Simon Gueller, widely regarded as the most talented chef in
Leeds, has been forced to take his city centre restaurant Guellers into
voluntary liquidation, just six months after opening it, claiming to have
personally lost £140,000 in the venture.
Speaking as accountants were drawing up a list of creditors
of Gueller Restaurants Ltd prior to a meeting this week to appoint a
liquidator, Gueller said the financial troubles for his restaurant, which cost
£500,000 to open, began at the outset.
“We opened late which put financial pressures on us, then we
have been caught up in a lot of dispute and litigation problems with the builders
and the kitchen people. The litigation was taking up too much of our financial
resources and we couldn’t get any further investment while this litigation was
going on. The debt was increasing all the time,” said Gueller.
The first public signs of trouble at the fledgling
restaurant came at the end of January when after saying he would not be
cooking, Gueller parted company with his head chef Stephen Smith and went back
into the kitchen.
The restaurant is continuing to trade normally and Gueller
said all staff were being kept on and have been paid. His hope is that new
investors will buy the business out of receivership and keep him on as
chef-manager, but with substantial changes in the style of the restaurant,
which Gueller says need to be made to make it prosper. Gueller said he had
already held talks with potential new investors interested in taking on the
business.
While Gueller’s food had won critical acclaim in the city,
evening business in the early part of the week and lunchtime trade had been
disappointing, said the chef. “Lunchtime trade in Leeds is more competitive
than I had thought. To compete, we are going to have to do something quicker
and cheaper for lunch, make the restaurant more relaxed and accessible, maybe
change the name, but retain the standards,” added Gueller, who had made clear
his ambition to regain at his restaurant the Michelin star he earned as head
chef at Rascasse in Leeds, where he was before opening Guellers.
by Bob Gledhill