Guellers goes into liquidation

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