Interview: Ed Fitzpatrick, Dep General Manager, Lygon Arms (April 2019)
Interview: Ed Fitzpatrick, Dep General Manager, Lygon Arms (April 2019)
Ed Fitzpatrick has been on the hospitality fast track since participating in the ten out of ten
At the age of
fifteen I was beginning to consider work options for life after school. I
may not have been the strongest academically but was good at anything practical
or hands on. One day the opportunity
arose to work part time at Manor House Hotel in Castle Coombe, I enjoyed the
work, interacting with people and understanding a very basic level of
hospitality, so when it came time to leave school, it felt like a natural next
step to go full time.
My first role
was in concierge services, so taking bags, parking cars or taking guests to
their rooms. I got wrapped up in the
real buzz of how a hotel works, gaining insights into experiences that would
have been new to any young person just starting out in their career. In total,
I worked there for three and a half years before a fresh challenge at Lucknam
Park Hotel.
Lucknam Park had
just opened a new spa at the time and provided
an insight into a five red star hotel, one of the essential differences was the
level of formality in the front of house; staff would wear lounge suits by day
and come five o’clock change into black tie.
This provided a real sense of occasion every day, a level of excitement
and a feel good factor in a truly beautiful property.
My family home
was close to Lucknam Park so I was able to live at home and walk to work, indeed
a workplace where inspirational figures such as Harry Murray MBE and Claire
Randall were at the helm. This period triggered
early ideas of what a career in hospitality might look like: I could see role
models in management positions and really aspire to career development from
being a new team member, along a path into more senior positions. When I was approaching five years into my career
(at the ripe old age of 21), I was ready to knuckle down and think about where
I wanted to be by the age of say 30.
Claire Randall was inspirational in offering encouragement to set goals
and be clear on taking career steps to push forward with direction and
focus.
At the same
time 10 out of 10 was being conceived.
Spearheaded by Sue Williams and supported from an HR perspective by
Anita Bower, this early incarnation of 10 out of 10, provided an extraordinary
platform for the candidates with not only knowledge, learning and appreciation
of the industry but also access to some incredible mentors and industry figures
who willingly gave support and guidance. The principle was to see 10 otherwise
competing luxury properties come together to assist the rapid development of 10
promising young hospitality professionals who displayed management potential.
The practice
was that over two and half years participants would work five months in each of (at least) five different departments
across five different properties. During this investment of time you see all the
workings right across a luxury hotel: housekeeping, front office, kitchen,
maintenance, human resources and sales.
The emphasis was on working your way up, starting in each department at
team member level and finishing each placement, where possible, working along
side the head of department. In this way
you could see how each department of the hotel worked from the ground up and
from every angle.
I was lucky
enough to have my first placement at Chewton Glen, which was followed by five
months working in the kitchen of Gidleigh Park in Chagford, Devon, where
Michael Caines was Head Chef of the two Michelin star restaurant. Next was the Fat Duck Group which worked
between the Hind’s Head and The Fat Duck in Bray, this was followed by the
Vineyard at Stockcross and finally to Mallory Court Hotel in Bishops Tachbrook near
Leamington Spa.
The programme finished
in September 2013 but I had been having conversations
toward the end of the process with Claire Randall, Andrew McKenzie (MD Vineyard
Group) and Andrew Stembridge (MD Iconic Luxury Hotels) about ideas of what I
might be focused on doing moving forward.
My final chat with Andrew Stembridge turned into an interview and I was
offered the position of deputy reception manager at Chewton Glen.
A short time
into the role I was promoted to assistant manager and at this time Mark Bevan
was promoted from Operations Manages into the newly formed general manager
position after Ashley Ely had left Chewton Glen to move to London. In this restructure I took the role of Food
and Beverage Operations Manager, which controlled bars, restaurants, conference
and banqueting and room service which was a wonderful opportunity and a big
role at Chewton Glen. After eight months
I was promoted to Operations Manager, so effectively the number two to Mark
Bevan in the hotel and carried out this role for three years.
Mark Bevan
nominated me for an Acorn Award when the recipients’ weekend was actually
hosted at Chewton Glen. The aim of the Acorn
Awards is to recognise young talented people from every sector of the
hospitality industry. The Acorn’s inception was 1986, and the year I received
the award coincided with the 30th Anniversary of thirty winners
under the age of thirty. Amanda Afiya
and Giovanna Grossi were key figures driving the process and a panel of
industry figures assessed the nominations and made the awards. This was a great honour and something I look
upon with pride.
Andrew Stembridge
has always been a strategic leader who thinks not just one or two but five
years ahead. We all have a goal today
but know tomorrow and the day after we will have moved ahead into new positions
as a group offering. As an example within
my three years tenure in the Operations Manager role at Chewton Glen, the hotel
had built and launched another restaurant called The Kitchen, along with the
James Martin cookery school. In addition
two new treehouses were delivered each equipped with their own kitchen to allow
a chef to cook privately for guests. All
these concepts were operationally formulated and delivered in a short space of
time. It was sometimes hard to take in
how much was operationally being delivered at Chewton Glen so quickly. They have each proven a great success to the
benefit of guests as well as to the continuous evolution of the property.
One Friday
evening Andrew (Stembridge) called me into his office and explained that there
was an opportunity to stay within the group and take the Deputy General Manager
role at The Lygon Arms. The Chewton Glen role had predominantly been focused on
food and beverage operations, the role at Lygon Arms was to include management
of all operational departments so front office, maintenance, housekeeping as
well as bars and restaurants.
Where guests
are concerned my philosophy of hospitality is to keep it simple – we are Inn
Keepers first and foremost – which means serving guests to an acceptable
standard and exceeding their expectations while doing so. This can lead to reliable repeat custom and
effectively deliver more than analysing any amount of complex data can provide. Where hiring staff is concerned, having the
right character and attitude, giving the company two or more years of solid
enthusiastic loyalty are traits sought in recruitment and will lead to the
hospitality managers of tomorrow.
The hotel has a
guest book that has seen King Charles I and Oliver Cromwell through to the
Oscar winners of the day post WWII. For
a period of time the hotel was the countryside outpost of the London Savoy but
since the turn of the century had fallen into a string of unfortunate
ownerships. L+R have done an outstanding
job since 2015,
providing for a sympathetic restoration, refurbishment and development phase,
which was completed by the end of 2017.
The near future will see additional investment in delivering a
significant wedding, conference and banqueting facility as well as the ability
to provide for staff new, attractive, live-in accommodation. Customers of Chewton Glen and Cliveden House
now come to The Lygon Arms with an expectation of the product. It has taken time to operationally build a
team to match the level of refurbishment investment made by L+R (In excess of
£10m) so that we now do justice to the new, invigorated, all round quality of
the property.
Broadway is
nestled in this Area of Natural Beauty (The Cotswolds) and has a tremendous
throughput of visitors to the village. The
road ahead is full of opportunity! The Lygon Arms will continue to grow and
evolve as a quality product offering. The
journey of my career to date has been blessed with good fortune to work for
some great people in some great properties and I will always look to continue personal
growth while supporting those around me to achieve their goals and ambitions.
from Fine Dining Guide
