The idea
A property that bends to every request will eventually lose the character that brought the request to its door. A property that refuses to change will calcify into a museum of its own past. Staying true is the discipline of holding both at once: protecting what the operation is while letting it evolve every day.
Albert Adrià, then chef of Tickets and the elBarri group in Barcelona, gave me the argument in one sentence.
“The key is to stay as pure as possible while trying to evolve.” Albert Adrià, then chef of Tickets and the elBarri group, Barcelona
Stay pure means refusing the deal or the guest preference that would, if accommodated, turn the property into something it is not. Try to evolve means refusing the opposite temptation, which is to treat yesterday’s standard as finished. The operators in this book who endured held both for decades.
The first half starts with knowing what to measure yourself against. Virgilio Martínez of Central in Lima told me that early in his career he cared a great deal about reviews, and that today the main person who can criticize him is himself. That reorientation is the precondition for saying no with any consistency. The operator calibrating to the latest review will accept whatever direction the next reviewer suggests. The operator calibrating to an internal standard, and to what is fair to the team, has ground to stand on when the market asks for something the property should not become. The market asks in many forms, from an expansion that would split the senior team’s attention to a menu change that drifts the kitchen from its identity. The discipline is to recognize, in the moment, whether a request is a useful pressure on the standard or a corrosive one. The first kind is welcomed. The second is politely declined.
The second half is harder. Eneko Atxa of Azurmendi in Larrabetzu described evolving without eroding as a daily posture rather than a strategic decision.
“We must feel naked of prestige, and we must earn that respect anew.” Eneko Atxa, Azurmendi, Larrabetzu
Atxa’s kitchen does not believe in radical change from one day to the next. It believes in constant, incremental change, with one restraint attached: there are things already brought to a standard worth protecting, and the operator’s job is to know which they are and leave them alone. Every dish evolves across services and seasons, and the kitchen remains recognizably itself. Ricardo Costa at The Yeatman in Porto said the same from the other direction. Unless a recipe is perfect, the dish needs to evolve because the world has evolved.
Identity rooted in place is a competitive strategy rather than a sentiment. Rodolfo Guzmán built Boragó in Santiago around indigenous Chilean ingredients when serious Chilean dining looked to Europe, and the restaurant was empty for six years before the choice paid off. What he built cannot be copied by a chef anywhere else. An identity rooted in fashion is copied within eighteen months.
At your level, you are unlikely to be fielding term sheets. You are fielding the smaller versions every week, such as the regular who wants the dish you took off the menu, or the manager who wants the service sequence shortened because a competitor did it. The discipline is to write down what your operation is, in terms specific enough to test a request against, and then to run every request through it. Say yes to the pressure that sharpens the standard. Decline the pressure that would erode it, courteously and without changing course. Keep refining everything that is not yet at the standard, and leave alone the things that are.
Think it through
- In one paragraph, describe what your hotel, restaurant or team is that a competitor across the street is not, using specifics rather than adjectives.
- What was the last change you made because a guest, a reviewer or a manager asked for it, and did it sharpen the standard or dilute it?
- Which element of your operation is already at a standard worth protecting, and who on the team knows it should not be touched?
- What accolade or past success is your team still leaning on, and what would the first hour of service look like if you set it down?
This week
The exercise is an identity test: a half page statement of what your operation is, and a log of every request this week scored against it.
- On day one, write a half page stating what your operation is and is not, in terms specific enough to decide a case (ingredients, pace, tone, the things you will never do for a guest and the things you will always do).
- Each day, record every request to change something, whether from a guest, a colleague, a manager or a review, in one line each.
- Beside each request, mark whether honoring it would sharpen the standard, erode it, or make no difference, and write one sentence on why.
- Act on at least one request you marked as sharpening, and decline at least one you marked as eroding, politely and without explanation beyond what the person needs.
- Separately, choose one element you consider already at standard and one that is not, and make one small improvement to the second while leaving the first untouched.
- At the end of the week, reread the statement from day one and correct anything the week proved wrong.
Look for how often your first instinct was to say yes to a request the test later scored as eroding, and for whether the statement held up under a real week of pressure.
In the book
Chapter 11 holds the stories this lesson can only point to: Rodolfo Guzmán’s six empty years at Boragó, Virgilio Martínez building Central’s menu around Peruvian altitude, Sjefke Jansen protecting the Russian character of the Belmond Grand Hotel Europe, and Gerrit Graef’s definition of what The Ritz-Carlton is actually selling. It also carries the full argument on brand as substance, on identity surviving the founder, and on the personal disappointments an operator absorbs by saying no, with Kwong Wai Keung and Guy Savoy on the foundations a kitchen refuses to disturb.