Raising the Bar

PROFILE Kimberly Grant Global Head of Restaurants & Bars, Senior Vice President, Food & Beverage Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts

Kimberly Grant’s extensive hospitality industry experience includes everything from front-of-house positions to a stint as COO. In her new role as Global Head of Restaurants & Bars at Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, she is charged with leading the worldwide food and beverage operations, working across the group’s 550+ restaurant and bar outlets in properties across 47 countries. With more than 50 projects currently under development, she is constantly seeking out new trends and opportunities to strenghten the group’s culinary portfolio.

Upcoming Openings: Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo (2022); Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences Cartagena (2023); Four Seasons Resort and Residences Caye Chapel, Belize (2024); Hotel Danieli, Venice (2025)

As Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts expands its F&B portfolio, the group’s new Global Head of Restaurants & Bars and Senior Vice President of Food & Beverage Kimberly Grant discusses the importance of creativity, creating opportunities and social media.

Words: Shanna McGoldrick

Hospitality group Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts is expanding its extensive F&B offering with renewed focus and investment. This year, the brand underlined its commitment to strengthening its presence in the domain by appointing Kimberly Grant to the newly-created position of Global Head of Restaurants & Bars and Senior Vice President of Food & Beverage. Grant also helms the Four Seasons Restaurant & Bar Group, where she has been tasked with pushing the envelope on innovative concepts, elevating existing outlets, attracting top talent and unifying the operations process across the brand’s portfolio worldwide.

THE F&B GATEWAY

Four Seasons’ luxurious legacy has inspired a loyal following among well-travelled guests – but as Grant points out, it’s the F&B pillar that often serves as the entry point for those discovering the brand for the first time. Its portfolio of more than 550 outlets runs the gamut from coffee shops to Michelin-starred venues, and staying ahead of the curve is critical. “We’re mavericks in what we do – we always have been,” says Grant, who believes that the core principles of the Four Seasons F&B policy are rooted in creativity, innovation and open-mindedness. Guests are more discenring in the post-pandemic era, she believes, underscoring the need for hospitality companies to strive constantly for excellence. “For many of our guests, their first experience with Four Seasons is dining,” she reveals. “Our job is to try to transform those first transactions into lifetime connections.”

Out-of-town travellers aren’t the only demographic seeking out compelling F&B experiences. In many of Four Seasons’ urban locations, non-hotel guests and locals typically make up a large portion of the covers – sometimes accounting for as much as 60% or 70% of the tables. “We actually view ourselves as independent restaurants within the communities that we serve,” says Grant, citing diners who say they’re going to eat at Le George rather than at the Four Seasons when they’re in Paris. “We view it as flipping the script on the hotel restaurant.” She adds: “We just happen to be a restaurant that is located within a hotel – we’re not a hotel restaurant. If we think of it from that perspective, then appealing to local consumers is mission critical in every way.”

CREATING CELEBRITIES

The Four Seasons portfolio currently holds 28 Michelin stars globally, spread across 21 restaurants in 16 hotels. The group’s emphasis on culinary leadership has attracted an impressive roster of pioneering, high-profile chefs and prestigious gastronomic talents; among them

© Christian Horan Photography

French star Anne-Sophie Pic and sushi master Takashi Saito. But while big names certainly have their place in the company’s kitchens, Grant is keen to highlight the internal pathways open to employees. “We have a track record for successfully developing our own celebrity chefs, in a way,” she says, citing Chef Simone Zanoni as an example. “The charismatic, very creative craftswomen and men that we have in our restaurant and bar world – the ‘celebrities’ so to speak – push the envelope for our brand and creativity.”

Part of Four Seasons’ role, as she sees it, is to remain sufficiently relevant and dynamic to offer its staff sought-after venues that also encourage career development. The beauty of the company, she believes, lies in the multitude of opportunities available to staff. “If you want to travel the world or learn different techniques and cuisines, you can,” she says. “You can become an expert at Japanese cuisine, steak houses or French bistro all within the same organisation; you don’t have to leave the security of a brand and a culture that really inspires you,” she says. “I think that’s one of the best things that we offer as a group; we come up with experiences for team members who are looking to make a career out of this.”

This variation, Grant believes, can also be an effective antidote to the hospitality industry’s well-documented staffing shortage issues. An open-minded approach means that not all employment opportunities are dependent on previous hotel industry experience either, “because of our approach as independent restaurateurs” she explains. “You can have worked in all different types of formats and venues, we can find a place for you to really thrive within our organisation.”

SUSTAINABLE REINVENTION

Although the group’s growth means new opening announcements are commonplace –recent noteworthy projects include Nashville and Minneapolis – Four Seasons is no stranger to renovations. “We spend a lot of time working on innovating within our current properties,” explains Grant, adding that the life cycle of a restaurant lease is shorter than it used to be. “Ten years is a long time for the same concept to be vibrant and relevant,” she says. “So whether we evolve and innovate within the existing concept, or we reimagine something entirely new, we spend quite a bit of time doing that within our existing portfolio.”

The challenge, of course, lies in striking the balance between relevance and sustainability. Four Seasons operates various initiatives that support its larger overarching environmental, social and governance platform, but the F&B pillar also takes a double-pronged approach to the issue. “The first is really about providing guests with food and beverage with integrity,” says Grant. Allowing for trend shifts, she believes that the typical Four Seasons guest generally wants “food that is clean, in its purest form possible,” driving a focus on locally-sourced, seasonal ingredients. The group is also working towards eliminating the use of environmentally harmful materials and tackling food waste. It’s imperative, she says, that brands are “making sure our menus and our offerings are streamlined, while also offering our guests choice and enough variety to get them excited”.

It all comes back to being part of the conversation. “We want to be on ‘the list’, so to speak,” says Grant, referring to the culinary recommendations travellers make to friends and family. This year, Four Seasons is on track to serve around 20 million guests globally, with most likely to evaluate their stay in some way via social media. The brand measures the online output studiously: “We want to be a part of those conversations that are just natural and sociallyignited; that’s what success looks like for our concepts and our venues,” asserts Grant. “Word of mouth is the most powerful asset that we have.” But how does the group intend to drive it? The answer is clear: “One guest at a time, one experience at a time, one memory at a time.”