HUNGRY.

Building a great restaurant starts with something unexpected: chaos

Controlle  chaos. This week on Hungry Phil and Abs of Poor Boys talk high-energy design, bold menu choices, and how creating a memorable, slightly disorienting experience gets people talking—and coming back.

They share how they turned unconventional ideas into a powerful brand, including how they used an ingredient chefs have been throwing away to create something customers couldn’t get enough of. The conversation dives into how restaurant design, atmosphere, and product thinking act as secret weapons in modern hospitality—and why leaning into what makes you different can drive real success. A must-listen for anyone looking to build a restaurant people can’t stop talking about.

ON THE MENU:

• Building Poor Boys from chaos to cult status
• Turning waste ingredients into restaurant gold
• Why consistency beats chasing food trends
• Premium ingredients without shouting about them
• How Southern hospitality shapes the customer experience
• The business case for hand-cut chips and fresh food
• Using delivery as a growth and discovery tool
• Packaging, plates, and the psychology of leftovers
• Menu design, service systems, and customer trust
• Staying resilient through pressure, setbacks, and personal challenges

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

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🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out 

Your Restaurant should slightly confuse people when they walk in. Yes you heard that right. According to Lukie Farrell (Speedboat), that tension—between chaos and clarity—is exactly what makes a place unforgettable.

In this episode, Lukie breaks down how he built one of London’s most talked-about Thai restaurants by embracing controlled chaos, bold design, and just the right amount of confusion. From smuggling authentic Thai ingredients to refusing Western shortcuts, he explains why authenticity became his biggest advantage.

We dive into the psychology behind restaurant design, the MAYA principle (most advanced yet acceptable), and how Speedboat creates a high-energy, multi-sensory experience people can’t stop talking about. Lukie also reveals why the best kitchens reject the “rockstar chef” ego, how team creativity actually works, and what most people get completely wrong about Thai food.

Plus: the real story behind “British Thai,” Chinatown London, and how global restaurant hits are built without losing cultural integrity.

If you want to design a restaurant people obsess over—this is the playbook.

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 
 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

Once you hear this, you’ll never walk down a supermarket aisle the same way again.  A sensory scientist walks into a supermarket… and suddenly nothing you buy is accidental.  In this episode, Charles Spence breaks down how evolution, psychology, and a bit of brand mischief shape everything from what we crave to what we click “add to basket” on. From the savannah to the supermarket, your brain is still wired to hunt for energy-dense food — and brands are quietly exploiting that wiring with color, sound, texture, and even the weight of your cutlery.

Expect mind-bending insights: why red means sweet (and blue used to mean danger), how a pink box can kill a product, why your brain processes food in a split second, and how something as simple as music can literally change how things taste. There’s even a deep dive into “sonic seasoning,” where soundtracks can make food sweeter, saltier, or more intense.

We get into the hidden levers of great branding — from Apérol’s unmistakable orange glow to Coca-Cola’s packaging illusions — and why the best brands aren’t just tasted, they’re felt. Plus: the science behind nostalgia, why Christmas songs hit like emotional freight trains, and how restaurants can learn from cinema to create unforgettable experiences.

This is a masterclass in how humans actually perceive the world — and how the smartest brands design for it.

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♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

📙Download HUNGRY Big Banging Reading list here 
🧾 HUNGRY survey would be so grateful if you may please fill out 

Welcome to the chaotic, beautiful, and brutally honest world of Ravneet Gill. In this episode, the acclaimed chef and Junior Bake Off judge peels back the curtain on the grueling realities of hospitality. Ravneet opens up about the messy middle of launching her hit London restaurant, Gina, navigating the dual guilt of motherhood and entrepreneurship, and learning to let go of perfectionism. She also shares hilarious anecdotes about accidentally convincing the internet David Blaine was moving into her restaurant and reflects on how getting fired from her dream job paved the way for her ultimate success.

 ============================================== 

♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 
🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/) 

Full episode here! 👉🏻 https://youtu.be/cVG8TqtxJQE

After 20 years running The Hand & Flowers and 35 years in kitchens, Tom Kerridge says something most chefs won’t: restaurants don’t make money anymore.

In this clip, Kerridge breaks down why margins have been wiped out, why being “busy” means nothing, and why opening a restaurant today can actually be the worst financial decision you make. It’s a brutally honest look at hospitality — from pricing, staffing and VAT, to the hard leadership calls that come with ownership.

This isn’t about food. It’s about business reality, risk, and the uncomfortable decisions that keep companies alive.

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📱 ON THE MENU
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🍽️ Why packed restaurants still lose money
📉 How margins in hospitality were quietly eradicated
🤔 Why opening a restaurant now makes less sense than ever
⚖️ Separating emotion from business decisions
🚪 Closing sites, letting people go, and radical transparency
🧠 The shift from reactive chef to strategic operator
🔥 Why Kerridge thrives on risk — but hates being a passenger
🧩 What COVID taught him about control and problem-solving

Dan Pope sits down with Jack Rubin, co-founder and CEO of Purdy & Figg — a cleaning brand that somehow turned selling countertop spray into one of the fastest-growing consumer businesses in the UK.

Jack explains how a company that started with almost no marketing orthodoxy managed to rocket toward £100M scale by focusing on something surprisingly unglamorous: customer acquisition, ruthless simplicity, and relentless testing. Thousands of creatives, endless A/B tests, and years of building a loyal customer base all culminated in moments where a single campaign could generate a million pounds in a day.

Along the way, Jack reveals why he barely thinks about “brand” in the way most marketers obsess over it, and why instincts, judgment, and rational thinking matter more than frameworks. That’s where the conversation drifts into bigger territory — from Sun Tzu-style strategic thinking to Jeff Bezos and the idea that great founders make unusually good decisions under uncertainty.

But this isn’t a polished startup fairy tale. Jack also talks about the chaos behind hyper-growth: demand planning nightmares, operational fires, factories on the brink, and the uncomfortable truth that scaling a physical product business is mostly logistics, not glamour.

The result is a conversation about business that feels more like philosophy — why simplicity wins, why complexity kills companies, and how a seemingly boring product can become a £100M brand.

 ============================================== 

♨️Still bloody HUNGRY? Course ya are. Each week I spend 15 hours writing my newsletter. It’ll take you 5 mins to read. Full of wisdom from the biggest names in food and drink. Subscribe here - https://hungryfeast.beehiiv.com/🍲 

============================================== 

🤝 Let's Connect! 
►Let’s link-up here ​ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-pope/) 
►Stalk me here ​ (https://www.instagram.com/_hungry.pod/) 

This episode was edited by: G.Thomas Craig (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gthomascraig/)