Among the numerous, and very varied, challenges facing every independent restaurateur after their first restaurant has met with success is whether, where and what to open next. And this decision brings with it a set of different challenges.
As Danny Meyer wrote in Setting the Table (HarperCollins, 2006), his still-essential book on restaurants and hospitality, every second restaurant poses two new issues: for the first and last time you will be doubling the size of your company and, more importantly, you will no longer be able to fulfil all the roles that first enticed you into the business. You will have to learn to delegate. And that means hiring many other individuals.
Five years ago, two very talented chefs, Jack Croft and Will Murray, expertly supported by entrepreneur James Robson, opened Fallow on London’s Haymarket, which has proved a major success. It is big – 5,000 sq ft over three floors – and very busy, serving over 600 customers a day at breakfast, lunch and dinner 365 days a year. The kitchen, despite or possibly because of these numbers, also focuses heavily on an admirable waste-not-want-not approach.
Then two years ago the same talented trio opened Roe, named after a smaller species of deer, in Canary Wharf, the relatively new business district in London’s old dockland, a 25-minute tube ride away from Fallow plus a 10-minute walk at the other end. Roe is vast: 10,000 sq ft spread over four floors, with plenty of outdoor seating and, on the day we visited, a stand feeding multiple sunbathers with tacos stuffed with aged beef, salsa verde and garlic crumbs. It was a visit that had stimulated no shortage of questions when I subsequently sat down with Murray, in the same seat in Fallow as I had occupied for my first interview with him back in November 2021.
But firstly I began by asking Murray to pass on an enormous thank-you to our waiter and his manager after our visit to Roe. We had gone with two old friends from France and she – I had forgotten this – is allergic to garlic. Fortunately, the waiter asked for any allergies before he took our order and then his face went a little green at her response. ‘Let me get my manager’, came the sensible reply and five minutes later she approached with a second menu. This was exactly the same but with GARLIC written in ballpoint pen across the top and a series of ticks and crosses by each item. It was a really excellent response.
When I had finished my paean of praise, Murray smiled. ‘Since we first opened we have established a kind of food bible that is powered by AI, into which every single ingredient of every single dish is inputted. So it is quite easy for our waiting staff to access the most appropriate response. But I am very happy that they responded correctly. An allergy to garlic is difficult for any kitchen to cope with and particularly ours because we incorporate a lot of garlic.’
He went on to explain another of Roe’s distinctive features. ‘We made life difficult for ourselves by choosing this site which is twice the size of our original restaurant and also has a vertical garden, for which we employ two full-time gardeners, and is both hydroponic and aeroponic. It’s quite an asset, even if it does not quite wash its face commercially because it is very labour intensive, but it does teach our staff different skills and it reinforces our ethos.’
But there have been major changes to working hours. ‘The biggest shift came when we switched all our staff to a 48-hour working week which means that they can complete their roles in three-and-a-half days. In both sites and our media side we now employ about 260 people.’
But why, I wanted to know, did they choose Canary Wharf? What was it about this site that made them invest several million pounds plus a great deal of time, effort and brainpower in a site so far from central London, and their original site?
Murray smiled. ‘Well, our second site had to appeal to all three of us. We work well together, we each have our different strengths: James is a terrific negotiator; Jack has a great eye for detail; and he and I both still enjoy cooking, having been friends since we met in the kitchen of Dinner restaurant in 2015. Perhaps we have been fortunate to have the Crown Estate as our landlord, here at Fallow. They have been a tremendous support, particularly during COVID. And we seemed to find the same support from all the team at Canary Wharf. When they showed us the site with plenty of space for a large open kitchen, with vast amounts of natural light pouring in and the water just outside, we all agreed it would repay the effort.’
He claims the effort has definitely been worth it, ‘although of course the first few months were tricky. We had filled up our menu at Fallow with all our favourite dishes cooked in the way we like to eat: some snacks; our flatbreads; and meat and fish – all the odd cuts that have so much flavour from the grill – so there was a strong pull to repeat all these. But then we discovered that at Canary Wharf there are effectively three distinct types of customers who are looking for very different styles of meals.’
‘The first are those who come to work here at Canary Wharf who want their food in 45 minutes although they may then stay much longer. For these customers, we have to be swift; we have a Roe selection, and the kitchen has to stay open all the time. Then there are those who live nearby who tend to have a high disposable income and come here to celebrate a special occasion or just to have a good time. They tend to want something out of the ordinary, so we have a bottomless brunch on a Saturday and a special menu on a Sunday for them. Then there is the increasing number of visitors and tourists who simply want somewhere to eat, drink and relax. It took quite a while for us to understand the differences and to fully appreciate them.’
The result of the past two year’s trading as well as the accumulated experience of this talented trio is a menu that appears deceptively straightforward but in fact encompasses over 30 intricate dishes (nine if you are unlucky enough to have a garlic allergy). These are broken down into snacks, small plates, grilled skewers, ‘wildfarmed flatbreads’, large plates, and five meat dishes from the grill.
While we waited for our waiter’s response to the garlic question two of us ordered a glass of Gaia, Monograph Assyrtiko 2024, a third a glass of Garcia Pérez, Parajes del Valle Monastrell 2023 Jumilla from a well assembled list. The different flavours and textures of the menu eventually became obvious from dishes served, as is the current vogue, when the kitchen was ready to send them out. A salad of Devon crab with makrut lime and horseradish; skewers of ox tongue and cheek with a mustard glaze (shown above); another of mushrooms with curry leaf and garlic; and ‘mussel thermidor’ topped with broccoli tops. Our garlic-intolerant friend was extremely happy with a (actually quite spongy) flatbread topped with Tunworth cheese, pumpkin, sage and honey (shown below) and a burger enlivened by hen of the woods mushrooms.
We finished on a very sweet note, the four of us sharing two desserts – a rhubarb and custard soft-serve ice cream with extra rhubarb and a rice-and-raisin pudding topped with Earl Grey ice cream – ignoring our waiter’s recommendation of the caramelised banana parfait with toasted vanilla. As I was leaving our interview, Murray also mentioned this dessert, pictured below – another reason to return to Roe?
The bill for the four of us came to £219.72.
Roe 5 Park Drive, Canary Wharf, London E14 9GG. Open seven days.
All images from Roe except for that of Canary Wharf and the double skewer pictured by Nick.
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
