Gary Manning, owner of Liverpool restaurants 60 Hope Street, The Quarter and HoSt _320
“The Torres effect is great,” said Manning. “We have Spanish people working for us. There are more Spanish people coming over and we can converse with them.
“For us, it’s about having a mixed bunch, a good mix of locals as well as foreign staff.”
The company is increasing its staff from 70 to 100 to be ready for the opening of HoSt. About 40 are full-time. Manning is clear on their importance.
“The key to it all is having good staff working for us and I think we have achieved that. There needs to be consistency in the product and that means pushing the staff to their full ability.
“Staff are important, they reflect on you as a person and what you stand for, so it’s important to invest in them.”
However, Manning knows the most important traits are those that cannot be taught. “Being a chef is a passion and an ability and I can’t teach that.
“If I was academic I wouldn’t have been a chef, I might have been an architect. I do say that to the chefs, if you were academically clever, you wouldn’t be here.”
It was at school that Manning began his life in the kitchen because he chose to take home economics at Campion High School, an all-boys school.
“I thought it was a skill I would have for the rest of my life,” he said.
He went to catering college at what is now Liverpool Community College, and qualified in the late 1980s during the recession.
The opportunities in the city were limited and Manning was happy to leave his home town.
“I left Liverpool at 18 to go and get a job. I went to Jersey for eight years and I was made head chef there.
“One of the restaurants was right on the beach and cooking with fresh ingredients gave me a good foundation to work on.
“After there, I went to Sydney and Melbourne in Australia for a year in 1994-95, and picked up lots of ideas from the cafe culture there. England has a classic brigade system in the kitchen but Australia is different. They took risks.
“Hopefully that’s what we have replicated at The Quarter and definitely at HoSt.”
His long journey home took Manning via London to Conran's Le Pont De La Tour restaurant in the shadow of Tower Bridge before he went back to Jersey to work for a Michelin-starred chef. But his path was destined to bring him home to Liverpool.
He said: “I’d always thought about opening a restaurant and so in 1998 I came home in order for that to happen.” That first restaurant was 60 Hope Street, which was followed by The Quarter. But even though he is about to open his third restaurant in 10 years, he still doesn’t see himself as an entrepreneur.
“I think I am a chef rather than an entrepreneur. When I walk in the kitchen they all call me chef. I am very much still hands on, I am still in the kitchen although my role is more orchestrating it.
“I’m not a control freak but that’s a quality that makes for a good head chef. They have to be a chef, a fishmonger, a baker and so on.
“But they also have to work under pressure, work as a hygienist, an accountant, a people manager.
“Chefs and entrepreneurs are very focused, very driven, there’s a cross-over there.”
That drive is still strong 10 years on and there is a definite flicker across Manning’s face when asked if he will open more restaurants in the future.
“Me being me, definitely yes,” he said. “But we are concentrating on what we are doing at the moment.”
Q&A
Age: 40
Lives: Allerton
Hobbies: Work, work, work
Highest educational qualification: City & Guilds
Proudest achievement: Still being here after 10 years. 60 Hope St was always going to be our main restaurant. It’s given us the finances and the means to open other businesses
Biggest regret: None really. It’s ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them and don’t repeat them.