Chef Jason Atherton pictured at The Biltmore Hotel, London
(Picture: Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd)London celebrity chef Jason Atherton has warned he will have to start closing thriving restaurants in the new year because it has become impossible to recruit staff.
The Michelin-starred restaurateur, who has seven venues in the capital, including his Mayfair flagship Pollen Street Social, said he will only have a big enough team to operate “two or three” effectively if the recruitment crisis does not ease.
Atherton said he has 350 unfilled vacancies — representing about a third of his workforce — and faces having to make “heartbreaking” decisions as a result of the unprecedented shortfall. He said January will be the “crunch time” when he would have to decide whether to mothball restaurants and just pay the rent until the crisis eases.
He said: “I can’t open the Berners Tavern at lunchtime because I have no staff. I can only open for breakfasts for hotel guests. Social Eating House is on its knees. I just can’t get any chefs for that kitchen whatsoever. Little Social is really struggling to get chefs as well. I can’t even find a qualified corporate chef on a big salary who would fly around the world on business class. I can’t do anything to fill that position.
“The people left standing are working seven days a week, 18 hours a day to keep us propped up. I’ve just one member of my team saying they’re done with it, they’re not going to put up with this sh**t anymore.”
Atherton, who has cooked for David Cameron and Theresa May and was also involved in Downing Street’s GREAT Britain campaign, said he was furious with the Government for allowing Brexit to hobble the sector.
He said: “There is a really simple step that would help and that is rejoin the single market, we have no choice. Everyone knows the decision we took six years ago was the wrong decision. They sold us a lie.”
He said the Government had made recruitment from outside the EU a bureaucratic nightmare that could not possibly make up the shortfall.
He said: “We have a licence that cost us £50,000 to get talent from abroad. But the process takes six to eight months to get one visa for someone from India or the Philippines. It’s just such a slow process, it’s like putting a sticking plaster over a bullet wound.”
Hospitality chief Chris Yates, managing director of chef Angela Hartnett’s restaurant group, said: “The skill set is no longer there and we are forced to recruit relatively inexperienced people and train them to an acceptable level. This means restaurants operating at a reduced capacity with shorter menus, caps on covers and reduced operating hours.”
The warnings came as a host of other leading chefs including Tom Kerridge, Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and Raymond Blanc launched a recruitment drive to close the national shortfall estimated at 400,000 vacancies. The campaign called Rise Fast, Work Young, is backed by more than 300 businesses and will feature a six-figure advertising campaign using TikTok, digital adverts and high-profile outdoor spots.
