Patrick Dempsey, chief executive of Restaurant Associates UK and Ireland, has arranged our interview in one of the company's contracts, Twenty Four. It's not the sort of restaurant you associate with contract caterers. The linen-clad tables and fine food served high above London in Tower 42 put it more in line with a top City establishment. But that underlines why Compass bought Restaurant Associates (RA) in the first place.
As Dempsey says, Compass's purchase of the American-based RA in 1998 (see opposite) has allowed the company to develop huge potential in the market. "Compass is such a big organisation, but we didn't really have a premium-end division," he says. "I think a lot of clients were waiting for that."
Restaurant Associates has certainly brought some muscle to the company, forming an umbrella over Compass's top-end UK catering divisions of Milburns, Leith's, Roux Fine Dining and Charters and bringing its 50-year reputation with it.
"Restaurant Associates has been going for decades and it has been a real success in New York," he says. "It's about sharing best practice. We have a number of big clients that we look after in London and New York who know RA, so we've created a global contract, in fact."
So far, a handful of sites have received the RA treatment, following trips to New York by Compass managers and chefs to become familiar with working practices and styles that RA president Nick Valenti prescribes.
The RA concept is more a philosophy of working than anything else, says Dempsey. "It's about putting together the best people with the best ingredients and the best suppliers. We have six to eight contracts per operations manager, and we take our food very seriously," he says.
Display is an integral part of the concept. An "arts and style" director hired by Valenti for his New York operations now consults on RA's UK sites, overseeing interiors and food display. Exacting rules on displaying fresh fruit and food on plates are followed at each site.
Valenti is also "passionate about not messing with ingredients", so dishes are kept unfussy with an emphasis on seasonal and fresh ingredients. These are sourced through a recently consolidated team of Compass suppliers, reduced from 63 to eight.
Eighteen months after the purchase of Restaurant Associates by Compass, the company's style and influence are beginning to make an impact on London's City scene.
In 18 months RA has netted £82m of turnover in new business with 23 new contracts. Deutsche Bank, J Walter Thompson advertising agency, the Sunborn Yacht floating hotel and Esporta Health and fitness clubs - a contract with a combined total turnover of at least £40m - now fly under the RA banner. In addition, and in keeping with its cousin overseas, Restaurant Associates UK has maintained a 100% contract retention record.
Dempsey humbly ascribes the retention success rate to timing - several big tenders came up for renewal around the time RA was being established and talked about - yet he is clearly convinced by the RA philosophy. "The Restaurant Associate style creates a sort of excitement. When you walk in you feel that you are with an RA client. It's a notch above."
For clients who've been RA'd, the results are proving positive. Of the five sites that have undergone the transformation, all report an increase in sales of around 25% and uplift in customer satisfaction.
Tony Williams, group administration director for Sea Containers, reported a 30% increase in sales in the staff restaurant and an increase in covers of around 100 customers a day. "The partnership with Restaurant Associates has led to a vastly noticeable change in sales," he says.
As president of Restaurant Associates in the UK and Ireland and the USA, Valenti has overseen the development of RA in the UK, making regular visits to this country to view work in progress and advise on implementing his ideas. Dempsey is relieved about the strong reciprocal relationship between the two divisions.
"When we first met Nick in New York, there was some nervousness from him as to whether we were serious about applying the RA concept. I'm proud that we've managed to create a good relationship with RA in New York, because that was pivotal for the success of the concept," Dempsey says.
Dempsey's plans for next year include growing Leith's and Charters by 10% a year and establishing Restaurant Associates as a name. "We want to get a number of key, high-profile City corporate accounts so we can say we do the top 15 or 20 key accounts in the City," he says. "And we want to create some icons in the public arena.
"A year on from now, we'd like to launch Restaurant Associates more publicly and be more aggressive. We've had a year of putting the business together and there is no reason why we shouldn't go far. We've got a good culture to grow business."
Once upon a time in America
For half a century, Restaurant Associates has been synonymous with catering in the USA. Founded in the 1950s by Abraham Wechsler, it's credited with pioneering the "theme restaurant" concept when it opened the Newarker, followed by the Forum of the Twelve Caesars and La Fonda del Sol.
By the 1990s, Restaurant Associates (RA) had become a diverse New York-based restaurant and contract catering group.
The company now feeds 75,000 people daily at more than 130 restaurants and high-profile food service accounts. Restaurants include the Sea Grill in the Rockefeller Center, the Brasserie in the Seagram Building and Café Centro in the Metlife building. Its contracts include those at the United Nations Building, the Harvard School of Business, Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
When the company announced it was looking for a partner in 1996, Compass was presented with an ideal opportunity. The contract catering giant had been looking for an entry into the US premium concessions business since its merger with Granada.
Compass bought the company in 1998 for $87.5 (£53.6m).
Restaurant associates
President: Nick Valenti
Chief executive officer: Patrick Dempsey
Managing director of B & I: Simon Titchener
Concessions director: Keith Hudspith
Business development director: Philip Nash
Contracts: 135, under Charters, Roux Fine Dining, Leith's and Milburns
Restaurants: the Admiralty, Twenty Four, the Sunborn Yacht hotel
Key contracts: Deutsche Bank, J Walter Thompson, Esporta health and fitness clubs
Number of sites: about 300
Employs: 3,500
Compass Group UK and Ireland
Annual turnover: £2.8b
Employs: 100,000