NO RESERVATION - The Hospitality Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Some people build businesses. Some people build culture. Neena Jivraj Stevenson has spent her career doing both. From Deloitte and Harvard Business School to Queensway and The Sloane Club, she's helped shape organisations where culture isn't just talked about — it's lived. This conversation is about belonging. How great teams are built. How values survive pressure....

Send us Fan Mail Some people build restaurants. Some people host events. Stephen Chenery has spent more than thirty years bringing people together. From running restaurants in California, Chelsea and the City of London to building Steam Bar & Restaurant into one of the City's best-loved independent venues, Stephen has always believed hospitality is about relationships. Alongside that, he&...

Send us Fan Mail Some people spend their careers following trends. Some seem to arrive just before them. Sean Coogan has spent the last fifteen years around some of hospitality’s most talked-about openings. From Boundary and Chiltern Firehouse to Hoxton Hotels, Ennismore and Maison Estelle, he’s built a career helping create places people genuinely want to be part of. This conversation is about op...

Send us Fan Mail Some people build restaurants. Some people build hotels. Clémence de Crecy has spent nearly three decades helping people discover them. From Evolv, Aqua & Gordon Ramsay Restaurants and luxury resorts across the Maldives and Turkey to some of the most respected brands in food, drink and travel, she has built a career around reputation, storytelling and connection. What began wi...

Send us Fan Mail Some people build hospitality around service. Some build it around status. Sue Walter has spent her career building it around people. From The Hospital Club and Coppa Club to Maggie & Rose and The Roof Gardens, Sue has led some of the most distinctive hospitality businesses in the UK and beyond. But her story starts long before hospitality — in government, policing, arts, educ...

Send us Fan Mail Some people run restaurants. Others define service. Paulo de Tarso has spent his career focused on the craft of hospitality itself. From The Wolseley and Scott’s to opening Bar Boulud London under Daniel Boulud, his reputation has been built on standards, warmth and front-of-house excellence at the very highest level. Later, as founder of Margot in Covent Garden and as a TEDx spea...

Send us Fan Mail Some places rely on spectacle. Others rely on precision. Murray Ward has spent his career focused on something quieter — consistency. From Soho Farmhouse and Thyme to Public House Group, he’s worked across places where atmosphere matters, standards are high, and guests notice immediately when something feels off. This conversation is about the real work of hospitality. Not just de...

Send us Fan Mail Some people run great venues. Some people build great teams. Alex Ghalleb has spent his career doing both. From Soho House and Grind to Charlotte’s Group, Ennismore and now Five Graces Hospitality, he’s worked across openings, operations and growth at scale — helping build restaurants that succeed beyond the launch moment. More recently, that includes projects like Dorian in Notti...

Send us Fan Mail Some people run great rooms. Others go on to build them. Matthew Maynard has done both. From Riding House Café — one of the busiest openings of its time — to global scale at Nikki Beach, and now leading expansion at Gold Restaurants, his career has been built on opening, running and growing hospitality businesses under pressure. This conversation is about that shift. From the floo...

Send us Fan Mail Some people run rooms. Some people build brands. And some understand how the two shape each other. Alex Field has spent his career working at that intersection — across Moët Hennessy, Six Senses, LVMH, Reignwood and The Birley Clubs. From global marketing to private members’ clubs, from investment to operations, he’s seen hospitality from a different angle — not just how it runs,...

Send us Fan Mail Every great restaurant, hotel or club has two lives — the one you see, and the one that actually runs it. In this episode, Antoine Melon and Gideon Lask turn the lens on themselves — sharing how they see hospitality from the inside and the outside, and why NO RESERVATION exists in the first place. From early experiences to the habits you pick up over time, this is a conversation a...

Send us Fan Mail Some people in hospitality chase the spotlight. Others hold it steady. Today, we’re joined by someone who’s been doing that for more than thirty years. Will Smith has worked at every level of British hospitality — from Michelin-starred dining rooms in Scotland… to some of the most influential restaurants in London. He managed the Georgian Room at Cameron House when it gained its M...

Send us Fan Mail There’s a moment in hospitality when you stop just running a room…  and start seeing the whole operation. Today, we’re joined by someone who has lived both sides of that shift. Jamie Kerr began as a management trainee at Hilton in Glasgow — learning the discipline, the structure, the fundamentals. He worked the floor.  He ran bars and restaurants. Then came Gordon Ramsay Group.  F...

Send us Fan Mail Some restaurants are quiet and precise.  Some feel like theatre.  Some feel like a party that somehow never loses control. Today, we’re joined by someone who runs that kind of energy — at scale. Gianmarco Carla is Director of Operations UK for Big Mamma Group — one of the most recognisable and talked-about restaurant brands in Europe. In London, that means overseeing rooms that ar...

Send us Fan Mail Some people arrive in hospitality through management. Some arrive through the floor. Today, we’re joined by someone who has built his career step by step — service by service — through some of the most demanding rooms in the world. Aurélien Mouren is Venue Director at The MAINE Mayfair — a room that is consistently full, high-energy, and unforgiving if standards slip. But that pos...