We opened quietly in Mayfair on Cork Street a few months ago, with a two-week break at the height of summer. It was so hot the pavement fried and Londoners hid in the shade, or left town for places even hotter where the air-con works better.

The first days were a little shaky in every conceivable way, from lights not working, or working as they saw fit to: full brightness in the day and full darkness at night. Nothing in between. There were kitchen malfunctions, unfinished uniforms and a menu we had not defined completely – but we opened anyway. And that’s how it has to be with start-ups of any kind, at least the ones I am used to. No matter your preparation – which in my case was years – things always go wrong and it’s usually the trivial shit that gets you.

It’s a beautiful thing, entertaining people. It really is. Sort of a calling. Preparing food and serving it up with pride in a place you dreamed of is like putting on an opera or making a movie. Lots of moving parts. Plenty of colour and light and music and plenty of tears too. It’s tough as hell and finding staff who see your vision and can add to it is the best and the hardest part. Each night the show is live, after all. So, operating a start-up restaurant can be a little like skydiving when you know your main chute might not be packed so well…

It really was years of prep for me, though. After I sold my first restaurant, Chucs Bar & Grill on Dover Street, some eight or nine years ago, it took me some time to have the courage to open another place and find the right spot.

Cork Street is in my neighbourhood. It was the Mayfair gallery road. With artists like Picasso, Leger, Braque at the Fred Mayer gallery and British artists Nicholson and Moore showing there, too. Later, Peggy Guggenheim made the street her base before she took a shine to Venice. Quite hard to compete with Venice, it has to be said. Cork Street – like most streets today – lost quite a bit of its charm in recent years. Parking bays have taken over the road, which encourages delivery vans to park up all day, obscuring the front of entire buildings, and galleries are boarded up too. The trees have gone. I saw a picture of old Cork Street and there were trees. No more. We really need to re-wild Mayfair! Bring back the oyster shuckers and the small shops.

Incidentally, Westminster Council still goes out of the way to make things difficult. They harass me if a chair is an inch over the permitted area, which in our case is a single pavement slab in width, even on a street that is deserted. I invested a great deal of time and money in a new place where locals want to come eat and sit outside, and the council smothers you in red tape. It’s insane. Our over-regulation and high rates make it almost impossible to survive in retail or restaurants today. It’s a real thing. We are killing our small businesses and the spirit of our towns and cities. Hear this, reader. If we don’t deregulate there will be no more shops. This, plus tourist VAT and over-taxing, is sucking the air out of business, and our little new restaurant built with love is no exception. It makes me want to be my father’s character in Network, screaming out of the window:

“I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

The restaurant is tiny. Only 46 seats at a push, with a little chef’s ‘table a deux’ below deck. We have a piano and a pianist nightly. A darn good martini and an exquisite hamburger. Tom Trubshaw is our chef, who came from Andrew Edmunds’ place a few blocks away. We want to serve food you want to eat from suppliers we know. I dragged in a few of my movie mates and so far they like it, too. Drop by.

Bar Finch

31 Cork Street, London W1S 3NQ

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