Doing It For The Kids

There’s giving back to your industry and then there’s taking an entire business – reputation and all – and putting it all on the line devoting it to a rotating group of inexperienced youths with troubled pasts to rival any Irvine Welsh character. That’s exactly what Jamie Oliver has been doing through Fifteen, and it’s making winners of all involved. Sarah Allen spoke to London’s head of restaurant Mike Dowding and executive head chef Andrew Parkinson to find out more

One could be forgiven for failing to realise just how much of an impact Jamie Oliver has made and is making, not just to the industry, but also to people’s lives.

From the outside, Fifteen restaurant in north London seems small, but it is a place with big ambitions. In fact, through it, Oliver has been giving back to the industry, changing lives and turning a profit for the last seven years.

It all started in 2002 with his Channel 4 television series Jamie’s Kitchen, documenting the chef’s attempts to create a restaurant offering apprenticeships for youths, Fifteen.

Fifteen Foundation is a registered charity created to further Oliver’s vision of helping disadvantaged youths turn their lives around by becoming chefs. Oliver is also a trustee. The Foundation owns the restaurant, which trades as a commercial operation.

Fifteen is open for business throughout the week. Split into two, it consists of a trattoria with a brasserie style menu on street level, open from 7.30am till 9.30pm; and a dining room downstairs with a fine dining menu, open from 12pm to 9.45pm. Breakfast is served upstairs until 11am, followed by shared timetables for both levels with lunch between 12pm and 3pm and dinner from 6pm. The tratorria opens a bit later on Sunday at 8am. All menus are Italian-influenced using the best products from Italy and the UK, including Oliver’s own back garden.

Its resident baker bakes overnight, making Fifteen London’s little piece of New York: the restaurant that never sleeps.

“We cross paths with Kenny the baker at 8 o’clock in the morning by the time he goes home,” says head of restaurant Mike Dowding.

Covers are around 55 for each floor of the restaurant with each yielding high turnaround rates as executive head chef Andrew Parkinson explains: “We probably hit on an average day at least 280 covers in the trattoria and 150 covers in the dining room and then tables are turned all the time.”

The kitchen brigade includes 26 chefs plus a baker.

Two different floors mean two different price points, as Dowding explains: “Upstairs, it’s probably around the £30 per head mark, but it very much depends on what you have. Some people come in and just have a glass of wine and a pasta and that’s all about £15; whereas if you go for champagne and everything else, then it could quite easily go into £50.”

The latter, more lavish option is a common fixture in the dining area.

“In the evening, we have a set tasting menu which is five courses, so that’s £60 a head for food and then drinks are on top of that,” adds Dowding. “And that’s what downstairs is known for, the tasting menu. But at lunchtime it’s an a la carte menu and we do a set menu for £25 for three courses. So it’s really good value at lunchtime.”

And now to the matter of money. Despite its unusual nature/functions, Fifteen is a commercial enterprise and competing with every other restaurant on the London market.

“Our aim is to make a profit, so profit’s not a dirty word,” says Dowding. “The turnover is just over £4 million a year; so it’s quite a big business to run. At periods throughout the year, we gift aid all of our profits to the Fifteen Foundation, which funds the apprentices.”

Parkinson adds: “The actual apprentice programme for the whole group every year costs around £700,000. So this is why it’s essential that anything we make at the end of the year goes to fund that.”

Fifteen can also be classed as a ‘social enterprise’, which Dowding explains as: “a commercial operation which, instead of giving the money it generates to the owners, ie., shareholders, that money is used to achieve a social goal. It’s where the profits go back into the core aims of a business.”

Funds for the apprenticeship are not solely from the restaurant’s takings, however. Fifteen hosts fundraising events throughout the year with Jamie’s Big Night a regular fixture. With tables sold plus auctions and raffles, all profits raised from the star-studded event go towards the scheme.