Palate & Pen helps independent restaurants and hospitality venues build better menus, tighter operations, and healthier margins — without losing what makes the food good in the first place.
Spent most of my twenties buried in the London food scene — the kind of kitchens that don't sleep, don't apologise, and don't accept average.
My craft was built on live fire and charcoal. Middle Eastern flavours, smoke, heat, and the kind of cooking that gets in your blood and never really leaves.
Every section. Every shift. Every brutal Saturday night a kitchen can throw at you.
Now I take everything I learned over those years — the flavour knowledge, the obsession with detail, the understanding of what makes a kitchen actually work — and put it to use for other venues.
Menus that tell your story. Operations that hold up under pressure. Numbers that mean something. That's Palate & Pen.
Pick one, pick a few, or bring me in to run a full review. Engagements range from a one-off menu engineering session to a multi-month operations overhaul.
Concept, structure, copy, costing — built from the inside out by someone who knows what actually leaves the pass.
Whether you're opening a new venue, refreshing a tired concept, or trying to fix what's not landing — I bring a chef's perspective to the strategic decisions.
Stars, plough horses, puzzles, dogs — and what to do about each. Data-led menu analysis with actual chef-led recommendations on top.
Prep planning, stock management, supplier relationships, daily diary, training records. The unglamorous stuff that decides whether a kitchen actually runs.
Most independents leave 4–8 GP points on the table — in waste, in costing errors, in supplier prices that drifted. I find them, document them, and help you claw them back.
Section training, food safety, allergen handling, kitchen leadership — delivered on your floor, in your kitchen, against your menu.
The chef-built operating system for independent kitchens. Recipes, costing, prep, stock, suppliers, allergens, daily diary — all in one place, all designed by someone who's actually run service.
From £49 per site per month. Add the Safety module — SFBB digital diary, HACCP wizard, EHO inspection mode — for £20 more.
No retainers you can't get out of. No deck-heavy proposals that go nowhere. Pick the engagement that fits, and we start.
Tell me what's working and what isn't. I'll tell you straight whether I can help — and if I can't, who probably can.
A new menu. An EHO audit. A GP review. Defined scope, fixed price, clear deliverable. Typically 2–6 weeks.
Monthly check-ins on margins, menu performance, kitchen operations. For venues that want a second brain on the back office, not just a one-off fix.
No deck, no pitch. Just an hour to talk about what your venue's doing well and where the friction is. Email me below.
hello@palateandpen.co.uk