Martin Williams interview: New Evolv boss on aggressive growth and the closure of M
In a new series interviewing the judges of our new Toast the City awards, our Life&Style editor sat down with new Evolve Collection boss to talk Terence Conran, aggressive growth and how it feels to see M Restaurant close
Few people have had a bigger impact on the City’s food and drink scene than Martin Williams. His M Restaurant, which opened on Threadneedle Street in 2014, came to represent a playful, theatrical new direction for the Square Mile, which even a decade ago was better known for spit-and-sawdust pubs than serious cuisine.
Back then you had a handful of big hitters: Sweetings, Coq d’Argent, The Mercer. The late, great Gary Rhodes had just closed his Rhodes Twenty Four. “The City was ready for something new,” Williams tells me.
For 10 years, M was more than just a steakhouse, it was a playground for finance workers. Williams introduced a host of weird and wonderful initiatives, from a yacht that could be chartered for a meal on the Thames to a six-foot robot Champagne waiter and wine vending machines.
“We had everyone in the City there,” says Williams. “You could smell the room – it was a powerhouse. Everybody there knew somebody else.”
But a whirlwind six months saw Williams leave M’s parent company Rare (best known for its Gaucho brand), only to join Evolv Collection as chief exec in April. Weeks later, M was shuttered for good.
I’ve known Williams since the early days of M – I gave it a great review in this newspaper – and he’s on fine form when we catch up at Angler, the crown jewel of his new empire (and his only restaurant with a Michelin star). Evolv – which rebranded from D&D London, itself formed from the Terence Conran group – operates some 20 restaurants, including Square Mile staple Coq d’Argent.
As we tuck into a five-course tasting menu – tuna tartare, lobster ravioli, Newlyn cod, all fantastic – I ask if he shed a tear over the closure of M, a restaurant so close to his heart he gave it his name (the M stands for Martin)?
“It was a moment in time and it was really special,” he says. I love what we did, we built that company from nothing and sold it for £8m. I don’t think I’d put my name on a restaurant today. In 2014 it felt like the right thing to do, and it was very memorable. But it makes the restaurant so attached to you personally and reliant on you being there.”
He must have been tempted to bring M into the Evolv Collection? “They asked me if I wanted to and I said no,” he shrugs. He says he’s more interested in reinventing Evolv’s existing brands than in introducing new ones into the mix.
He’s especially excited about Bluebird, the iconic Chelsea restaurant that recently opened a sister venue on the ground floor of Evolv’s South Place Hotel (the only hotel operated by the group). “It’s such an amazing brand with phenomenal British heritage behind it, I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a dozen of them in the UK, or one in every major city in Europe.
“Sartoria is another amazing brand. The food is much better than Cecconi’s so why would you not have one everywhere you’ve got a Cecconi’s, which is pretty much every city in America and Europe?”
Another brand he says could be rolled out across the country is Chop House. “We have two already, including Paternoster Chop House in the City, with a third coming to what used to be the New Street Grill at Liverpool Street. There’s a huge opportunity to take the brand back to what was: a Victorian Chop House. I want a modern interpretation of things like suet puddings, pies, devilled eggs, chops and steaks. I have a vision for a very British take on the gastropub.”
When I interviewed Williams’ predecessor David Loewi, there were ambitious plans to expand to as many as 60 doors over the next five years. Is that still the case? Williams pauses for a moment, running the mental arithmetic. “It’s possible, yeah. There is an appetite for investment and growth. There’s demand for aspirational but affordable premium dining experiences in most cities in the UK. You could have a Bluebird in Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham…”
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He also has half an eye on international expansion: “We have two great restaurants in New York already and our investors have got a lot of experience internationally.”
It strikes me that while Evolv has a strong portfolio of restaurants, brand recognition for the parent company is relatively low. I’ve written about the London restaurant scene for 15 years and even I’d forgotten that Orrery was part of the company. Williams agrees: “But people did know they were Terence Conran restaurants.”
Williams, it turns out, is a “huge fan” of Conran, who was a big influence. He tells me that when he gave up acting in favour of being a restaurateur (his credits include Casualty and ITV drama The Vice), his wife bought him the coffee-table book Terence Conran on Restaurants. He reread it after taking the job at Evolv, discovering a trove of information. “It’s all so authentic, and it applies as much today as it did 25 years ago. It gives you the history of almost all of his brands, his inspirations. It reminds you about the details of the design. His ice buckets were iconic. His ashtrays were iconic.”
He says he wants to rekindle some of the old Conran marketing magic, pointing to a long-lost campaign from Sartoria featuring spaghetti-haired mannequins getting trimmed by tailor’s scissors. “That image told you everything you need to know about the brand DNA. Where did it go?”
One of the first things Williams did as chief exec was revert the Bluebird logo back to the one designed by Conran in 1991: “You had one of Britain’s best ever designers, absolutely iconic, and somebody, somewhere along the journey decided they could do a better logo. Than Sir Terence…”
In typical Williams style, he has plans to shake up the company, introducing a little joie de vivre along the way. He this month opened a new Bluebird members’ club, offering access to lounges at South Place Hotel and Bluebird Chelsea, as well as gym membership at South Place. An Evolv Collection loyalty app just went live, too, functioning a bit like BA Avios, earning points when you dine to spend at the group. And Le Pont de la Tour at Butler’s Wharf will soon be home to a gigantic beach, with Williams shipping in five tonnes of sand to transform the riverside restaurant into a slice of the French Riviera. It’s surely only a matter of time until the robot waiters arrive – and I for one am here for it.
