King Of Clubs
Richard Caring is snapping up London’s restaurants and turning them into international brands
WORDS | JOSH SIMS
PORTRAIT | JULIAN DODD
RICHARD CARING IS STRIDING ACROSS HIS OFFICE with a bubble-wrapped painting tucked under his arm. It is on its way for cleaning, he explains. That it is a Matisse which set a record-breaking price at auction somehow seems irrelevent. “I was pissed when I bought it and really wouldn’t recommend buying art like that,” Caring advises with a chuckle. “You wake up with a huge bill.”
Or a huge piece of art: the floor of his workspace had to be reinforced to accommodate the Henry Moore that dominates the room, not to mention its other aesthetic touch-points, the Rembrandt and the Degas, and the modern piece that looks like a child’s painting of a house. Hang on, that is a child’s picture of a house – sent to him by one of the beneficiaries of his philanthropic work with the NSPCC.
The juxtaposition is somehow a tender one, a motif for the private world of an entrepreneur who has, despite his success, and his best-friendship with the less camera-shy retail magnate Sir Philip Green, remained well out of the public eye.
Until recently that is. Caring, now 62, made the bulk of his fortune – hovering by various estimates around the £500m mark – by being the main middle-man between Far Eastern fashion manufacturers and British high-street stores. But recent years have seen him expand in an unexpected, higher profile direction: as the UK’s new club king.
He is now owner of west London paparazzi magnets Harry’s Bar and Annabel’s. And, for the edgier media set, also of Soho House – a member’s club and hotel hybrid – which opened its first outpost in Berlin in May. Caring has also been scooping up blue-chip restaurants, in a manner almost as gung-ho as his art shopping: Cecconi’s and the Caprice Group – which includes the bon viveur hotspots of Scott’s, The Ivy and Le Caprice – as well as, at the more mass-market end, the Côte chain.
Some might assume that the tangential move came because of his declining influence in the fashion world, as more retailers deal with factories direct. But, quite aside from his obvious lack of need to do anything at all should he choose to, it is, Caring argues, a similar kind of people business.
His father, an American-Italian GI who married and stayed in the UK, was also in the ‘rag trade’, “so I was out knocking on doors selling clothes at 16 and that teaches you to try to get people on your side,” says Caring. “I know that if you blow your nose on your sleeve, spit and swear a lot, that’s not attractive.”
And he attributes the current maintenance of quality in his new restaurants and club chains – when others are failing – to the staff. “They’re passionate and proud,” he says. “We keep them because they get a good deal, because we’re fair and because saying you work at the iconic Ivy in the West End sounds an awful lot better than saying you’re at McDonald’s in West Ham.”
But is this people focus incompatible with fast growth? Yes, he has been buying a lot. But that’s it, he says – not least because he expects the next couple of years to be especially tough ones for the economy. And what he has bought he sees great potential in. He has a strong working relationship, one of oversight rather than command, with those who had the original visions for his brands, among them Soho House’s Nick Jones.
He has built, he explains – with the emphasis on the past tense – an A-Z portfolio of restaurants covering a broad price spectrum of the market but also including those brands capable of international expansion. As well as Berlin, Soho House, for example, has now opened in New York and Los Angeles and plans to in Shanghai and Sydney. Cecconi’s will open in Berlin and Miami by the end of the year and Scott’s is set for roll-out too.
“These are the blue ribbons of the restaurant world, the best of their type in each field, and if we don’t get two or three restaurants in the top five lists we have an inquiry,” he says, a broad smile switching on a searchlight of the whitest teeth, of which more later. “I have an affinity for product, whatever that product is. It’s all well and good being good at sales or design, but at the end of the day what you’re selling is a product or a brand that’s right for its market. Think ‘Cartier’ and straight away you have something in your mind. And Cartier don’t just sell on Bond Street. The same can be said of Annabel’s or Soho House. They have an image that appeals to the type that goes to these places that can work internationally. People have thrown rocks saying I haven’t invented these brands. I accept that. But I can see their potential.”
The figures, too, challenge the perception that, like his art, he paid over the odds. He paid £105 million for Soho House, but will see a handsome return of £25m this year alone. He bought the Caprice Group for £33m and this year it will make £20m. He bought Strada for £45m and sold it just 18 months later for £150m – the team behind it will now push the “pretty aggressive” expansion of the new Côte chain. By aggressive, he means 45 of them by the end of next year and eventually 200.
“Am I a highway robber? No. I paid a good price for the acquisitions because I love them. But, like the art, if you’re buying a one-off, who’s to say what the price should be?” asks Caring. “People say, ‘Why did you spend £130m on Wentworth Golf Club?’” There is a pause. “Because I’m nuts. They’re right about that one.” Wentworth, indeed, was where the ball started rolling. Caring, an enthusiastic golfer who could not resist the opportunity to own the iconic course when it came his way, says that if Wentworth’s dining had subsequently not needed an upgrade, he would never have approached the Caprice Group. It was in doing so that he realised it would be cheaper in the long run to buy the group rather than hire them.
And so began the spate of purchases that has seen Caring become a reluctant face on the west London social scene after decades of anonymity. He prefers to go for a run with his 16 dogs (“My sons will have to deal with very strict trustees when it comes to their inheritance, but my dogs on the other hand, they’ll get fortunes,” he jokes) or talk about art history. He doesn’t even enjoy the fruits of his business – ironically he often skips breakfast and lunch.
“I’ve had to dodge some arrows so far and prove to some people that what I’m trying to do is take a concern and improve it. And, of course, the press like to write about the blinding-white teeth and that I look orange so must be using the wrong kind of fake tan and send my hair out to get it dry-cleaned, and while initially I reacted defensively I can laugh at it now,” he says, perhaps given a new sense of gratitude for the olive skin and impressive mop that are his father’s genetic gifts.
“Of course, if I walk into a club and everyone’s enjoying it, and I’ve had the couple of drinks I need to relax and stop watching the detail, how can you not enjoy the limelight?” he asks. “Listen, I have one hell of a lucky lifestyle. The new attention is a by-product of that. I also know if I fail that the same attention would hit me so hard on the back of the head it would take my head off. They like to throw rocks on the way up, but on the way down, God help you…. I don’t plan to try it out, but who knows in this world. That’s life, right?”
Soho House Berlin, 1 Torstrasse, +49 3040 5044-0, www.sohohouseberlin.com
