Jess and Richie Corrigan on their father, Richard Corrigan
Richard Corrigan is an Irish chef and restaurateur whose restaurants in London have included Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill, Corrigan’s Mayfair and Daffodil Mulligan. His daughter, Jess, and son, Richie, both worked at Bentley’s while studying. Jess is the co-founder of restaurant PR agency Crab Communications, and Richie is the general manager of Daffodil Mulligan. Both currently live in the family home with their parents and their younger brother, who is studying hospitality. daffodilmulligan.com
Jess: With Dad’s restaurants, it isn’t like that’s his work and we’re his family – it all melds into one. When I was young, Mum worked in the office in Lindsay House [Corrigan’s Soho restaurant where he won a Michelin-star in 1997], and I would go in with her on the weekends. It all just felt very much part of everyday life.
Richie: A lot of my summer holidays were spent peeling potatoes or crayfish. It was the worst thing in the world. When you’re 13 it’s not your passion; it’s a chore. But if your mum works in accounts and your dad is in the kitchen and they’re talking shop, restaurant business becomes normal.
Jess: To this day, that is the family conversation.
Richie: We’re quite boring to outsiders. Going into the same industry as your father, you always have an advantage: the contacts, you know how it all works, and how to talk to chefs.
Jess: I’ve seen the highs and lows of running a restaurant business. When I became senior in restaurant PR I realised the benefit of that, when I had to deal with situations I’d dealt with in my personal life. Dad came from nothing, so I don’t think we were spoilt. We had amazing opportunities but he always reminded us how fortunate we were. If I wanted to go on holiday with my friends or get a new album, I had to work for that money.
Richie: It’s quite intense if your dad’s your boss. Your loyalty is to your family, but I wanted to learn something else. So I went off to Asia for a year and a half and did my own thing, including working at Belon in Hong Kong, then came back and we opened Daffodil Mulligan [in November 2019]. Bloody hell – the stress levels were high.
Jess: It was a hard opening. There was Dad, there was Richie as general manager, and I was doing the PR. So we’d have a meeting, and Dad wouldn’t show, and Richie would be doing something else, and I would be there with my team. With any other client, I would have sat there patiently. But with them, I was like: “Guys, sit down, we’re having this meeting.” I thought it was a normal meeting and it went quite well. And on the tube afterwards, the team was in a state of shock and said: “The three of you were just shouting at each other across the table.” A lot was agreed on in that meeting, but there was a lot of table slamming. I definitely ran that account differently. In a normal situation, I would put something to the client and talk them through it, but I skip that step with Dad or Richie.
Richie: I have a lot of autonomy but Dad’s a big character, so he’d come in and say, “I want it this way and that way,” and I had real trouble speaking to him like an owner, not like my dad. So I’d say, “Oh, I disagree with you,” and he’d say, “Well, tough shit.” I’m not sure how I’d react if a normal boss said that to me. So we did have shouting matches. It was all about business, but I’m not sure I would have shouted with another boss. I’ve worked for quite tough people and if they said “Jump”, I’d say, “How high?”; if Dad says “Jump”, I say, “Why are you asking me to jump, what’s the reasoning behind that?” So you question things more, but there aren’t so many steps of management, so the end goal is quicker to get to. But we definitely take work home with us – there’s no choice.
Jess: There are times we want to kill each other. Richie and I not so much.
Richie: Some general managers want to micromanage PR, but I trust Jess. So we haven’t fallen out. We team up against Dad.
Jess: He’s cooking at home every night now. It’s what he loves. And he has not a lot going on. Nearly every night he says he gets so much enjoyment out of seeing us eating. Sometimes Robbie, our brother, will have only one portion and Dad’s like: “What’s wrong? Do you not like it? You need more.” Anyone in the industry will tell you, if you go to one of his restaurants and he’s there, you’ll leave very full and very drunk.
Richie: It’s too much. It’s one of the arguments I’ve had with him. I’ll say: “They’ve had enough. Stop giving them food.” He’ll give them another course.
Jess: Or if people say they aren’t drinking that month, he’s like: “Don’t be ridiculous! Bottle of champagne!” I’m sure they love it, but as his kids, we’re just like: “Oh my God, leave these poor people alone.” His generosity is renowned.
Richie: And extends to our home.
Nathan Outlaw on his father, Clive Outlaw
When Nathan Outlaw was young, his father, Clive, was the head of catering at a paper mill. Nathan now owns Restaurant Nathan Outlaw and Outlaw’s Fish Kitchen in Cornwall. He also runs Siren at the Goring Hotel in London, currently closed due to coronavirus, where Clive also worked.
nathan-outlaw.com
Even when I was about eight, I wanted to go with my dad to his kitchen. They were an unruly team and it seemed like they were just having fun. I suppose everyone was nice to me because I was the boss’s son, but they’d show me everything and include me, so straightaway I felt at home. I remember how upbeat Dad was when they’d been very busy. He must have been coming off the high of enjoying himself – and very proud of what he was doing. Even when I was young, seeing someone with that positivity for work really rubbed off.
I’d go in for the breakfast shift on Saturdays. There’d be 200 to 300 in the canteen, and there was the directors’ dining, which was a bit posher. They also had a dance hall and would do social things most Saturday nights – bands and comedians. I used to get involved in that, too, collecting rubbish or drinks. I never questioned that, I just remember wanting to be there with Dad. I’m lucky he included me. That’s when I got into cooking, and never really thought about doing anything else.
I did work experience for him as a teenager and he was so hard on me. He didn’t mind me wanting to be a chef, but he wanted me to realise how tough it was. That six weeks’ summer holiday when all my mates were off playing football and dossing, I was in the kitchen and any time I got near to doing a nice job, he’d tell me to wash up or clean the fryers. They’d make 40 lasagnes – 10 portions a tray – and the trays would go a bit rusty and I had to clean them. All the really crap jobs.
He taught me, unconsciously, how to run a kitchen and lead people. It didn’t matter what the challenge was, he’d always make it happen. It was fast-paced and the job had to be done properly or not at all, but he made sure that the fun element was as important as getting the job done.
For the last years of his career he worked for a contract catering company. Those businesses are about the money; they want you to cook by numbers and they don’t want you to have a brain or a voice. He had so much he could pass on, I asked if he wanted to come and work with us in London.
He wasn’t a fine-dining chef, and wasn’t there to be a head chef – he was there for his experience and as a good pair of eyes for me, because I’m based in Cornwall. His organisational experience and passion for cooking was very infectious – especially for the younger guys. There’s a lot of noise in hospitality for young chefs that’s quite hard for them to decipher; it’s good to have older chefs in the kitchen to give them perspective.
I try to have a wide knowledge base in all my kitchens. It’s my responsibility to nurture talent, because it was done for me. Accountants would say, only have people in there who can do the job, but I’d rather have a few in the kitchen or front of house who are learning. And people at the mid-level of their career need to learn to lead and nurture, because it’s a tough industry with fewer people coming in, so that’s a valuable skill.
Dad came up to London on the train from Maidstone, from 8am until 4pm, and he did the pastries, breads and the afternoon tea stuff. When we closed the restaurant because of the current crisis, he was 65 and he retired a few months early. Hopefully he has the last years of his career as fond memories, instead of working in that faceless corporate company. I’m glad that I was in a position to be able to give him that, like he gave me a nice start.
Missy Malik-Flynn on her father, Carl Flynn
Missy Malik-Flynn’s father, Carl, was a pub manager, then a live-in landlord. She grew up above pubs such as the Marquis of Granby in London’s Covent Garden and the King’s Arms in Hampton Court. With her partner, Gabriel Pryce, Flynn opened Rita’s in Hackney, and now owns sandwich shop Bodega Rita’s in King’s Cross, currently operating as a wine shop and deli. She is also working on an MA on the anthropology of food.
ritasdining.com
I tell people who come to work for us about the first time I got drunk, because it’s how I came to learn about stocktaking. When you’re a kid and live in a pub with all this stuff, you don’t understand who it belongs to, or what business is. When I was a teenager we lived in a pub in South Kensington and we had a dumb waiter that went from the bar, where we could order chips, into our apartment. We had Christmas Day in the pub and I had this elaborate plan of sending my presents up in the lift, and sneaking a Bacardi Breezer into each bag of presents. I got upstairs, got drunk and got in trouble. My mum, who doesn’t drink, was very angry. My dad let the whole telling-off happen then took me aside and said: “I just want you to know, we have CCTV – and we stocktake.” I didn’t understand that there was a record of stock somewhere. That’s when I realised we lived in my dad’s job.
I haven’t done any other work in my life; I went straight into working in bars. I worked in the pub as soon as I was allowed, on weekends at the King’s Arms, where we did huge numbers. I did all the menial jobs and really enjoyed the physicality and teamwork.
Dad does try to give me advice but he’s got quite old-school reference points. His main thing is stock. He understands the numbers inside out, so every time I get a project he’ll say: “What’s the break even? How much are you going to charge for it?” He grills me on things that are second nature to him. And he’ll lecture me if he thinks I’m doing them wrong.
A lot of what we do is not to his style. He once came to Rita’s in Hackney, and left an online review and – I don’t think he realised how weird it was for him to do this – he complained about the price of the beer, and left it with his full name. You invite your parents and you want them to go and write some fluff…
When you work for a pub group, you’re very target driven – all business should be – but Dad never neglected to create micro-communities. Often people who worked there would live with us, and we pretty much had an open door policy. We’d make friends with complete nutters in the pub – it was so much fun. I was always very clear that I wanted to create something with substance and value and longevity. The convivial aspects of running a food business are the best bits, but they don’t work unless the numbers work.
Dad always worries for me. We went through a very hard time closing our restaurant [Rita’s, in 2016], and he has more empathy about that than my mum. There’s never been “I told you so”, but he’s really cautious on my behalf about future ventures. It’s good to have a voice saying: “That’s all very well but you’ve gotta run the numbers; is that person working hard enough; are they good enough?” Over the years the type of questions he asks have changed. I think he’s very proud of what we’ve achieved. I think he understands the vision now.
