Supper club Business model

Supper clubs - once few and far between - are now firm fixtures across Europe. The question is: are they viable business?

Featured October 11 Words by Gemma Elwin Harris
Supper club Business model

Susana and Jo�o's garden is one of the prettiest spots in Lisbon. Jacarandas scatter violet blossom in June, March brings cyclamen and magnolias, and in winter tangerines ripen on the trees.

"We felt so lucky having found our lovely garden that we wanted to share it," says Susana, "with friends, with guests, with anyone who wants to see the city from a local's point of view."

Inspired by their experiences in the paladares (private, home-based restaurants) of Cuba, the couple opened Hush-Hush Garden (hush-hushgarden. blogspot.com), Lisbon's first underground supper club, earlier this year.

Susana and Jo�o run their new enterprise entirely from home - taking bookings over the internet, cooking and serving dinners. It's fun, but it's a hobby and they won't be quitting their day jobs (wine-tasting instructor and interior designer) any time soon.

While the supper-club scene in Lisbon is just emerging, those in other cities across Europe are well established and thriving. Does this mean there is the potential to turn home-run dining ventures into profitable businesses? As more pop-ups in the UK, Germany and France take their establishments to the next level, what can start-ups like Hush-Hush learn from the old guard?

Well placed to give advice is the undisputed queen of the London scene, Kerstin Rodgers - aka Ms Marmitelover - whose Underground Restaurant is a site of pilgrimage for supper-club owners and guerilla diners from around the world.

Opening her living room to diners in spring 2009, the photographer and single mother specialised in home-cooked food for a cosmoplitan crowd at �40 a head. Two years on, she has turned her tiny restaurant into a brand, making a full-time living from spin-off activities including national newspaper blogs and her glossy cookbook, Supper Club: Recipes and Notes from the Underground Restaurant. She's even in talks with TV companies about starting her own show.

"I'm a professional in that this is how I earn my living. I'm a chef, author, blogger, traveller, entrepreneur, trend spotter and events organiser," says Kerstin. "It's not an easy way to make money - I work all the time."

One of the plates she keeps in the air is an online directory of supper clubs and enthusiasts (supperclubfangroup.ning.com) in cities around the UK and Europe. After London, she says, the next European city to run with the trend is Berlin. There The Shy Chef, which started out four years ago "on a humble one-ring hotplate", is cooking up a storm in its Kreuzberg base and at quirky venues around the city.

"Berlin has the plus that it's cheaper than most European capitals. This allows us to rent amazing venues and it's more affordable for guests," says The Shy Chef, aka pop-up owner Costa, a film-maker by day. He makes a per-capita deal with host venues to keep costs down. "I've heard of London supper clubs charging �120 (�133) for a five-course menu with pairing wine, but we charge around half that at �63."

With his small profit from one or two weekly dinners - "Enough to pay my rent, bills and some pocket money. I am not Richard Branson!" he laughs - he splashes out on bringing in guest culinary talent. Diners have encountered rising young chefs from as far away as Sydney and, on one memorable occasion, Brad Pitt's personal cook, Roberto Cortez.

Costa even took The Shy Chef on tour this summer, popping up in Prague, London and Mykonos. "It was great. We've also had invitations from Amsterdam and Sydney." But despite the world fame, he insists that he wouldn't ever try to make The Shy Chef into a full-time occupation, because "it would become a normal job and wouldn't be fun anymore".

Full-time isn't an option for most supper-club owners, according to the Paris-based team behind another successful underground restaurant, Hidden Kitchen (hkmenus.com). "Buying produce, meat and fish at retail just like everyone else makes your food and wine costs extremely high compared to a restaurant," says American Braden Perkins, who runs the popular bistro with his fianc�, Laura Adrian.

"If you want a supper club to be profitable enough to live off, you would need to host dinners four or five times a week, but then you would run a high risk of neighbours complaining or, worse, calling the police and eventually being shut down."

Hidden Kitchen has developed such a strong fan base the owners had to move apartment so they could cope with demand, but the couple, both restaurant consultants for US companies, say they wouldn't want to grow their business further.

"I think if we were to expand beyond what we have now, we would be at risk of losing control of our attention to detail and our excitement for food and wine, which has resonated so well with diners from the beginning," says Braden.

Instead of a traditional expanding business model, they are happy to break even, ploughing profits into investing in higher-quality ingredients and wine. But the club has brought them other benefits. "Without the popularity and publicity of Hidden Kitchen, we wouldn't be as in demand as consultants," says Braden.

Some clubs are set up as testing grounds for other types of culinary business. Over in Edinburgh, Charlie and Evelyn's Table, which was started last year by Rachel Rowley and her husband, Chris, quickly became a success and has been a jumping-off place for more opportunities.

"I do some restaurant reviewing and PR, and we're trying our hands at private catering," says Rachel. "We hope to keep the home supper club, in its original form, at the heart of what we do, but ultimately would like to grow a small-scale hospitality business."

But isn't half the fun of underground restaurants that they are, well, underground? What will happen if their owners turn pro?

"I don't think it will kill the trend," says Rodgers. "All sorts of people go into it, with different goals and different scales of operation."

As successful owners go semi-pro or take their nomadic shows on the road, others like Lisbon's Hush Hush Garden are just starting up, showing that there will always be more pop-ups to pop up.

TABLE TALK

The chefs'-eye view

Costa the shy chef, Berlin "The hard part is getting the mix of people right. Our goal is to have people sitting next to each other who would never usually talk." www.theshychef. wordpress.com

Linn Hemma Hos Linn, Stockholm "I'm a chef and I only meet other chefs at work, so this is a way to meet 'normal' people! I'm getting a lot of attention since I'm one of the first supper clubs in Sweden." hemmahoslinn.se

Rachel Khoo The little Paris kitchen, Paris "There is just about enough room for two gas rings, a mini oven and a sink, and someone to cook. I collect kitchen gadgets and cookbooks." thelittlepariskitchen.com

Faraaj Hashim Mount Lavinia supper club, Barcelona "I was disappointed with the Asian cuisine in Barcelona. I wanted to provide the food you find in Sri Lankan homes." mount-lavinia.com

Rachel Rowley Charlie and Evelyn's table, Edinburgh "Running Edinburgh's first supper club is always a great conversation starter." charlieandevelynstable.blogspot.com