Michelin star restaurant The Woodspeen looking forward to welcoming back diners after lockdown

Staff have been working hard behind the scenes to ensure venue is Covid secure and ready to reopen

THE hospitality industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with unprecedented restrictions, lockdowns and uncertainty.

A lot of restaurants have had to drastically change the way they do things – and The Woodspeen is no exception.

DAN COOPER speaks to the restaurant’s director of operations, Alessandro Fasoli, about what it has been doing to adapt and how it is preparing to reopen on Wednesday, December 2.

WHAT has The Woodspeen done to ensure that customers feel safe and how much of a challenge has that been?

The closure of the business in March was a regimental affair, made even more clinical and hard by the fact that we are a team of professionals trained to welcome people and not doing the opposite.

We know that even the best team, without a sound plan can’t score, so we planned, continuously, until we re-opened on July 4.

We aimed to not only comply with legally required documentations and ever-changing guidelines; our clear purpose was to maintain a style of service combined with an exciting offer that would be well received by our guests and, most importantly, instantly transmitted the safer possible approach to both our guests and fantastic team members.

In fact, the approach taken was the opposite of what many other businesses in the area took.

We opened all the hours we could, seven days a week, implementing different meal times through a first-time all-day dining approach; we un-furloughed as soon as we possibly could, 35 employees came back to work and we maintained a safe environment for everyone.

Guarding our guests’ safeness became our priority. QR menus, 25 hourly-recorded sanitising touch points and other important touches through the meal became a normal routine; we trained to smile with the eyes instead – we all agreed that words means little unless the eyes speak them too.

You signed up to the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme. How did that go?

We signed up the day it was announced. Many guests were surprised that a Michelin-star restaurant would take this approach.

Again we did the opposite of many other establishments.

The scheme allowed thousands of new guests to dine at The Woodspeen.

They enjoyed a three-course lunch on the outside terrace, through a good part of the summer for £18, which moved to £28 when the scheme ended.

What difference can diners expect to see at The Woodspeen when it reopens on December 2?

The approach will not change. All processes we had in place this summer are continuing, reinforced by a more fluid communication and an even more robust training, supported by some of the best health and safety specialists at WSH Restaurants.

The festive period will require extra focus – from ensuring that physical distancing between guests that may know each other at different tables is controlled to the finer details, like receiving an umbrella at reception which will be stored, labelled and sanitised.

Have you managed to keep the cookery school open, or has that proved too difficult with Covid?

The cookery school kept open between the two lockdowns – the courses’ capacity was halved to a maximum of six guests and
executive chef Peter Eaton replaced all-day courses to shorter, more tailored, affairs.

We were pleasantly surprised to welcome one-to-one tutor courses or family personalised cook-offs through this times and we will continue to do so.

We are very thankful of the immense support that both school and restaurant received.

As for the first lockdown, we took the decision to not adventure in any delivery or takeaway initiatives; we strongly believed that our staff and also our guests should not be put at risk during this difficult and dangerous period for any financial gain, so we pressed pause in all operations and started planning the re-opening in detail.

What are you doing behind the scenes, not related to Covid?

It is a hive of activity. Each senior team member is at the top of their game and covering a specific area.

Peter Eaton is developing recipes with head chef Olly Rouse via Zoom in their non-commercial home kitchens, general manager André Marchand is finalising our Woodspeen Gin launch in December from home (someone’s got to) and he is working on some exciting plans for the bar in 2021.

Ali delivers body language training online, Lorna keeps track of the team’s daily interactions so that each senior calls two juniors every two days to check on their health. It is a matrix that we are very proud of.

The Woodspeen is a business driven by originality, own ideas and a relentless hunger for delivering a unique experience.

Myself and the team are so looking forward to re-opening our doors.

Keep smiling, eyes and all!