Hospitality Column

About G & G

Founded by Paul and Valda Goodfellow, G & G Goodfellows is a highly creative design & Distribution Company with an amazing showroom in Little Portland Street. Offering a truly hands-on service, Goodfellows passion is to bring new and exciting, bespoke food presentation concepts to the UK’s culinary scene. As well as offering a wide variety of the world’s best branded tableware, kitchen equipment, clothing and machines, Goodfellows also collaborates closely with UK craft producers for totally unique products. It works with all sizes of restaurant and catering projects, happy to supply anything from an individual plate to a full restaurant concept. Hering Berlin/ Studio Mattes

Introducing Collection Privé

G&G Goodfellows has introduced Collection Privé to its list of services for clients. Here, Valda Goodfellow explains the concept…

Jacques Pergay , Pocket Tree Plate H aving become used to dealing with the UK’s best chefs and restaurateurs, we recognise that it is an incredibly privileged position to be in, but also one which carried with it some major challenges, such as how to continue to offer them all something unique; and how to anticipate what they will be looking for next.

For those of you who are readers of this column, you will know that we have an almost unrivalled collection of designer tableware brands, along with capabilities in offering unique designs which will be made by our incredibly talented producers.

However, in promoting this capability, it can sometimes look like we offer that to everybody when our clientele like to think that the service is just for them. What our customers are looking for is a very personal approach, which combines in-depth food knowledge with the capabilities of taking our entire portfolio and coming up with something that is secretly tailored to their needs and more importantly, will not be repeated in other restaurants.

In the past, this was a lot easier in some ways, because images weren’t instantly flashed around the globe of every new idea. Now, chefs in Australia know what’s happening in Mayfair at the same time as their counterparts a few streets away. Nothing is unique for very long in this business!

Now, we have to work in a way that recognises how a particular chef or restaurant cultivates its signature style. Rather than coming up with just one newsworthy plate or dish, the whole selection has to reflect this

signature building layer-upon-layer, as each course is revealed.

And that is what really sums up what we are doing with Collection Privé. It will not be offered to everyone (forgive me for being elitist, but if you have to ask who this is for, then it probably isn’t you). There will be no catalogue, no product list, and no advertising

Forgive me for being elitist, but if you have to ask who this is for, then it probably isn’t you

Jacques Pergay, Dunes Tasting Plate

what we have done for who. This is counter-intuitive to marketing but the whole point is that no one will know exactly how this all came together. In a world where everything is on show, some things work better with a air of mystery. It adds to the allure and the appreciation of something extraordinary.

Collection Privé may involve bespoke designs, it may include limited availability of product, or it just might be the essence of a special collaboration that adds a twist to something seemingly familiar. In the end, it will produce a personalised portfolio for each client. Our promise to each and every one of them is that this portfolio will not find its way to another table in another restaurant.

Maybe the need for this has emerged from the wreckage of the last two years. The bounceback for the hospitality sector has been as dramatic as it has been welcome. The clamour for meaningful hospitality experiences was deafening, at a time of global supply shortages and staff issues. Both restaurateurs, and we in the supply chain, are having to be incredibly inventive and resourceful, to satisfy current demand. Now, we are only starting to see threads of new demand directions.

Obviously, we aren’t willing to divulge this privileged information here just yet but suffice to say, the things we are working on are incredibly exciting.

Collection Privé has been born as part of this natural evolution and will flourish away from public sight, with a select list of names that may never know who else we have supplied, or with what. Our customers need to trust that we will not reveal their ideas or copy their products, without their approval. Even our own team may not know what the Collection Privé projects involve.

The difficulty I have in this article is to show you things we are working on. As much as I would love to show-off, it would be against the rules! Not all of us Brits break rules we have just set ourselves (bear with me. It’s an injoke in the UK)

What I can show you, is a flavour of what we have done before, that goes some way to explaining how the ‘layer-upon-layer’ of a style might be crafted. In this instance, I am taking a fine dining restaurant as a basis for the look. The Bread Service is a key course in a tasting menu, so it must have a signature tableware concept

There will be no catalogue, no product list, and no advertising what we have done for who

to elevate bead and butter from being a sideshow. In this instance we worked with a shape as the basis for the idea but constructed a service in different materials; the stone and the wood creating a contrast and yet they are the same item. The idea is that this course is a steppingstone to the next, and so we used the steppingstone as our inspiration. The rings on the white Hering Berlin Porcelain are intentionally used as being evocative of ripples.

The next course – delicate and eye-catching, as the last was robust and earthy, elevates a tantalising mouthful into an admirable thing of beauty, perched on the leaf-veined plate. Each detail is respected and there to be noticed.

Finally, we show how texture on white creates immense depth, especially when the food showcases something that is meant to look simple but is far from it when you look more closely. The background texture of the plate works so well with this principle.

Collection Privé is an important development for us that we feel will hopefully satisfy the most exclusive club of creative chefs and restaurateurs. Just don’t expect me tell you who they are or what we have done.