When Will GM's Finally Get Their Recognition?

Yes, you could say I am a disgruntled ex GM with a bee in my bonnet, but why do the Chefs get ALL the recognition, when GM’s are literally running the whole place?

It consistently remains that the Chef leading a project gets all the media mentions. This new project is ‘ex wherever chef who will bring XXXX style of food’ or ‘ex so and so Baker who has worked in Copenhagen, under Michelin star chef XXX’ etc etc. Of course, this is vitally important and we all want to know who is cooking the food. But let’s not forget who is going to ensure the rest stacks up. Crucially, that the huge newspaper review that follows the opening doesn’t slag off the slow service, the cleanliness of the glassware, the friendliness of everyone who greets them, the wine knowledge of the team and 1,648 other elements of their visit. Without the all important GM, the place isn’t running, most of the star chefs are not being supported and the doors quite literally are not opening each day. So I would love to see some more recognition of the all encompassing, all consuming role of the vital Head Honcho.  

Maybe the wider public don’t necessarily care (yet), because who the chef is, is much more interesting, and heaven forbid we do not want cheffing as an industry to become any less sexy, cool, interesting and attractive. But I feel like within our industry there is a lot more attention and acknowledgement that can be placed on the vital role of a GM. There must be nothing more rewarding for a team than when a really positive newspaper/magazine review comes in, (I could never relate as Pizza express wasn’t awash with many hot media reviews in my tenure). But I also always read them through the GM’s eyes. Zero mention of who runs the place, it’s all about the chef and potentially the owner, which I always feel must be a bit of a shitter.   

This Substack wont change much of course, but as a platform, through series like Top Floor (and a few other things we have in the pipeline), we will continue to sing the praises and keep the spotlight firmly on the Front of House, because we know how f*cking hard it is and how nothing would be possible without them. In a world where everyone wants to be in Ops, wouldn’t it be a great idea to make GM’ing the sexiest role going and as a minimum, see their name in print in the weekly industry newsletters every now and again.