Skye Gyngell on celebrating 10 years of Spring

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Congratulations on 10 years of Spring. Tell us what you remember about the restaurant’s launch

What I really remember is it being this huge, grown-up thing and almost drowning in how to put it together. I’d come from almost 10 years at Petersham Nurseries, where we had this tiny kitchen and were only open during the day. I worked with a small team of about six people and went from that to this gorgeous site in Somerset House that involved dozens of people, including more than 20 chefs. It’s a Grade 1-listed building, which meant we couldn’t even put a nail in the wall without permission. We had 97 planning applications to Westminster Council, which took 18 months to go through. We were working with a single farm (Fern Verrow) for a lot of our produce, which was a new thing for restaurants in England, so we were cultivating that relationship and had to make sure we had enough produce. Ten years on, I have an amazing team, and the restaurant runs like clockwork.

What are the biggest challenges you face now?

I feel like some people look at me and see this big glamourous restaurant and assume we must be rolling in money. But the reality is that washing our face is a good year for us. Post-Brexit, pricing is crazy, and with inflation too people often say that we’re so expensive. Yet for us to buy turbot it’s £40 per kilo, and you get four potions from that, so before you put anything else on the plate it’s costing you £10. If you’re lucky, you’re looking for 10% profit, but very often you don’t even get that.

Spring was the first single-use plastic free restaurant in London. How did you achieve that?

The focus at the start was on making sure we didn’t get overwhelmed. We looked at six items at a time, starting with things like straws and soap. There was a team member in each department of the business looking at how they could cut plastic from their area. We got rid of pens and moved to pencils, stopped using J cloths and clingfilm, and then told our suppliers that we weren’t accepting anything that comes in single-use plastic. They’ve been so amenable. The milk we get now comes in pails, while meat and fish come in paper. We worked out that our plastic consumption would stretch from London to John o’ Groats in Scotland. And that’s just one restaurant. It seems to have really worked; a lot of restaurants have come to us for advice about cutting plastic in the kitchen.

Another early initiative you introduced was the Scratch Menu to use up food waste

We’ve been doing it for over eight years now and were probably one of the first to do it. We have a Scratch shelf where all our food waste goes, and our commis chefs are then on rota to create dishes for the menu. It’s a real learning opportunity for them, and a space to think about food and what you can do with different ingredients. It’s reduced our food waste down to nothing. In fact, we have to cap Scratch now because otherwise we’d be borrowing from the food we’re already cooking, and it wouldn’t be genuine.

How did your early career in kitchens inform you as a leader?

I’ve worked hard to champion women in the kitchen. I started out working at a restaurant in Sydney while I was studying, initially washing up before helping create dishes in the kitchen. It was run by this amazing female chef and was a brilliant place to learn the craft. As my career progressed though I was very often the only woman in the kitchen and a lot of them could be brutal places to work. Since I’ve been in the position of leading a kitchen, I’ve defined it in my image. My ideal kitchen is a mixed one, but I think women are drawn to Spring as it’s a kitchen that already has a lot of women in it. I also believe that we ask a lot of chefs and have the responsibility to treat them kindly – to feed them with staff meals and offer regular training on different sections of the kitchen. You don’t make people cook better by screaming at them and a happy kitchen is super important. I’m an elder of the industry now. I’ve had a beautiful career but it’s time for a younger generation to come through. For me it’s about focusing on mentoring those team members and hopefully make it a beautiful career for them too.

What are your hopes for the next 10 years of Spring?

My time of being super ambitious has come and gone. I hope it survives for another 10 years, and that relies on us cooking beautiful food and delivering great service. I just hope that can continue, and we can have wonderful talented people work for us and go further. I want it to be a happy place that thrives. I want to do more work with the farm, have a growing programme, and bring younger people back to the land. They’re small ambitions. I don’t want to open another restaurant or conquer the world. I just want to continue to feel proud of the work we do. We’re not perfect and we can still go further, but everything we do is done authentically.