Wagyu scotch eggs and premium cocktails delivered to your door are just two of the things that residents of Twickenham can look forward to with the opening next month of M Restaurants new M Bar & Grill concept.
There will be many in the UK (well English) drinks and hospitality industry who might regard Twickenham as their second home for certain parts of the year. Martin Williams, founder of M Restaurants, will be hoping he can make it attractive to not just passing rugby fans, but also the wider local community by opening what will become the first in a mini group of new M Bar & Grill venues for the M Restaurants brand.
Williams is rightly excited about the potential of bringing what he calls “premium modern dining” to such a well-heeled but poorly serviced neighbourhood when it comes to the choice of local, quality restaurants and bars.
Anyone familiar with a day out at Twickenham for the rugby is more likely to go to nearby Richmond or Kew for any pre-match meals and banter. Post-match deliberations are then likely to take place in the infamous Twickenham car park such is the lack of dining and drinking opportunities outside of Pizza Express.
Williams hopes to offer a very different alternative, and is ideally located to do so. The first of the new M Bar & Grills venues is situated literally across the zebra crossing from the main Twickenham train station.
It is due to open later this month and will offer an interesting mix of gastro pub and restaurant dining to not just the residents of Twickenham, but what Williams hopes, and expects, will also bring in locals from around the area.
M’s new Bar & Grill is situated as part of a new luxury apartment and town house concept opposite Twickenham station
Huge interest
Williams says he has never had so much interest about a new venue opening before and has bookings taken in to October already. “I have never had people say they are so excited to have us here,” he says.
The Buyer decided to take a look for ourselves and joined Williams on a site visit at the end of last month. Standing listening and visualising where the new bar, wine dispensing machines, elevated booths and restaurant tables are going to be, it is hard not to be excited for Williams and his M team.
The M Bar & Grill format is about combining some of the best elements of a gastro pub with the kind of experience you can currently get at dining, or drinking, at either of M’s high hospitality venues in Victoria or Threadneedle Street in the City.
M Bar & Grill is situated directly opposite Twickenham train station
The site really could not be more ideally located. As well as being directly opposite Twickenham’s main station, Williams potentially has a loyal following literally on his doorstep for the M Bar & Grill will be one of two restaurants that are part of the new Brewery Wharf premium residential apartment and town house development.
He hopes to be able to build strong relationships with the residents there and is even willing to offer them a free home delivery service to help do so. So as well as your £1.7m Twickenham town house you can get priority reservations in the M Bar & Grill at the bottom of your drive and a half price discount to become a member of M Restaurants and cocktails and meals delivered to your door via the Viva app.
All day venue
Williams is very clear. He wants to make it a venue where you can happily come and have a coffee and a chat in the morning, host a business or family lunch in the restaurant or relax watching the cricket in the front bar area. It is the same sort of all day hospitality experience you can expect at M in central London, but tweaked to make it even more informal, relaxed and yet at the highest quality possible.
“The idea is to make people feel welcome and to come in to what will be a very attractive bar area,” he explains. “Then there will be the big reveal…” he adds pointing to what will be the restaurant area.
Right at the entrance will be a wide, imposing, oak, copper-topped bar with leather padded front. Inviting guests to come in and enjoy a drink and choose from a more casual dining, gastro pub-style menu with comfortable seating across a wooden floor.
Again the key here is to offer something very different from any local gastro pub. Like a Wagyu-based Scotch egg, or Wagyu pie, from the only Wagyu herd in Perthshire, Scotland.
They can also serve their own wines by the glass from a wine vending machine up against the left hand wall.
The restaurant area will feature raised private booths and a central banquette dining area
Wines on tap
Or they can choose wines served from a dedicated wine on tap area. Here a tiled area up against the back wall of the bar will feature four taps of keg wine flush to the wall. It is also an extension of the wine by tap offer that M Restaurants started with Hatch Mansfield at its Victoria site.
To the right and down the side of the building will be the restaurant, for 75 covers, which faces on to a path next to the River Crane. This will include central Quaglino-style back to back banquettes, with three raised booths for six people on the left hand side. All leading down to an open kitchen and pass at the end of the restaurant.
At the top and to the right of the main bar will be a flexible area that can be extended and separated by screens to allow for more seating when the bar area is busy or be used for more dining depending on the needs of the restaurant at the time.
Focus on staff
Around 80% of the staff at M Bar & Grill will come from M’s central London venues
All of which will be a hard trick to pull off as such an ambitious outlet relies on the quality of your staff. Which is always far more of a challenge the further outside of the West End you go.
It is why Williams is ensuring the Twickenham team will be nice balance between long standing members of his central London M team, who are currently working in Victoria or Threadneedle Street, and carefully selected local staff. The deputy manager at Victoria is to be the number one in Twickenham with the chef from Victoria leading the kitchen.
“We want people who are used to going to our restaurants in the city seeing familiar faces here,” he says. Particularly at the weekends where he will look to get current Victoria and Threadneedle Street staff to come and work in Twickenham. ‘Around 80% of our team here will have worked for us for at least a year.”
“That will be our big USP and will allow us to keep that high guest hospitality level that people are used to from M.”
He says M Bar & Grill will also give another opportunity for his “talented” team to show their skills in different ways. Particularly his executive chef Michael Reid and operations director, Andre Mannini.
Why Twickenham?
Plans to open a third restaurant on the scale of its first in Threadneedle Street were scrapped after the EU referendum vote
Walking amongst the pile of tiles and fixtures and fittings that will soon make up this new Twickenham format Williams admits this is not where he thought he would be opening his third venue prior to the EU referendum last year.
The vote to leave has not just sent the pound falling, and put politicians in a spin, but it has forced a major rethink for the hospitality industry, stresses Williams.
“Post-Brexit we have had the perfect storm of the devaluation of sterling by 15%, increase in importing overseas goods, the National and Living wage rises, and rates and rents have gone up by a third in the West End. How can you be profitable in that environment?”
It is already, he adds, harder for restaurants to recruit quality, talented individuals across Europe, that make cup a large part of M’s central London team. He fears there is going to be an abrupt halt to the number of openings in central London for restaurants not backed by the deep pockets of private equity.
“We worked out we could do two M Bar & Grills for the cost of doing another M Restaurant,” explains Williams.
Commuter belt dining
The kind of premium dining that M Bar & Grill customers can look forward to from executive chef Michael Reid
For Williams it has meant ripping up plans to open a third big central London venue. Instead he is actually more excited about the potential of taking that level of offer and service and re-creating it in smaller, more focused outlets in key, high earning commuter towns in and around London.
“People who dine with us on a Monday to Wednesday, are eating out where they live at the weekends where the choice might be between a Michelin-starred restaurant or a high street chain.”
He is a great admirer of what the Ivy has done with its growing chain on restaurants in similar suburban venues. “It has filled that gap very well.”
He hopes to be able to open another M Bar & Grill over the next six months and two more in 2018 and is busy looking at potential venues in the right locations.
The criteria, though, has to be right. It needs to be a town that is within an hour’s commute to London, and do people know the M brand there? Hence areas that have direct links in to Victoria and the City, home of its current restaurants, are high on the hit list.
He is also willing to spend what he thinks would be around 20% more on the build and fixtures and fittings than an average high street chain to ensure it sits above its potential local competition.
Comfortable pricing
M prides itself on sourcing the best quality steak from its key countries including South Africa, Australia and Japan
Williams is also looking to adjust his pricing to match what people are prepared to pay outside the West End. “We want our offer to similar as going to go a local gastro pub,” he says.
Steaks, for example, will start at £14 and go up to around £60-£70, compared to £18 in the City where top end steaks regularly sell for £200.
“Our average spend on a steak in the City is £40. Here it is more likely to be £25-30. Our margin won’t be as much. But that’s fine.”
Cocktails will start at around £7, and the wine list will move up from £16.50 a bottle and include a smaller range of the iconic wines it offers at M Restaurants. “We will still be able to offer our icon wines by the glass or through the vending machine. There will also be the wines on tap which we have a licence for to allow people to take away.”
Williams also wants to sell Champagne starting at £50 a bottle. “That will allow us to have Champagne by the glass at around £9-£10. But you can still buy Dom Perignon at £180 if you want to.”
The extra touch
Executive chef, Michael Reid, has been able to create both a gastro-pub and premium dining menus for M Bar & Grill
It is all the extra hospitality touches that Williams is confident will help M Bar & Grill stand out from the local competition. Be it the free home delivery to nearby residents, or the fact you can choose from a menu of pre-made bottles of cocktails created at the bar for you to enjoy at home.
Or the premium, added value touches to the menu.
Drinks partners
He will be working with his main drinks suppliers to offer something different in its Bar & Grill concept. Be it Bacardi and Brown Forman on the spirits side, or Matthew Clark, who helps service and source around three quarters of its wine list.
“We have had outstanding support from Matthew Clark and through them also been introduced to some of the Bibendum fine wine portfolio,” says Williams. “They will also source specific wines we want. They have the sort of long term view that we want. It was through them, for example, that we were introduced to Hatch Mansfield to do wine by tap we’ve also created a great partnership with Taittinger.”
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Back to the rugby
England rugby internationals at Twickenham will be crucial to the success of M Bar & Grill
Ultimately any conversation in Twickenham has to come back to the rugby and Williams already has plans to make full use of its ideal location. Not just for the big England internationals, but arguably, more importantly, to tap in to the regular passing Harlequins rugby fans who already use the path next to the restaurant as a short cut to the Stoop down the road.
Former England international, Simon Shaw MBE, and M shareholder, already hosts successful rugby dinners at M Restaurants and will be hosting events even closer to his old home at M Twickenham.
But with a wine list and menu focused around great rugby nations such as Australia, South Africa and Argentina the potential for hosting big wine events in and around major internationals is mouth watering. “We want to make this a special place to be at rugby weekends,” says Williams.
The pressure in on to try and get the restaurant ready to take advantage of rugby’s traditional opening game of the season and the Double Header fixture at Twickenham on September 2.
But the real game time for Williams and his M Bar & Grill team will be the official opening on September 12. Again Williams is looking to get the locals on board by offering half price dining for the first two weeks of September.
In fact the M restaurant team are doing their version of pre-season training by running the Grill menu for a month in Threadneedle Street before bringing it to Twickenham.
Then it’s all eyes down for the big M Bar & Grill kick-off on the 12th.
Details:
Where: Twickenham, Brewery Wharf
Opening: September 12, soft launch from September 2
Timing: Open 11am-11pm daily.
M Bar: 20 wines by the glass, four on tap, eight from wine vending machine.
M Grill: re-creation of a classic British grill with premium exclusive meat like Highland Wagyu.
Home delivery: to residents of Twickenham and room service for Brewery Wharf residents.
