I think I've finally decided that when I do get round to selling the house, I'm going to go to www.vatel.fr and learn how to be a professional chef, then invest in a restaurant near Montpellier here in the S of F (you're all on the guest list for opening night). It's going to take a few years to get there, raising some more money and learning the business, but I figure that one is rarely offered a chance to completely re-start one's life all over again. I've been a journalist for 25 years this September and it's been a great ride, but enough is enough. I always wanted to be a chef when I was a kid and got talked out of it by my mother, who was a professional cook herself.
My aim is to have a Michelin star within 5 years and three before I'm 50. The only 3-star restaurant anywhere near here is www.jardindessens.com and there's less than half a dozen others within easy driving distance, so they obviously need the competition.
What I'm wondering is if, within the group wisdom, there's anyone with experience of running restaurants here? Vatel will be a one-year MBA on all aspects of running a restaurant, from washing up to doing tax returns, and the structure of the course will give me a taste of everything but allow me to concentrate on the cooking. I intend to hire good people to run the business and do the bits I don't want to do.
I also know: (a) giving a good dinner party is nothing like running a restaurant and (b) don't be stupid you'll lose a fortune and (c) it's really, really hard work and (d) long hours are involved. Thank you, mother. I've found some interesting websites, Restaurant Magazine www.restaurantmagazine.co.uk and Restaurant Report
www.restaurantreport.com/index.html - anyone have any other recommendations?
The restaurant will be called Maison or Chateau Languedoc, with a cheaper bistro section trading on the Michelin-star reputation of the resto; and a bar with a great cocktail list. It'll have a few rooms for overnight stays but I don't want it to be a big-time hotel.
It won't be my only source of income, I'm going to continue with some writing and the property development business too. Eggs in several baskets, as it were.
Ideas, thoughts, suggestions welcomed.
OK, you almost certainly know this, but just so we make sure it's covered:
You mentioned possible trade names. If you can register them you should do so to secure them before someone else does so.
You may also need to keep them active. I used to work for Wrigley's (the chewing gum people) in Australia, and we and the US head office would regularly every year exchange a token amount of some chewing gum (didn't really matter what) in labels that covered all the registered but unused trade names. After I left them (I feel toward 1980-ish, but in retrospect maybe not too long after mid-1976), one of those trade names went active, and they started (for about ten years) selling one of their new sugarless gums under the trade name "Orbit", which had last been used in WW2 or the Korean War for chewing gum issued to the troops.