Part 2 of 2 part interview with Celebrity Chef, Martin Morales - Renaiscance Man - Martin Morales is the founder and MD of Ceviche, one of London's best
new restaurants. Born out of the frustration of not having a great
Peruvian restaurant in London. He is a Committee Member at Soho House, a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and a Freeman of the City of Leicester. He was born in Peru, has lived in Mexico City and Barcelona and now lives in
London with his wife and children. Martin is a self-taught chef since the age of 11, a restaurateur and entrepreneur and is passionate about Peruvian culture. Formerly Head of and Founder Member of Apple iTunes Pan Europe, Disney Executive Director and Board Member launching High School Musical, Miley Cyrus and Pirates of the Caribbean, a globetrotting DJ playing in Rio,Marrakesh, Moscow, Tokyo and New York, an EMI Label Head signing KT Tunstall, Oi Va Voi and Koop, an event promoter for concerts by James Blunt and others as well as his own Global Kitchen where he DJ-ed and cooked at the same time.
HEAR THE STORY ONLY HERE ON THE GUESTLIST PODCAST AND BREAKING NEWS- YOU HEAR FIRST HERE...
Some Highlights from this episode are :
Your first tweet was @martinceviche his first tweet was: "Does anyone care
about Peruvian food?". Support from food bloggers, chefs and writers
followed so he opened supper clubs at his home, then pop ups and now
Ceviche is a restaurant. Tomorrow Ceviche will go into even more fun
and innovative directions.
How important has social media been to your success?
TO me ceviche is like a sashimi salad, but one with one prawn, chopped squid, octopus, giant cholo corn, seabass (as the fish on that day), beansprouts, coriander and Zing? *salt, lime and chilli * ?
I had my first when I worked with Caprice and I loved it!
Peruvian food has always been written about as the next big thing (partly given its unique history of diverse cultural influences, one can argue that Peruvian is a true expression of fusion food. However Peru hasn’t really taken off as a must visit destination for gastro-tourist.
Why did you become a founder?
What was the gaping hole?
I always say your network is your netrworth?
" What is the secret to your sauce?"
Who is in your Ceviche click, your paypal mafia ? =
Martin's startup story:
Ceviche, then, was a smart name choice for his first restaurant as he explains. While Morales was pitching the concept to hundreds of investors to raise funds for the business, he took the cuisine on the road as a pop-up restaurant, wooing palates up and down the country while breaking in his team.
“It took us eight months to raise the money. I pitched to 300 investors and 290 said: ‘No, you must be crazy, this has never been done before’ – and that included Peruvians. But after hundreds of knock-backs and listening to feedback and changing my team, we pulled it off. Now we are strong, professional and sharp – and geared for growth. We smashed our first year sales target by 30%. And last year, growth was another 15% on top of that,” he says.
His team includes executive chef Tomasz Baranski, a Polish-born Spanish food nut who has embraced Peruvian cuisine under Morales’ tutelage. There’s also operations director Raquel de Oliveira, David Buxton leading finance, and Philippe Hails-Smith, a partner at Joelson Wilson, who was involved from the initial capital fundraising and who held Morales’ hand throughout, not to mention Soho House Group’s Martin Kuczmarski as non-executive director.
“I’m lucky to have so many mentors. They have great belief in what we are doing and they have stuck their necks out for me,” says Morales. “Professionalism, leadership and a strong ethos of fairness in the workplace are crucial to us, but we are a restaurant first and foremost – it’s all about the food we cook.”
Morales is a great marketeer – and even though he freely admits he’s not a professional chef (his love of cooking stems from helping his Aunt Carmela in the kitchen as a child), that hasn’t stopped him from appearing no fewer than three times on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen. “Tomasz is very much the executive chef, not me – though I am the co-creator of many of our dishes,” he explains.
I am all about MRS : Multiple Revenue Streams : So is Martin, Martin is not just an ambassador of Peruvian food, but of Peruvian culture and arts,
We also talk about the hub and spoke business model in Part 2 of the show
Food is at the hub of what you do but this is then interlinked with art, creativity and even music.
Talking about Books, I have your book: Ceviche Peruvian Kitchen,I believe it remained in the top 10 cookbooks on Amazon since it was published by Random House and was voted The Sunday Times Cookbook of the Year in 2013. WELL DONE!
THE GUESTLIST PATENT PENDING AWARD WINNING QUESTIONS TO FOLLOW
