Tom Sellers is one among London’s most profitable cooks. Since debuting Restaurant Story when he was solely 26, Sellers has constructed a flexible, well-regarded group of eating places and earned a number of deserved accolades alongside the best way. However Sellers, now 37, doesn’t assume he’s reached the highest simply but.
“We’ve climbed possibly two-thirds of the best way up the mountain,” he tells Observer, talking from Restaurant Story’s personal eating room in September. “We’re nonetheless climbing. It’s a journey and the highway is lengthy. I most likely didn’t get pleasure from that journey for the primary 5 years after Restaurant Story opened. Now it’s about making an attempt to get pleasure from this course of, making an attempt to get pleasure from bringing on new expertise, making an attempt to benefit from the evolution of the restaurant being pushed on my own and by others. It takes a variety of power and time and dedication to maintain strolling up the mountain, however I really feel that power right here proper now.”
Lately, Sellers is on the helm of Restaurant Story, which earned its second Michelin star in 2021. In 2023, he debuted each trendy European eatery Dovetale in 1 Resort Mayfair and Story Cellar, a Parisian-inspired rotisserie. He’s within the strategy of opening a take a look at kitchen and workplace across the nook from Restaurant Story’s Bermondsey location. Sellers shifts his time between the three eating places and his work with manufacturers like Rolls-Royce and Bang & Olufsen as a chef ambassador. It’s a balancing act that takes up six days per week, with solely Sundays for himself.
“I’m at all times on the restaurant,” Sellers admits. “And if I’m not, it’s as a result of I’m at Story Cellar or at an occasion out of the country or in a gathering. However I really like being in my eating places. I really like making an attempt to affect the environments in a manner that refines and sharpens the main focus for all. But it surely’s actually essential I additionally permit the individuals who work in my eating places to have the ability to flourish and to have the ability to ship the expertise. You may change into disruptive in case you over-manage.”
Sellers doesn’t thoughts being this busy, principally as a result of he’s by no means identified issues another manner. He’s been the one working Restaurant Story because it opened, relatively than handing over the reins to a restaurant group or traders. He manages with such a deft hand that it’s nearly stunning to be taught that rising up, Sellers had no need to be a chef. It was solely after experiencing the environment of an expert kitchen at 15, when he began washing dishes half time at a restaurant in Nottingham whereas nonetheless at school, that he discovered his calling.
“I fell in love with the setting of the kitchen—the power and the hierarchy and the self-discipline and, at instances, the volatility,” he says. “I beloved it and possibly wanted it on the time. After which I used to be very lucky to go work with some superb cooks in superb kitchens.”
After shifting to London at 16, Sellers “jumped straight in.” He labored at Restaurant Tom Aikens in London earlier than shifting on to Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York and René Redzepi’s Noma in Copenhagen. It was throughout this time that Sellers started to think about his personal restaurant.
“By the point I got here to London I had determined, ‘I’m going to open my very own restaurant sooner or later,’” he recollects. “I didn’t know the way, I didn’t know why, however I knew that will occur. It was time within the business that was much less managed than it’s now by way of what was demanded of you as a human—the hours and the tempo of every part. There was no steadiness. So I made a decision that if I’m going to go and try this for 10 years, there must be one thing on the finish of it that’s for myself.”
From the start, the Nottingham-born chef knew he wished to name it Restaurant Story. The identify is much less literal than it sounds. Whereas a few of the dishes do inform an precise story, not every part is predicated in narrative. As an alternative, Sellers sees the expertise itself as a narrative, recounting every part that’s led him up to now. “The facility of storytelling is without doubt one of the most stunning issues that exists, from whenever you’re a toddler,” he says. “That is every part: the place I grew up, who introduced me up, the place I labored, every part that influenced me. My complete story is embedded in what we do right here.”
Some dishes are extra apparent than others. A mid-meal palate cleanser, dubbed “the half-time orange,” is paying homage to the orange slices delivered to children taking part in sports activities. One of many desserts is an homage to Paddington Bear’s beloved marmalade sandwich. Sellers likes threading the menu with these throwback moments. “It’s highly effective whenever you might be nostalgic like that, and you’ll create new meals reminiscences on the similar time,” he notes. “That’s one among our greatest strengths right here 13 years on, and it’s a part of our identification right here.”
The bread course is maybe probably the most well-known—and most Instagrammed—dish at Restaurant Story. It’s been on the menu because the day the restaurant opened in 2013. Within the early days, it was a shock: the server would carry a lit candle to the desk throughout the prior course, ultimately revealing that the pool of “wax” was really beef drippings. Once I dined just lately, the course’s fame preceded it. But it surely was nonetheless a whimsical delight to dip the brioche bread into the melted drippings.
The bread course was impressed by Sellers’ working class upbringing. He remembers his father consuming a model of bread with beef drippings and wished to pay homage to that. Every week, the workforce crafts between 200 and 400 of the candles. “It’s very arduous to provide you with an authentic thought,” he says. However I undoubtedly assume that was an authentic dish. And it’s very near my coronary heart. It’s been refined time and again by means of the years. From the primary incarnation to what it seems like now could be night time and day.”
He provides, “After we love the concept or we love the story and we love that second, then it’s about, ‘how can we elevate it? How can we progress it?’ That’s what we concentrate on probably the most.”
For Sellers, a high-level restaurant like Restaurant Story is as a lot in regards to the meals as it’s about making reminiscences and moments. “There’s solely to this point you may push the meals on the plate or over-manipulate it or reinvent it,” he says. “So it’s about ensuring that the produce that we use is the perfect purchasing we will do on the planet, and ensuring we care for that with the utmost respect and data. After which ensuring that folks have an incredible time and so they really feel relaxed in the environment and so they really feel like they’re a part of our restaurant. That’s a aware choice. We engineer the room and the service and the music and the tempo. It’s not by likelihood.”
It’s one thing he’s centered on extra as he’s gotten older. Sellers empowers his workforce to analysis friends upfront and create shocking or memorable experiences. If somebody is an enormous Manchester United fan, a team-branded scarf may present on the desk. The servers have curated lists of suggestions for Paris, simply in case they overhear a visitor say they’re heading throughout the Channel. It tends to get an overwhelmingly constructive response, which is precisely what Sellers is searching for.
“It’s at all times good to listen to when individuals say they actually get pleasure from their time right here, as a result of that’s finally the objective,” he says. “I’ve been round a very long time and meals is so subjective. Generally it’s important to remind your self of that.”
When Restaurant Story opened in 2013, the London culinary panorama was totally different. There have been much less younger, up-and-coming cooks and a 26-year-old recent off the go at Noma debuting his first restaurant was a giant deal. The excitement round Restaurant Story, situated in a transformed Victorian bathroom (it seems way more elegant than its historical past suggests), was intense. The scrutiny and a focus may have overwhelmed him, however the chef didn’t cave below the stress. As an alternative, Sellers obtained his first Michelin star solely 5 months later. It’s maybe why he has contended with the misunderstanding that he’s some kind of “unhealthy boy” chef ever since. Certain, he has some tattoos, however Sellers couldn’t be something however true skilled because the proprietor of Restaurant Story.
“I suppose it was as a result of I used to be younger and had that picture,” he says, shrugging, when requested about how a lot his fame as an elusive, rock ‘n’ roll-style chef with a disorderly background has dogged him. “I simply rolled with it. With the everyday working of my enterprise and the eating places and the extent that we function at, I don’t know whether or not I discover it humorous or insulting or each. It seems like lazy journalism. I used to be lucky to be written about straight away and I most likely leaned into it. It nearly grew to become a personality as a result of it gave individuals this intrigue about me.”
Sellers actually isn’t bothered by outdoors opinions. “I knew how arduous we had been working and the way arduous I’d labored beforehand to get there,” he says. “All the nice cooks that I labored below, and the quantity of hours and dedication I put in. I strive to focus on what we’re doing and the way we’re doing it.”
A number of cooks I’ve spoken to just lately, together with Humble Hen’s Angelo Sato, cite Sellers as an inspiration, each for his creativity within the kitchen and for his skill to drive his personal profession. He owns his eating places—a rarity in hospitality—and he needs to exemplify the highest one p.c of the business. He’s developed over time as a lot as his dishes have, though Restaurant Story’s ethos has by no means modified. There have been challenges, just like the pandemic, however Sellers simply sees all of it as a part of that upward journey.
“You have got good instances and unhealthy instances,” Sellers admits. “Generally you battle to be inventive. Generally you’re feeling burned out. And on the time, you’re telling your self you’re not burned out. You have got an up and down relationship with [the] media. Good issues are stated about you, then not so good issues are stated about you. The expectations include having a restaurant like this.”
Sellers usually asks himself and his workforce particular questions: Why did we open a restaurant? What do you need to really feel whenever you go to a restaurant? As a lot as they’ll philosophically reply, it’s the expertise at Restaurant Story that gives the actual responses. Visiting is a exact, considerate encounter between diner and employees that by no means feels pretentious or inaccessible. Throughout my meal, my accompanying good friend was so impressed by her discovery of finger lime, an ingredient she had by no means seen, that the kitchen despatched out a field of the citrus fruits for her to take dwelling. The restaurant feels on the cusp of a 3rd Michelin star, a objective that Sellers admits is current in his decision-making and efforts. And underscoring every part is the reply to Sellers’ why.
“I really like hospitality,” he says. “I really like creating happiness for individuals. That has to stay the essence of what we do, nevertheless far we push the meals. I used to be very younger after I opened my restaurant and had this dictatorial, driving perspective. And now I sit in a spot the place I’m surrounded by nice expertise and we have now nice conversations and we don’t make adjustments for change’s sake. We let the restaurant push us ahead as a substitute of pushing the restaurant ahead.”
