Monthly Archives: June 2022

Wine

Customer Profile: Maray Restaurants

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Mark Jackson, Bar Operations, Maray Restaurants

Questions – longer form responses:

How would you describe your wine list?

A: At Maray, our wine list features wine primarily from regions that our food is inspired by: Middle Eastern small plates. We try to balance unusual exciting wines with familiar key grape varieties. We want to create wine stories for guests and make it a memorable experience!

How do you lay out your wine list? And why does this work well for your guests?

A: We offer all wines in 175ml glass, by the carafe or bottle. This really opens the list up for guests to try something new without committing to a full bottle, and place key grape varieties at higher price points to encourage them to try something new or unfamiliar. With red and white we structure the list into sections, such as ‘Big & Bold’ or ‘Spice & Fruit-Forward’ to help direct guests toward flavour profiles they enjoy. Keeping the layout clear and concise also so not to overwhelm our guests with pages and pages of words.

Where do you think is the next up-and-coming wine region?

A: With the issues currently impacting New Zealand and parts of Europe, we may see a move from consumers, as they look to more up-and-coming wine regions such as parts of South Africa. It is also an opportunity for us to recommend different wine producing regions – we have a red from Croatia on our list which I love to introduce people to!

What are guests ordering most from your wine list?

A: New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir are our strongest sellers, closely followed by a Merlot and Blanc de Blanc from Château Oumsiyat in Lebanon. We have a really good spread of sales across the whole list, some guests may have three glasses of different wines in the same sitting, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve: take them on a journey.

What are your biggest learnings from the pandemic in 2020 and 2021?

A: The value of investing time and energy into team training has proven invaluable and has helped create a wine culture within our company. We focus on the stories behind the wines, the people that produce them, and create wine experiences for guests. Consumers love to learn new things that they can pass on to their friends and family.

Have you seen wine tastes change over the last three years?

A: Consumers are more educated and much more open to discovery than we first thought. Moving away from those same old wines they have drank time and time again, and are in search of something new. We are very well placed at Maray to deliver that. Consumers are also very environmentally conscious, so being able to offer wines on our list that are socially and environmentally responsible has become more important to our guests and will continue to do so.

If you could have any wine on your wine list (past or present), what would it be?

A: All our wines from Château Oumsiyat in Lebanon; particularly the Merlot we currently have is stunning!

What would you like to see guests ordering more of?

A: We have some really interesting wines from Greece, Turkey and North Macedonia that I love. I’d would like to continue directing guests to those wines from that area of world from which our food is so heavily influenced by. What grows together, goes together.

What is your personal favourite wine/food pairing?

A: As a vegetarian and working in restaurant that primarily celebrates vegetables on the menu, I really enjoy a Disco Cauliflower (our top selling dish) with a glass of chilled Kayra, Beyaz Kalecik Karasi Rosé from Turkey. Belter.

Quick-Fire Questions – short responses:

Dinner party or wild party?

A: Dinner party

Cornwall or Ibiza?

A: Ibiza

Pinot Noir from Cote de Beaune or Central Otago?

A: Central Otago, New Zealand

James Bond or Jason Bourne?

A: James Bond

English bubbles or Champagne?

A: Champagne

Rich and robust or delicate and nuanced?

A: Rich and bold

Negroni or Pornstar Martini?

A: Negroni

Events, Tasting

HeadStart: In Marketing

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It’s been a minute and a couple of months since my last update regarding my little journey and should you be sticking with it, I thank you! This time we shall be looking at my time in the company’s marketing department. My job has the benefit of seeing plenty all of the company’s big and small moments and how it all melds together into one big ball of wibbly-wobbly, drinky-winey stuff (if you get the reference, you’re better than most), and the marketing department is most definitely the communal “hub” of the company.

It was a dark winter’s day as I started with the department – I remember it vividly and unknowing what my first job would be just made the morning feel that little bit more ominous. I’d finished up the previous week with Customer Services’ Christmas rush and having a few – maybe slightly messy – days to reset over New Year’s. It was in this moment of questioning, when all hope seemed lost, that Mr Ben Jackson, a beacon of light, appeared to me like hope in a snowstorm. He was my point of contact for the next three months and what a point of contact he was.

He was like that fairy-tale hero, presenting himself only in times of great need and turmoil to save the lowly apprentice from the darkness that envelops them. His name is whispered in hushed tones across the new office – unsure as to whether it’s out of respect or dislike – and his poise over his work is second to none.

(Yes, to those who are wondering, he does check these before they’re released).

Without any sarcasm, he was incredibly helpful. He assigned a couple of press releases to write, which was a fair step away from my usual writing style. I’m quite flowery in the way I write and I digress often – you might have noticed. Writing a press release is different; you’ve got to be to the point and focused, without straying too far from the established formula of “main point, quote, fact, outro”. I make it sound so restrictive, but in a way it needs to be. The point of the piece needs to be clearly presented to the reader as soon as possible, with the bulk filled out with an understanding of why it’s happened without too much fuss or mucking around. I found them quite challenging, yet also quite therapeutic in a lot of ways because it took me away from my usual and I could just put things plainly, which is impossible to me in any other circumstance apparently.

2022 also marked the return of the Hallgarten Annual Tasting. It is naturally our biggest event of the year with so many moving pieces but after a year out and so long not being able to organise events of this scale, it was so good to finally get stuck in. More than 700 wines on show in the heart of London including plenty newbies we’d never seen before, over 100 suppliers crossing countries to join in, and with 1,000+ signed up to come and taste, it was a memorable moment when everything came together. Sarah Charlwood, our new Events Manager, did an incredible job organising everything to a tee even after only 8 weeks of being with Hallgarten and it was good fun to work with her with it, even in my limited capacity. She’s on holiday at the moment, a well-deserved one! The take-home for it all was more than just a roaring success, but that we have established that after a tumultuous couple of years, we are on the road to recovery.

Wine

Time to get back out there!

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One of the greatest things about going out to your favourite (or new) restaurant is the absolute excitement, and minimal effort required in getting a superb meal being served to you and cooked by professionals with extreme passion for the end product. And generally getting to share it with the people you love or like… There really is nothing quite like it!

You start browsing the food menu, then onto the wines – oh the decisions… Sometimes the wine choice can be hardest element of the adventure, but should we be looking at this differently? With extreme pressure on staffing levels across our industry, we need to try and make things as fun and easy for guests as possible, and help guide them to a wine that is going to elevate their whole experience. Let’s be honest, most people are incredibly nervous when it comes to ordering wine. It is the “face off” of not wanting to look silly in front of your server and mates…”Just go for the wine you can pronounce”, your head says.

This is where I think operators can have some fun. I am certainly not saying we need to reinvent the wheel, and a huge number of operators do this already, but having some fun with your guest is where we can make that lasting experience for them. By simply recommending glasses of wine on your food menu that might otherwise be overlooked, or by having a ‘by the glass’ selection that challenges the ‘norm’ and not being afraid to change these regularly, the customer experience can be greatly enhanced.

I’m not suggesting a complete overhaul of the wine list as I do think having a core wine list and ‘by the glass’ offering is crucial, but a little bit of stardust to make things fun is where it is at for me. It can also make things more interesting when matching wines to your food dishes and can push your customers to be that little more adventurous and out of their comfort zone.

We are very lucky in the UK to have such a huge variety of wines to choose from. Literally, every wine producing corner of the world is accessible to us here in the UK and they are making some insane wines. We should be celebrating this, but also understand how utterly daunting this is for someone not in the wine trade. For a little perspective, I was not scared to omit Sauvignon Blanc and Malbec from a restaurant’s ‘By the glass’ selection. These wines have this unique gravitational pull that guests would automatically select without fully engaging with all that is on offer. This then helps free up a couple of slots by the glass and allows the operator to have some fun by selecting more esoteric wines!

I do appreciate that some might think that the food and wine matching scene is quite tricky, however it is very ambiguous and subjective. Yes, that Sauvignon Blanc will go perfectly with that Goats Cheese but the Assyrtiko from Lebanon will be much more fun and do the exact same job. Rib-Eye steak and Malbec you say? Why not go Tannat instead…

I’m not saying that we have to go completely rogue here as there as there are producers in the well-known regions of both the Old World and the New World doing some really cool stuff as well, but all I can emphasise is giving your guest that little X-Factor experience when dining with you.

I always used to liken a service in the restaurant as a show, of sorts that people have come to experience. So surely, doing something different to what they might have been to on their last outing is more attractive whether that’s on the food or wine side of things? Serving sizes is also key to me. By recommending 100ml or 125ml glasses of wine gives people the option to try and have a couple of different glasses throughout their meal.

For me, I always enjoyed the part of my previous roles within the restaurant trade where I had the opportunity to guide customers out of their comfort zone. It created conversations with guests, and also gives you the chance to share some of your expertise and wine discoveries. Of course, staff training (especially wine specific training) is crucial to this working well. I think every operator should invest more time in this aspect as it builds the foundations for our industry as well as creating confidence in your guests and team. Also, it makes the whole experience more engaging and fun for your team which will ultimately rub off on your guests. After all, we all started not knowing a lot at some point in any career path you choose.

So, have some fun and make it easy for your guests to choose something that they might not necessarily have chosen without you!