Consultancy | OC Private Chefs

Consultancy

Dear Restaurant Owner,

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

Help, advice and support in the restaurant catering industry is something we all need as our industry goes through difficult times.

My name is John Murray I’m an award winning master chef. I've worked in the world’s best restaurants, owned numerous restaurants for 35 years and as the owner of Orange County Private Chefs, I’m here to help, advise and support. I don’t typically use the word consultant Chef as it can be seen as corporate and expensive, I prefer to call myself a partnership Chef/Restaurateur.

I’m not expensive with large upfront fees, I don’t come and go in a flash, and I don’t take on large amounts of clients. Success pays me; my payments are driven by the goals we set as a team. We are in it for the long haul with our clients, building that relationship to achieve the goals we set together as a restaurant team.

My system of help, advice and support are used by all;

-The restaurant entrepreneurs who have successful establishments but need that external knowledge and point of view to keep their establishment tight and on track.

-The restaurant entrepreneur who needs help reaching the next level of success but needs support and ideas of how to get there.

-The restaurant entrepreneur who is in trouble, lost sense of direction, losing faith, and in need of a major support boost.

I would like to invite you to visit our website,

www.orangecountyprivatechefs.com under the “Consultancy” page, which gives a brief outline of our services and what I’ve achieved in my catering career.

I’m driven by my love and passion for the restaurant industry, and if you can find the time to meet for a chat about the restaurant business I would love to share some of that passion with you.

Kind Regards,

Chef John Murray

Creating partnerships through achieving goals.

Partnership Chefs

Consultant

Services we offer our clients.

Restaurant Start-Ups: concept build.

Establishments which have lost their way and need a new directional boost.

Helping restaurants move to the next level of success for existing establishment.

Established successful restaurant maintenance.

How we help:

Having been in the restaurant industry for many years and worked in multiple countries, we have come across many challenges in a very rewarding but demanding industry. All establishments we help have different areas in which they wish to improve or maintain their services, whether it's staffing, concept overview, food and beverage related or implementing systems to maintain standards. It all starts with a free (no charge or time limit) discussion about your goals and how to get there. If we feel that we can help, advise and support we will deliver that service to you. If we feel you need a different company/service to achieve certain goals, we will recommend that too.

We pride ourselves on total success with our clients and will never take on an establishment if we feel as a working team we can’t achieve the desired results in the requested time frame.

Services we offer:

Operation Assessments

After the initial meeting we do a detailed overview of the establishment: We write and assess this document with the restaurant's goals in mind. This will highlight the main areas for improvements and change.

We focus on the whole operation from the minute the doors open receiving goods, to the last person leaving. Our two main goals will be:

1. How to maintain and increase the customer base to ensure they become returning customers - therefore increasing the top line.

2.We look at improving the efficiencies of staff and the cost of goods to improve the bottom-line profit.

Menu Research & Development

We look at the existing menu offerings and break the menu down into best sellers to slow sellers, cost of goods per dish, time and motion (staff costs) study on each dish, and the profitability of each dish. Research dishes to suit the menu and work on changing the slow moving and less profitable dishes to maximize efficiency and profitability.

Marketing and Social Media

In todays demanding restaurant industry we highly recommend the employment of a full time person or external company to set up and maintain all social media platforms. We would implement a marketing program with them, using existing restaurant staff to prepare and develop marketing material and photos on a weekly basis, which would fit and attract the establishment's targeted customer base.

Special food and beverage events, posting recipes, promotional items, Birthday specials and much more.

Staff Efficiency Study

We look at the staff and their skill levels, looking at each person individually to see where improvements through training and motivation will help them in their daily duties. When we study the staff, we are looking for a high level of working moral and teamwork. If necessary, we implement our motivational and educational daily staff briefings to work on the standards and responsibilities we expect from each staff member, while working as a team.

Recipe Documentation (Prep Recipes and Plate Assembly Recipes)

Taking into consideration the guidelines and desired goals, we start to build dishes one by one to test the customer base and thereaction to this change. We do this dish by dish to fully understand every aspect of the implementation. Each dish will have to pass an 8-point test system before it finds a permanent place on the establishment’s menu. Each dish will be costed, recipe ingredients and method documented along with step by step photos.

Each new dish will be tested as daily specials first by the following method:

1- It must meet the desired food cost

2- It must meet the desired labour cost

3- Our ease of operation test, (prep, serves and consistence)

4- Clear plate test over 50 servings.

5- Sold 50 times as a special with 95% customer satisfaction

6- The staff approval test.

7- An acceptable price point

8- General flavor and presentation test (by management).

Orange County Private Chefs and our experience.

Director Chef John

35 years of restaurant experience in 7 different countries, helping Hotels, Catering companies and Restaurants achieve their Goals.

Chef John is an award-winning Master Chef who has been employed to cater for Kings and Queens, worked as a personal chef for private families around the world on their yachts, worked in the best Michelin restaurants in Europe and has owned multiple catering and restaurant establishments.

Previous International Establishments.

Menu development, concept design and consultancy

Dusit Thai Hotels Bangkok, fine dining restaurant set up.

Dusit Thai Hotels Bangkok, Steak House improvements.

Dusit Thai Hotels Bangkok, Bistro monthly promotions.

Moulin de Mougins (Three Star Michelin Restaurant) South of France, Fine dining catering set up.

California Grill Sydney Australian, set up

Le Kiosk Restaurant Manly Australia, Set up and maintain.

Sweet Sensation Patisserie Australia, menu design and costing.

Pickled Greens restaurant Bath UK, Set up and Maintain

Didicakes Café UK, Set up and Maintain

Awards and accomplishments

Restaurant worked Michelin Rated

Le Soufflé, Hotel Intercontinental. Park lane London One Star Michelin

The Counaught Hotel Mayfair London Two Star Michelin

Le Gavroche Mayfair London Three Star Michelin

The Waterside Inn Bray UK Three Star Michelin

L’Amandier Mougins South of France Two Star Michelin

Moulin de Mougins South of France Three Star Michelin

Awards

Winner of the Roux Scholarship,

Winner of the William Heptinstall award for young chefs,

Winner of the Chef of the year,

Winner of the Chef of the year (price for professionalism),

Academie Culinaire De France Commis chef of the year award,

Haccp trained and qualified.

Professional food photography

Skilled in food packaging and design

Skilled in Nutritional food design

Skilled in food labelling

Success Stories

Le Kiosk Restaurant, Sydney Manly Australia

Independent Local Owners

This Restaurant had a perfect location on a beach, my first impression was that it would be an upgrade to the next level.

Wrong, it was a totally lost cause, run down, no love, no leadership, but it was one of those moments you get as a restauranteur that I knew exactly what to do; it had the location, a beautiful heritage building in a high wealth band and owners that cared but had no restaurant experience. We kept the staff who cared, we closed and cleaned for 3 days, we launched a small menu that the staff could handle and grew that menu. We needed to give the restaurant a talking point, a point of difference. We set up an open to order Oyster bar with 5 different Oysters, we placed that Oyster bar so it could serve the beach as well, creating a line to buy, which creates interest. Behind that we had live Lobster tank but with 3 types of lobsters: Tasmanian, Local and Scottish. We then needed two or three stand out theater dishes which would turn heads and that passers by could see and be drawn in to enquire about.

1 "Oven roasted Baby Turbot for two, carved table side"

A beautiful dish which has all the theatre, as it leaves the kitchen fresh thyme and rosemary are set on a hot coal which creates a bloom of scent through the restaurant, the plater is carried shoulder high by the waiter on a quick tour of the restaurant before going to its requested table, the whole restaurant would then ask about the dish.

2 We then needed more interaction between the kitchen and the guest, we then trained our floor staff to encourage the customers to come to our open kitchen and choose their fish from a beautiful iced display of at least 6 types of fish, talk to the chef about their favorite way to have it prepared.

3 We then needed a crowd pleaser, not a fish and chips dish but close to it.Thai food was very much a new and loved flavor in Australia so we came up with a beautiful Thai Seafood curry served in a clay pot and with purple rice, it worked, stayed on the menu for 3 years.

We spent a lot of time working with the floor staff getting them to feel apart of the new dishes, educating them on the methods, ingredients and getting them to eat and comment on all the new dishes.

After 6 months we had a successful restaurant which was increasing its income each week.

Le Kiosk was a staffing challenge but it had a great location with a wealthy audience just wanting good food.

Dusit Thai Hotel Group Thailand

Corporate

I was asked by the Dusit Hotel Group to look into all their Weston Restaurant Operations over a period of 3 years (12 restaurants across Thailand) We had to create new concepts, menus and set up a training program to educate all staff in Weston foods.

One of the outlets, the Tiara Restaurant, it was on top of the flag ship hotel The Dusit Thani Hotel Bangkok.

The brief from the director was, "Thai people enjoy coming to the Tiara restaurant but they don't understand or particularly like the French food offering, we want to keep it a French Restaurant but make it more appealing to the local wealthy Thai's."

By this stage I had been in Thailand for 4 months and had fallen in love with Thai street food, fresh local ingredients, cooked to order, very visual, spicy and you get to communicate with the person or family cooking your fantastic food.

Eureka! There it was, this is how we are going to fill the Tiara,

6 starters

6 mains

6 desserts

All flambeed and cooked table side.

We took all the best local ingredients, added some extra Thai flavors and seasoning to our French recipes and launch a 6 week flambe promotion which ended up running as the theme to the restaurant for many years, we just presented French food in a Thai environment.

California Grill Sydney Australia

Independent local owner.

California Grill was a successful 100 seater restaurant serving great steaks, ribs and with a Mexican feel to the menu.

The restaurant had 3 private dining rooms behind the main dining restaurant which were used as over flow when the main restaurant was full.

People didn't like to eat in them, it was away from all the action and the beautiful open kitchen. Small groups would use them for events but with resistance.

The brief from the owner was to try and come up with a plan to fill these rooms to create extra income.

We got permission to put two large windows in two of the rooms and the third we built large french doors opening on to the garden. This with a little interior make over made the rooms more appealing and easier to sell to groups. Next we had to come up with a plan to capture groups between 8 for the smallest and 24 for the largest garden room. Writing the menu for the groups was the easy part, the kitchen and floor staff were professional and well trained to carry out most requests, the hard part was the point of difference. We decided to focus on Birthday celebrations and offer a free Birthday cake to cater for the size of the group but it had to be a cake that was a show stopper and a real party piece, we came up with the complimentary Chocolate Croquembouche, a tower of choux balls filled with different flavored pastry creams, a bit of training for the chefs and floor staff on how to serve it but it was different, loved by all and a great food cost. That with a well priced and flexible group menu and the bookings started to flow in.