PROFILE // Arthur
Arthur To-Go Chef Tristan Rosier had two options when the restaurant shutdowns were announced — stay at home and watch Netflix or come up with a new business idea — stat. He chose the latter. WORDS Annabelle Cloros
24 HOURS AFTER hospitality venues
in New South Wales were told to close
their doors, Tristan Rosier had to make a
opportunity to offset the loss of the venue’s
quite a while, but didn’t have the time to
ATG started with 70 meals for two for
running Arthur is quite high,” says Rosier.
usual eat-in trade.
decision. Arthur To-Go was in full swing
$30 a pop, which moved to 40 meals on
Sydneysiders four nights a week. Arthur
diners too much,” says Rosier. “We had a
three short days later and is now feeding had never offered takeaway before, but the future of the one-hat restaurant is now in the (recyclable) bag.
made meals for two that cover the protein,
game plan to run takeaway from a window
to tack on dessert. Customers can also
at the back of the restaurant, but then we couldn’t operate as a restaurant anyway.” So the team integrated e-commerce
platform Shopify with the restaurant’s
government press conferences. Chef and
Turns out you can offer a restaurant-ish
business owner Tristan Rosier knew closures were impending, and had two ideas to keep his one-year-old business afloat: Arthur ToGo (ATG) or selling burgers.
Arthur To-Go’s offering consists of ready-
the second day. “It impacted on normal
A total venue shutdown was imminent given the increased frequency of
implement them because the demand of
dotcom and sales have been booming.
experience at home and customers are
more than happy to pay — to the tune of selling out ATG’s offering every week.
carb, side and salad bases plus the option
order loaves of Arthur’s cult sourdough and cultured butter along with the same wines, beers and pre-batched cocktails they’d
usually enjoy in-venue. There’s also the dip, which is a bit of a trademark for the chef.
“We’ve always wanted to scale up and we’re building this with the intention of it being
long-term,” says Rosier. “I think this is going to be the way it is for quite a while.”
So far, meals have included everything
ATG won out, and the team decided to
While the introduction of Arthur’s new
from chicken cottage pie to braised lamb
up to the ban on dining in. The stream of
restaurant concept beyond the dine-in
lasagna — but don’t think the offering
introduce takeaway in the days leading
customers had already begun to dwindle, and Rosier saw pre-prepared meals as an 18 | Hospitality
business arm was fast, expanding the
experience was always on the cards. “We had been working on some ideas for
with Israeli cous cous and pumpkin and waivers from what you’d normally get.
“We really wanted to still reflect what we
