdon and latterly Sessions Arts Club. He takes us through his colourful career from working at Joe Allen's in the 70s as a waiter, to winning mixologist of the year in Australia, to mastering the art of hospitality in America before returning to the UK where a chance meeting with Fergus Henderson changed his life and London's restaurant scene over night. We hear about the hardships of setting up such famous institutions, the challenges of convincing diners to trust 'nose to tail' in the early days, the art of the long lunch, Jons close shaves with alcohol and drugs, the secrets behind hospitality, the main challenges facing the industry and much more.... ------------ Order award winning meats direct to your door from Swaledale Butchers - https://swaledale.co.uk/ Head to www.delli.market and discover the thousands of creative products dropping daily and use the code GOTODELLI for 25% off everything from us. Check out Square's an all-in-one restaurant tech solution here - www.square.com Please subscribe and leave us a comment, and if you enjoy the podcast please listen to our audio only podcast that we bring out each Thursday whereby we interview the top chefs in the UK and beyond - https://link.chtbl.com/Vg8g3qpb Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter here - https://open.substack.com/pub/thegoto.. . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.