The Cutlery Club

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Team Development & Coaching | Copywriting

Isobel Cripps, Founder of The Cutlery Club, has 30 years experience ranging from Front of House Management, Marketing, PR and Personal Development Coaching. Previous roles include, Remy & Associates as a Brand Ambassador of their premium brand portfolio, including Cointreau, Remy Martin, Piper Heidseick and Krug Champagne. Moving on to launch The Media Club, a private members club in Fitzrovia as Club Director, before joining Etrusca Restaurant Group as Head of PR, Marketing and Events. During her time at Etrusca she launched a further five restaurants for the group and established a Mystery Diner Scheme to drive and underpin their team coaching sessions and ensure their discerning clients were consistently experiencing the best level of service.

She currently focuses her time on individual and team Personal Development Coaching in addition to curating the Cutlery Club Salons and her role as a part-time Physical Therapist. Her biggest industry frustrations are poor service and the customers’ inability to complain constructively. “It’s such a shame that the modern diner prefers to write awful online reviews instead of offering constructive feedback when they are actually there? It’s a cultural thing in the U.K that needs to change. We need to learn how to complain positively and we need to coach our front of house teams to actively invite this kind of feedback, helping the customer feel valued! I’m absolutely convinced more young people would want to work in Hospitality if they received proper coaching and support; and of course, customers learnt to be more respectful of the demanding and often challenging job they do.”

PR, Marketing & Events

Sarah Lewis has 30 years of experience in the hospitality industry, having worked as a Director at YOU Agency, setting up their food & drink division after freelancing for Zilli Enterprises and OpenTable.co.uk. She then set up her own agency, Salt PR, in 2013, a communications company offering PR, Marketing, Events and Social Media solutions. A life spent in restaurants since graduating in English, she has worked with chefs including Jean-Christophe Novelli, Aldo Zilli, Richard Corrigan and a range of hospitality clients from leading restaurant chains, independents, food and drink companies and events including Chinese New Year.

Sarah is also the co-founder of The Golden Chopsticks Awards launched in 2018 to celebrate the enormous contribution of East and South East Asian cuisine to the UK catering industry and champion those who work within it. As the only awards to recognise East and South East Asian cuisine, the event, now in it’s fifth year, was extremely well received by the industry, and as the Head Judge Ken Hom said, “It has set the standard for food awards in this sector”.

“There is something so incredibly satisfying and rewarding about spending weeks or months planning an event or launch night, then watching it play out harmoniously on the night – even if you’re hovering on the edge of a nervous breakdown throughout!”

Operations | Copywriting

Jeremy Shepherd began his career in catering aged 18, working in his local pub near Leeds, West Yorkshire, before entering the London restaurant scene aged 20. Since then he has amassed over 25 years of hands-on experience running bars and restaurants in and around London and the south-east, doing every conceivable job from Bartender to Operations Director. His CV covers small local restaurants, high volume American and Belgian restaurants, private members’ clubs and Asian cuisine. Companies he has worked for include My Kinda Town, Smollensky’s, Café Spice Namaste, Belgo and the BBC Club.

In more recent years he has journeyed into the supply chain side of the restaurant business but remains as obsessed with customer care and attention to detail as ever, with a genuine passion for the hospitality industry as a whole.

Interior Design, Styling and Brand Development

Maggie Greening is an award winning Interior Designer, working in the profession for over 30 years and launching her own company, MG Interior Design in 2002.

Maggie believes the key to her highly original and functional interiors is a good rapport with her clients, whom she guides through the design process with confident ease and humour.

She has an enormous wealth of experience in commercial projects, from restaurants and cafés, to showrooms and apartments. Her focus on functional, sustainable quality design help to bring about beautiful spaces that are perfectly suited to her clients’ commercial needs and practical requirements. She believes beautiful spaces should never intimidate or over-power, but simply enhance the dining experience.

“A memorable dining experience is far more than just the food. There are so many important visual and practical elements, from ambient lighting and music, to enticing smells and comfortable seats. As an Interior Designer you have to consider every element. It’s your job to sit on that seat before expecting the guests to – it may be beautiful, but is it comfortable?”

Graphic Design and Brand Development

Rob Holmes founded &Vinegar Creative in 2014 having gained invaluable experience within a number of agencies, specialising in branding, print and digital design for premier brands such as Lloyds TSB, Rolls-Royce & Vodafone. His intention was to bring his experience to a wider client base via an agency model that could be more agile and responsive to all its clients’ needs.

As lead creative he brings big ideas to all areas of design from entrepreneurial start-ups to long-established businesses, ensuring their design tells a strong brand story that has impact and longevity.

“Brand design is like subtle threads, it weaves through everything you create. I heard once, if brand is the story, then design is the storytelling; and as a Graphic Designer, I am here to tell a damn good story!”

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