CHEF’S AGONY
NICK NAIRN REVEALS HARDEST DECISION
Heis about to be seen in another series of the hit show that has made him and Paul Rankin known all over the world. But ahead of Paul and Nick’s Big Food Trip New Zealand hitting our screens, Nick Nairn has spoken of how the success contrasts with his biggest business failure.
Even as he was filming the show, he was agonising over having to close his Aberdeen restaurant. Nick’s Pizza Bar, which he launched in December 2016, closed in July, a month after the shutters went up at the longer-established associated cook school.
“We had been haemorrhaging money,” said Nick, 59. “Enough was enough and we had to close it.
“It was an incredibly tough decision, the toughest I’ve had to make in my career. I’ve never had anything I’ve had to pull out of before. When we went up there the streets were paved with gold and oil was $110 a barrel.
“It was on my mind when I was in New Zealand and I did have sleepless nights. It didn’t take away from the experience, but it was always there.
“It had been a long time and you just cannot keep losing money. All the advice I got was that we should have pulled out years ago. It was only my stubbornness to make it work.
“I didn’t want to put my hands up and say enough is enough. But it’s business and not every business works.” The current economic climate has seen other well-known restaurateurs face tough times, with Jamie Oliver closing a number of his self-titled eateries.
Latest figures revealed that the number of restaurants in Scotland which have closed over the past decade has almost quadrupled.
“It’s an extraordinarily tough time for the high street,” said Nick. “Whatever way you look at Brexit, it’s a distraction.
“We’ve had a referendum and we’re potentially going to have another one. It makes people jittery and wondering what happens next and they are less likely to spend.
“We have food inflation because of the exchange rate and we’re having to absorb that. And while I think the minimum wage is great, it means bigger payroll costs.
“But the biggest problem is recruitment. We don’t have enough good people coming in – front of house, kitchen, management – and when they do come on we can’t hold on to them. It’s an epidemic.”
Nick also found himself in the headlines when he was assaulted in Aberdeen just before Christmas, making it an exceptional 12 months.
“It’s been a bit of an extraordinary period,” he admits. “The assault was just an isolated incident. A lot of people have tried to connect things to it but it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
While Nick has had business woes, things couldn’t be going better with his TV work. The chefs’ Canadian Food Trip series finished on Friday night and STV are so happy with it they have scheduled the eight-part New Zealand show to start on Friday, October 12.
It may be the other side of the world, but the duo – Paul was born in Scotland but brought up in County Down – will once again be exploring their shared Ulster-scots heritage globally.
And Paul, the first chef from Northern Ireland to be awarded a Michelin star, says that heritage has been integral. “During the Good Friday Agreement it was discovered that there was money there for the Irish language,” said Paul, 58. “And accordingly there was also money for the Ulster-scots language.
“It’s that funding that helped get our wee show made.”