The restaurant group owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay pared losses to £1m last year as sales more than tripled after Covid restrictions were eased.
Ramsay has interests in 50 restaurants, including 36 directly operated outlets in the UK, such as the Michelin-starred Pétrus and the Savoy Grill, as well as 14 licensed outlets abroad.
Sales rose more than £50m to nearly £80m in the year to August 28, according to accounts filed with Companies House, but showed the extent of inflationary pressure on the hotel industry as it remained in the red with pre-tax loss which narrowed to £1 million from £6.8 million the previous year.
The documents set out plans to open a second Lucky Cat store in Manchester this month, plus Bread Street Kitchen stores, after new London sites opened at Battersea and Limehouse Power Station in late 2022, and it was looking for a second site. in Edinburgh for his Gordon Ramsay Academy cookery school, which opened in Woking, with the backing of local council, in 2021.
Ramsay also wants to expand his Street Burger and Street Pizza casual food chain after buying Pizza East in London’s Shoreditch in February. The company said that while it planned to expand, it had noted the value of three unnamed sites after a review found they required “improved performance or alternative uses.”
Dozens of UK restaurants have been forced to close across the country as labor shortages and wage increases have combined with rising energy and ingredient costs, with diners controlling the spending due to rising energy and food purchase bills.
However, financial documents show that Gordon Ramsay hired more than 500 additional employees in the year, bringing the total number of employees to more than 1,100, as he opened two upscale restaurants in the year to August 2022: Restaurant 1890 by Gordon Ramsay and The River Restaurant, and two of its Bread Street Kitchen outlets, in Edinburgh and Liverpool, plus two Street Burger outlets, in Reading and Farringdon in London.
While losses narrowed, the group’s net debts rose slightly to nearly £24m as it said it had spent nearly £2.7m on costs prior to opening new restaurants.
The group raised £153,000 in government support during the year, including license payments, but that was well down from almost £3.8 million the previous year.
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Gordon Ramsay was contacted for comment.
