The Caterer interview: Tom Ross, managing director, the Pig hotels

I might not have known the details at the time, but I knew what a service was, I knew about the guest journey, and I knew what it was like to be in the hot, humid role of a potwasher. However, my parents sold the hotel before I got into the industry.

Where did your journey in hospitality begin?

At the Chicago Rib Shack in London. The restaurant legend Bob Payton was a good family friend and he kindly sorted it out. I was 18, living on my own in a bedsit in Bays­water and I absolutely loved it. The team there were like nothing I had seen before, and it was a machine – it felt like a chapter from an Anthony Bourdain book. Waitresses who were fearsome about their section and tips, chefs from every corner of the world churning out meal after meal. It was incredibly dynamic and while I only worked there for six months, it still stays with me today.

My journey in hotels started with two suggestions from my dad about where to apply. The first was the Goring, and the other was an unusual place in Winchester called Hotel du Vin. I interviewed at both and was working at Hotel du Vin a few weeks later. Again, I loved it. It suited a generalist like me. I knew the ropes, so I fitted in quickly. I only lasted 18 months though, as I had an urge to travel, so I told [Hotel du Vin founder] Robin Hutson I was going to leave. I was gutted when he did not ask me to stay. Instead, he encouraged me to go and get experience elsewhere, and I am so glad I did.

Did working at Fearrington House Inn in North Carolina and as the maître d' at the French Laundry in California's Napa Valley influence your management style in any way?

It is important to always stay true to who you are as a person but to allow one's management style to evolve over time based on experience and learning.

Fearrington was a one-of-a-kind Southern US hotel. It had very high standards but a relaxed feel. I was exposed to a whole new world of grouper, grits and gravy. Most importantly, it is where I met my wife, Melissa. We worked hard and played hard, and I think often the best teams do this – we remain lifelong friends with colleagues from that time. The general manager was a very people-focused person. He would throw dinners at his house and it felt like a big family – something I have always gravitated to in the places I have worked.

When I walked through the door of the French Laundry, Laura Cunningham, the general manager, came out and had a chat, and I was working the next week. This place truly influenced me. The focus on being better was a daily thing and the quality and care taken with the ingredients was remarkable. It made you so proud to work there.

Thomas Keller gets all the attention – and rightly so –but it is Laura who is an inspiration to so many French Laundry alumni. Calm and professional and with amazing standards, she takes you on the journey with her. It taught me that if you get enough people following a united goal, it becomes self-fulfilling. Everyone there wanted to improve every day and that meant inevitable improvement. It no longer had to be driven from the top – we drove each other.

What did you do on your return from the US?

I rejoined Hotel du Vin in 2004, just before it was sold, and stayed with the company until 2010. I loved the day-to-day of working in a hotel as part of a team and knowing the guests, but I would not say I had some dynamic plan.

It was that time in life where it is head down and crack on because you have three children under three and a tough job as general manager and a very supportive wife.

That said, I started to feel a bit stagnant at Hotel du Vin and an operations director role was the logical next step. What I really wanted was a role with a few properties close together – but that never happens, I thought. A week later, I got a call asking if I would interview with Jeremy Mogford in Oxford to be operations director for his collection of properties. It was a great learning curve with a hugely successful entrepreneur. I have always worked for talented entrepreneurs – I enjoy the dynamism and learning to spot and deal with the curve balls. I would go crazy working somewhere where rules are rules.

And what about working with Robin Hutson?

It seems like only yesterday when Robin contacted me and asked if I would be interested in joining the Pig. I had just moved back to Bath with no job and it felt serendipitous. I loved opening the Pig near Bath and still have a real soft spot for that property. After only 18 months the Pig at Combe was brought on, and I oversaw that opening, and from there became group operations director.

Obviously Covid was a fundamental time as operations director and I was exposed, as we all were, to incredibly difficult decision-making. I saw the true meaning of putting your people first in those first days. I remember conversations where we thought the company might have six weeks left, and Robin saying that we would continue to support everyone until the pot had run out.

We went line by line through 800 staff, understanding their personal circumstances. I am very proud of how we acted as a business. It also highlighted what an incredible team we have. The hotel directors, the operations teams and the central team all had huge pressure on them and dealt with it time and time again. We opened two hotels during the pandemic and one thing you learn working at the Pigs is we never stand still. The managing director role was a culmination of Robin wanting to take a step back from the business but not leave it, and this coincided with the recent investment from KSL.

What's the brief for the role of managing director of the Pig hotels?

I'm still working that one out. It is a very exciting time at the Pig, and for me much of that is shaping what the role of managing director looks like. It was not like slotting into a static company with an agreed structure. With the investment from KSL, the role is managing the alignment of expectations and creating a structure that allows growth to happen, while at the same time being acutely aware of the business as it stands today. My role is to be the guardian of a 10-year-old business as it navigates its next 10 or even 20 years. That means staying true to what we do and who we are as well as continuing to grow. Ultimately, I feel a huge sense of pride and responsibility.

Is F&B is still your focus in the hotels?

Yes, 100%, and this will never change. We are a restaurant with rooms, after all. Locally sourced food and our 25-mile menu are at the heart of what we do. We talk about food every day and the kitchen gardens sit proudly at each hotel. What you see in the garden ends up on your plate – we produce literally tonnes and tonnes of our own food. For many of us the enjoyment is knowing the local supplier, knowing their family, learning about their trade. Often all we do is showcase their amazing product, and I wish we could tell their stories more often.

The same is true of wine. The English wine market is exciting, and we are delighted to be backing it. Our wine lists feature loads of English wine, and we cannot wait to try juice from our own vineyard at the Pig in the South Downs – very local wine!

What do you attribute the success of the Pigs to – the people, the locations, the style or a combination of these things?

It is a combination of these things, but if you distil it down, the success is in creating places where we would like to go ourselves. This was one of the founding principles and is still true today whenever we make a decision.

Our people are obviously central to what we do, and we spend a huge amount of time talking about them. It is very much a group effort and there are several very talented individuals. I call it the monotony of excellence. Doing the same thing over and over can become tedious, but it must be done to the same exacting standard if you want to be great at what you do.

The yin to this yang is that we know we will get things wrong, no matter how hard we try, and we accept that and are very supportive of each other. Of course, it also helps that the properties are very special and in beautiful places.

Now that private equity group KSL Capital Partners is involved with the Pig hotels, are there plans for further expansion?

We are excited to be expanding, although in reality we have always been doing this. There is a palpable air of anticipation among the teams because new hotels mean opportunity for each of them. Historically, expansion was very organic; however, with the arrival of KSL it has been interesting to be introduced to new ways of looking at things, and this has been an incredible learning curve for me personally. While we have reached eight hotels on our own, we occasionally creak a bit. My role is to create the structure we need to expand while at the same time ensuring the current hotels continue to deliver as they always have.

How do you stay true to the brand while continuing the expansion?

I don't subscribe to the notion of expansion and dilution of the brand being inevitably linked. There are plenty of examples of it being done successfully. Focus and not deviating from your core values to try and fit some other narrative are key. It is important to understand where we have come from, and we have paused and taken some time to think about it. What are the pillars of the business and why do we do what we do at the Pigs?

The other influencing factor is the people. There is a culture and understanding of the brand that comes only with time served. There are literally hundreds of people within the company that have a deep knowledge of the business. At least half a dozen of us worked for Robin at Hotel du Vin nearly 25 years ago, and there are plenty within the business that have been here five to 10 years.

How do you find all the extra staff required – and what's the people strategy for the future?

Each new Pig opening has several senior staff from within the current business. To not have that is a very significant risk, and we spend an enormous amount of time strategising. In each hotel we know who is ready, whether they want to move and what we need to do to get them ready for the role. We could probably do this for two new hotels today, but then there is the back-fill required when they move hotel. So we are identifying people within the business who are not in management positions yet and understanding how we get them there.

Of course, a majority of the team will come from a local area, and like everybody else we must work hard to recruit them. Our in-house recruitment does a great job and our L&D team have a training programme that we have used at a number of openings.

I would argue that recruitment is sometimes a lesser issue than retaining people. This is where company culture and individual management ability comes into play. Creating an environment where people want to stay because it is an enjoyable place to work is an important part of our strategy.

What do you find most exciting about your role right now and what motivates you?

Being part of the Pig story is exciting at any time, but at the moment my learning and development have gone through the roof. Working alongside the team at KSL is very enlightening. It is enjoyable challenging ourselves as a team to work through a different lens and the prospect of opening new hotels and all that it entails is enough to get the pulse racing.

I believe everyone has a level of inner drive, and I'm reasonably self-motivated. I don't like the idea of letting others down and I have always aspired to be someone that others felt was doing a good job. However, as I have taken on more responsibility, I realise that the most important thing is to know that you are doing a good job. This is a more productive and positive mindset than worrying whether someone else thinks you are doing a good job. If you are happy with your own effort, you should be fine – we all know when we take a shortcut.

Who do you lean on in your team?

I lean on everyone! That's the nature of working as part of a collaborative team. We are lucky enough to have many people who are very good at their job. Whether it is the senior teams in the operation or the central team, I know I can rely on people to come up with ideas and solutions. I probably tend to lean more on disciplines that are not my area of strength. I like input from people who are experts in their area to guide me through a decision-making process.

We focus a great deal on work-life balance. In general, I think we are pretty good. We are not perfect, and if things get out of kilter it is for a short period of time and we pay every hour of overtime. At the Pigs, the notion of massive hours being the norm is long gone. It is more subtle than this, though, because it is often about the right hours for an individual to create the work-life balance they need.

By nature, our industry has unsociable hours – that is not going to change – but our attitude towards recruitment must. We must question whether a business is sustainable if it relies on staff regularly working well over their contracted hours because there is an unwillingness to adapt.