Despite some serious competition, Peter Joseph remains one of London’s leading Indian chefs. Born in Chennai, Joseph spent over 13 years perfecting his craft at Tamarind in Mayfair, where he held a Michelin star for six years. Eventually, he decided to go it alone, opening up the highly-regarded Kahani in 2018.
He has seen the best of times and, understandably, during a global pandemic, the worst of times. James Lawrence seeks to discover why Joseph is still as optimistic as ever.
The UK’s hospitality industry has had to ensure three lockdowns over the past 18 months – how has your business survived?
Like almost all those in the hospitality industry, Kahani had to make a lot of difficult choices in what was and is a challenging time for all types of restaurant businesses. The burden imposed by the unfortunate but wholly necessary lockdowns caused cash flow issues, staffing issues and has threatened the long-term survival of many businesses. We survived by operating, extending and innovating our takeaway and delivery service offerings and introducing our home cooking/dining services.
We have survived through persistence, resilience, and faith in our brand as well as focusing on our branding and PR to keep people engaged with the business so as not to lose any of the value of all the hard work that has been done along the journey.
Since you reopened, have you seen any changes in the behaviour of your diners?
Since the reopening, people have been, and some are still understandably reserved due to the fears of Covid. People were originally very focused on the wearing of their masks, washing their hands, sanitizing their hands as well as maintaining social distance. Nowadays, it is a variety where some customers maintain a similar level of precautionary measures, others are not too concerned and are reverting to normal.
Throughout, though, we maintain our Covid precautions as it is important to us that we look after our guests and our staff to the best of our capability.
Do you feel the UK government has done enough to help businesses like Kahani?
In all honesty, I believe the Government has done more than plenty for businesses during this pandemic. The Government has helped to maintain the livelihood of our staff by introducing furlough and has also provided businesses with loans, grants and business rate reliefs. As you know, Kahani is a relatively new restaurant, so we were not able to take up much of the Government support. However, if it were not for the Government support, we would have been left with no option to close. The UK Government’s assistance has been vital in keeping Kahani operational.
Have you had any issues with sourcing staff?
Yes. We are still having major issues in sourcing staff. Staff are seemingly nowhere to be found!
Looking ahead, are you sanguine or pessimistic about the future prospects for UK hospitality?
We are, of course, optimistic for the future. Business is returning to normal, even for the better. However, we still face the crisis of shortage of staff and further increases in the cost of food supplies.
What: Kahani
Where: 1 Wilbraham Pl, Belgravia, London SW1X 9AE
Web: KahaniLondon.com
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