← The Entrepreneurs
The Entrepreneurs
Nicolas Budzynski on scaling La Petite Maison and why consistency beats awards in luxury dining
00:29:42
Loading summary
Transcript45 lines
- [00:00]
Padit
Foreign.
- [00:12]
Tom Edwards
Hello and welcome to the Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio. The show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. On today's episode, we're exploring the value of a strong foundation in building successful, enduring businesses. First, we'll meet the boss of an award winning global restaurant brand to hear how a focus on core values and long term vision drives growth.
- [00:35]
Nicholas Spudzinski
Awards came, recognition came. We can only be thankful for that, but it's in the past, it's for the hard work we've already achieved. So I'm already thinking one, two step ahead and I want the team to think in the same way.
- [00:46]
Tom Edwards
And later we'll head to Finland to meet the team behind a program designed to help students build become the entrepreneurs of the future.
- [00:53]
Martin Mikos
Some parts of entrepreneurialism you cannot teach because it's not an academic subject. It's a vocation that we are learning and the secrets are in the details of how you do it.
- [01:03]
Tom Edwards
This is the Entrepreneurs with me. Tom Edwards, you're listening to the Entrepreneurs. Nicholas Spudzinski is the CEO of La Petite Maison, a global restaurant brand known for bringing a little bit of the French Riviera to cities including London, Dubai, Miami, Hong Kong, Marbell, and, well, more on the way. With a focus on consistent quality, memorable experiences and careful international expansion, Nicholas has helped turn LPM into one of the most respected names in luxury dining worldwide. I caught up with Nicholas to hear about his approach to leadership. I began by asking him about his early education at the famed French culinary arts and hospitality school institute Paul Bercuz in Lille.
- [01:49]
Nicholas Spudzinski
I was at a Moroccan restaurant with my mother and then I started to describe to her the type of restaurants that I would want to open one day, you know, mentioning that each rooms would have a different theme and a different cuisine. And she just asked me the questions, why don't you want to work and study restaurants business? And I'm like, well, never thought of it and let's look into it. So she encouraged me from very early age to look into my dreams and decided to go to the institute at that time because it would give me the base of French cuisine, but it would also open doors to the international network that they have while still keeping a great focus on the product itself. You know, the school is fantastic. It taught us all the basics of French cuisine and what made it internationally known. And I decided to go to Dubai after that. That's how I started my career.
- [02:43]
Tom Edwards
I love that. And well done, Maman. Obviously they're very wise, aren't they? Our parents know a Lot more than we give them credit for at the time. Let's talk then about Dubai. A an amazing scene. Obviously the pace of change there is so rapid, almost from week to week. But you know, if you go back to your experiences, some amazing names, you know, Jumeirah Group, you know, you worked at Burger Arab, some of these really iconic places, but you, is it fair to say you sort of quickly realized that it was restaurants as that youngster's dreams you've described? It was restaurants rather than hotels. Was that a helpful learning? How did you kind of realize that your focus on hospitality was very much on the restaurant scene?
- [03:19]
Nicholas Spudzinski
Going to Dubai was a very clear decision at that time. I've always had big dreams and I thought Dubai was one of these up and coming territories with fantastic projects. At the time, no one really knew where Dubai was in France and in my social circle, but I just decided to go there because of all the fantastic projects. So my decision to go to Bourgeois Arab as a management trainee was more to get the name on the CV back at the time. I mean, it's a fantastic hotel, fantastic property with great service, fantastic guests. But I quickly realized that the level of hierarchy within such an establishment was extremely complicated. And I'm an individual who always like to add value in anything I'm participating into. So just fulfilling tasks was not enough for me. So at the time I consulted my training manager and the GM of the hotel. Both of them have been very supportive in supporting my career path and they said, well, definitely a hotel, you learn a lot of things, but you're not going to have a lot of space to explore your creativity. So they both advised me to look into a newly established division within the Jumeirah Group. And this was Jumeirah Restaurants. And it was a lot more casual, it was like a startup mode. I was able to support the GM of the division by looking into various projects, legal aspects. So it was fantastic way to touch a bit to everything and to really understand that, you know, being a lot closer to guests, being a lot closer to concepts, creation was the way forward for me.
- [04:53]
Tom Edwards
That is super interesting. And can I ask you how you go about ensuring that you're sticking to those values as now the leader of this business? Because obviously you've been with LPM since 2019. I think you were there on the operations side and then now what, three or four years as CEO? How do you ensure that you're fostering the right environment? Nicholas, that allows for creativity, for flexibility. Is it about having a flatter management structure? Because presumably the stake are very high. The reputation of the group is very, very exacting and it's built on impeccable service and so on. So how, as a manager, do you ensure the kind of flexibility that you yourself were seeking out, that you were just talking about?
- [05:30]
Nicholas Spudzinski
No, it's not easy. I mean, as you pointed out, I've been in my new role for the last three and a half years. I think it's been quite a journey to shift from an operational focus role into being responsible of a business on behalf of investors. So I think the initial years and steps have been on exploring and trying to find the best way to still taking care of the existing operations while delegating a bit more, giving a bit more space for individual within the organizations to bring value themselves while trying to understand what was my new responsibilities. There is no real roadbook in relation to role of CEO. I mean, yes, you can read about what is a CEO for a large corporation, but each company is very different from one another. You know, it depends what type of investor you have, what type of board you have, and then the aspirations of the investors behind the business. So I think the last three and a half years have been very exploratory. At least the initial three years and the last six months have been a little bit more stable in understanding what we should really established for the business and then finding processes and systems, easy ones to understand for people to have the right vision behind the company, the right objectives and the right framework to be able to express themselves according to a clear direction. So I think that's how we went about three years of finding the right way and now we're a little bit clearer about it.
- [07:06]
Tom Edwards
Absolutely. What role does recognition from outside play in that, Nicholas? Because lots of the leaders that we talk to on this program and across all of Monocle, really, they talk about, look, trying to shut out the external noise, criticism, positive reviews, negative reviews, and sticking to your principles. And I know you believe in that. And yet at the same time, recognition is so important. If we look at world's 50 best restaurants or we know the hit list, right, and obviously lots of the properties and locations that are under your aegis are now recognized there. Clearly that's advantageous from a business point of view, from a promotional point of view. But do you have to try and shut out that kind of scrutiny or do you have to reflect it and try and meet their rigorous demands with your strategic decision making? How does that work when it comes to that high level kind of criticism and recognition?
- [07:52]
Nicholas Spudzinski
I think as a team Today, including myself, we've been extremely lucky to inherit of that particular business. Our founders, we're so thankful for what they've created together. And we've been trained and we've been continuing to fulfill their vision in making the guest happy, you know, and the key focus has been the food, because obviously food is the main reason a guest is coming to a restaurant. It's changing a little bit for the last few years, but I still believe moving forward, food needs to remain the key focus. And no good food in the restaurant, people will not come back as often as they could if the food was excellent. So we've been lucky by being shown the right way by the founders, by being focused on the product, being focused on the guests. Awards came, recognition came naturally, but it's in the past, so we can only be thankful for that. I think it's being very useful to motivate employees to join us or to continue working with us. So I think we use it as an internal tool to show how great of a company we are, how great of a product we are, how much we can bring into people's career as a professional value. But we always like to stop it very quickly. I mean, we praise a little bit ourselves, maybe not enough. I would admit I'm not the best praiser, not because I don't want to praise people, but I've always keep looking forward. So for me, when a step is achieved, we gain an award. It's done. I mean, it's for the hard work we've already achieved. So I'm already thinking one, two step ahead. And I want the team to think in the same way. So we always look at what we can do better, what we haven't done good enough, and we could do even better moving forward. So world is changing, trends are changing, so there are always opportunities to adapt and make your business evolve. And that's what we really, really focus about. We do get inspired a little bit by what our competitors or our peers are doing, but in general, we prefer to focus on our own business because by looking at what others do, we just spending time in speculating about others while we have enough to take care on our own garden, you know, so that's, I would say, how we look at recognition and awards and things like that.
- [10:10]
Tom Edwards
Yeah, and I'll ask you a bit more about some trends and the direction of travel in a moment. But look, you mentioned food, and it would be a serious missed opportunity not to talk about the specifics. Tell me about a typically great service. I think, look, I'M sure our listeners amongst them, there'll be lots of frequent visitors, and maybe they have a favorite. Maybe they're thinking of a particularly playful, you know, sunshine in a glass kind of thing with, I don't know, is it salt baked sea bass or whatever it might be. Take me to one of your locations. And one service, maybe one dish and one accompanying glass of wine, that for you, sums up the whole of the kind of Le Petit Maison experience.
- [10:45]
Nicholas Spudzinski
So you need to start the experience at the bar, or at least if it's not at the bar, is with a cocktail. And this has to be with the Tomatini. It's our signature cocktail. We define it as the essence of La Petite Maison in a glass. So pretty straightforward. But when you enter the restaurant, you get the vibrance of the location. There is a buzz, there is a positive dynamic. Everybody's happy, people are moving. You go to your table, and the first thing you see is a tomato and lemon on the table.
- [11:14]
Martin Mikos
Right?
- [11:15]
Nicholas Spudzinski
So the tomato is an important element for us. And when La Petite Maison Dubai opened in 2010, it was the first time we had a destination bar. And at that point we wanted to create a signature cocktails. So we got the help of Jimmy Barratt, who at the time was working for Zuma. Zuma was created by our co founder, Arjun Wani, so there were some links there. So Arjun Wanney decided to provide us support on the mixology sides. And Julie Barrett comes from the south of France. And, you know, immediately when he said, okay, I have the opportunity to create a cocktail for La Petite Maison. I want to use the tomato, I want to use the salt and pepper that you see on the table and recreate a tomato salad within a cocktail. So we created the Tomatini, and it's freshly muddled tomato, white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, a bit of sugar syrup to balance the acidity of the tomato, and some Ketel one vodka, shaken and stirred, finished with freshly grinded pepper on top of your Tomatini. And it's served in a martini glass. So you start with that. I think you should follow with warm prawns in olive oil with basil. It's probably the dish that represents La Petite Maison food in the simplest way is just prawns, olive oil, basil, and some sea salt and black pepper. Very simple ingredients. However, if you don't get the right ingredients, the taste of the dish would not be balanced and would not be so great. It's very light, it's very refreshing. It's a dish that is shareable and that dish alone, you know, and even when you look at it, it's very bright and bold in colors, represent equally the DNA of La Petite Maison as the Tomatini. And then as a glass of wine, definitely would advise to go with a glass of, you know, a Cote de Provence, because it's a wine that represents the region, that will link to memories of summer with friends and family. And it's a wine that can go with starter, main course and desserts. It goes with everything. And it's so easy to drink that. Yeah, you drink it like water. So.
- [13:21]
Tom Edwards
You'Ve seen me in a restaurant before, and listeners should be assured there's no interference on the line. That's just my stomach rumbling. I'm thirsty and hungry in equal measure. Tell me a little bit more, Nicholas, then, about how you ensure that the sort of the DNA of the brand runs through places that also capture the unique spirit of where they are. And I think this is what great restaurant groups do very well, and they make it look easy, but it's difficult. You know, I think if you're in any of your locations, you know you're being looked after by the same team, but you're in no doubt about where you are and that it's different from one to another. Is that difficult to pull off? I guess a lot of that relies on your people right from location to location. But how mindful are you that particularly? Look, you've got other plans to expand. You're going to have more locations on the Eastern seaboard in the US for example, as you get bigger and it becomes harder to be everywhere at once, how do you ensure the consistency to the core standards, but also capturing the unique character of each new venue as it opens?
- [14:17]
Nicholas Spudzinski
We've been lucky enough to open our restaurants in very multicultural cities. Our first location was in London. I mean, the world is flying to London. We then opened in Dubai. And Dubai has done a great effort over the last 15 years since we opened to become, I think, one of the top tourist destinations globally and one of the top dining destination globally. We've opened in the US In Miami, which is also very multicultural and the same with Hong Kong. So somehow, by default, yes, we have a French Riviera inspired concept, but by the cities we've opened, we've been able to access a very wide demographic. When we choose to open new locations, we always look at a simple criteria. Are we going to be able to drive equal amount of local residents to international travelers? And by having this mix, we will never be too local and Never be too international. And that's very important for us. We've opened in cities. We had a restaurant in Istanbul and we had a restaurant in Beirut back in the days. And these restaurants were driving a much higher demographic of local population. And we've seen that over time the imbalance of the guest demographic was leading the business in the wrong direction. So we've learned and now we a lot more careful. And that's the initial criteria we're looking for is how can we get this balance. So neither the traveling audience nor the local audience is influencing the concept that everyone loves it for. We're very lucky because as I said, our founders have created a concept that everybody likes. I don't know, one hater of la petite maison concept. You know, some other concept may be too dark, maybe too loud, maybe to these, maybe to that. But somehow there is this sense of harmony when you enter the restaurants, when you eat the food, when you talk to our people and you leave the restaurants and you just feel happy. So I think that's what we really lucky about this concept and we try to duplicate. But the balance of the audience is very important.
- [16:29]
Tom Edwards
Yeah, and I think harmoniousness, it's really interesting that you zero in on that word because that is often not considered enough or not deeply enough, you know, is something a harmonious experience. And just to that point, Nicholas, perhaps finally let me ask you about the future of luxury. These are quite sweeping questions, but just maybe tell us some of the other values, some of the other shifts in the appetites, if you'll forgive the pun, of your clients that you're serving. You know, here at Monocle, we talk a lot about taking time to do things properly. We talk about the craft, you know, the thoughtfulness that goes into making things. We talk a lot about less is more. And I know these are things that you demonstrate clearly in the restaurants that you manage. Talk to me about the direction of travel. What are some of the values that you think will set the agenda for delivering great luxury products to a discerning audience? Not just in two, five years, but maybe over a ten year time horizon.
- [17:19]
Nicholas Spudzinski
I don't like to talk about others, really. I like to focus on what I like or what our product is. But let's look at what we as a brand and organizations, we've been able to follow since our inception in London in 2007 and has remained successful by not being focused purely on transfers. But our values as a business is fresh. We need to remain quality driven and seek the best for ourselves and for Our guests simplicity in everything we do. We need to be organized and we need to be very, very careful to not overcomplicate things. Sharing is a big part of our concept in relation to the food. We want the food to be served in the middle and people to share the food with one another, but also in how we create memories. We're sharing memories with our guests, with our employees. We want to be caring and generous. It's a collaborative work between ourselves. We want to be honest in everything we do, making sure we're respectful, truthful, and we behave with integrity. There is a lot of discussions with where is the product being created and at what price is this being sold and the margins that business are making on particular products. I think we've seen the last few years, especially since COVID I think that pricing has been a major issue in our industry, but potentially in others as well, where people have been sold what businesses wanted to call experiences. But experiences has been great for once, but not for twice or three times. So people are getting a little bit fed up of pricing abuse, seeing across the restaurant world, but also maybe the high end and luxury retail world. And finally for us going back to our brand, we like to also bring an element of playfulness. We like to create memories. We like to create an element of surprise, something that just leaves a smile on people's face. And these five values, fresh, simple, sharing, truth and playful, we believe has led us to be still very successful after 18 years. We're still growing covers and revenue in each and every markets we are into, despite all the difficulties of London and the high competition of Dubai and Miami and so on. And we believe by continuing to apply these values in everything we do, we have another 10, 15, 20 years ahead of us to be able to still grow the business in our existing locations and new locations equally. Because we don't want to be focused on growth with new ventures. Only our existing restaurants is even more important. How do we keep surprising our guests in our existing restaurants? So I think the secret of longevity in business is that consistency in applying that on each and every day, but also in what you plan to achieve tomorrow.
- [20:19]
Tom Edwards
That was Nicolas Budzinski, the CEO of La Petite Maison. And since we spoke, LPM has announced it'll be opening in Bahrain in late 2026. This comes off the back of other recent new venue announcements, including Marbella, Boston, Kuwait and the Maldives. You can find out more about all of that by heading over to lpmrestaurants.com you're listening to the entrepreneurs. We head to Finland next, specifically to the city of Espo, where a new university initiative is helping students turn ideas into real businesses. Monocle's Helsinki correspondent Patrick Burzoff went to meet the people and the students behind the Aalto Founders School.
- [21:14]
Petri Burtsoff
Aalto University in Espoo, Finland has long been seen as the beating heart of Finland's startup scene. It's where Slush, Europe's biggest startup event, was born and where entrepreneurial energy runs through the lecture halls and labs. Now the university has launched Aalto Founder School, a program designed to help students not just dream up ideas, but build real products and learn how to lead.
- [21:44]
Martin Mikos
My name is Martin Mikos. I'm a serial CEO, startup CEO, maybe most known for MySQL which was the second unicorn startup out of Europe. Aalto Founder School is a new initiative where we give young students who have the entrepreneurial spirit, but they need a lot of practice and skills and by working together they can develop them. At the Alto Founders School, we have several different initiatives within the school. One is a concentrated, intense founder sprint where we currently have seven students running in that program.
- [22:17]
Petri Burtsoff
Mikko says entrepreneurship isn't an academic subject. It's something you learn by doing some.
- [22:23]
Martin Mikos
Parts of entrepreneurialism you cannot teach, you can only learn. So we've tried to figure out the best ways to get that knowledge and share it from those who have done it before, share it by those who have studied it very clearly, but then make sure that the participants are doing, practicing, engaging, because it's not an academic subject, it's a vocation that we are learning and the tricks are, and the secrets are in the details of how you do it.
- [22:51]
Petri Burtsoff
The program attracts students from all over the world. Padit, a second year data science student from India, told me what drew him in.
- [22:58]
Padit
The main aim that I came with was to meet other cool people and talk to really smart people and sort of become a part of that community. And every week we have excursions and founder talks and fireside chats and you get to meet more interesting people and learn from their experiences and perspectives.
- [23:17]
Petri Burtsoff
For Melanie, a master student in data science, it was about turning technical skills into something more tangible.
- [23:23]
Padit
Currently at Aalto, I'm studying data science. I'm in the first year of the Masters and I joined the Founder School because I've been quite a technical person so far in my career and I would love to learn more about building products.
- [23:36]
Petri Burtsoff
What was it about the Founder School that attracted you and what are your expectations?
- [23:41]
Padit
I think, I think it was mostly being surrounded by the right people who are as driven, as ambitious as I am. So that makes a huge part basically the network that you're surrounded with. And then of course more of the practicalities. In every course, it's always really theoretical. But here at the Founder Sprint, we actually built a product, we do user research and then we have the business strategy coming up later. So I think this is a key differentiator.
- [24:11]
Petri Burtsoff
Students don't need to arrive with a ready made business plan. The goal, Mikko says, is to help builder types find their footing.
- [24:18]
Martin Mikos
We are not requiring them to have a business idea of their own. They just know they want to be builders of the future. The difficulty here is it's really nearly impossible to know who will be a future founder and who won't. So we have assess them on six dimensions, which we think are indicative of where they will go. But the excitement of the startup world is that it doesn't show on the outside. It's not like you have to be talkative or shy or fast or slow or something like the people who do well in the startup world come from all kinds of like they are different in their own unique ways and that's what makes it so exciting.
- [24:57]
Petri Burtsoff
And like everything at Aalto community is central.
- [25:00]
Martin Mikos
Our most important collaborators are our students, of course, but they all come for the community. And the secret of success is building a strong community that will always be ready to help the new students when they are learning, doing, practicing, testing, validating, building, prototyping. So in that sense, we will partner with anybody who can bring relevant help of that sort. Specifically, it's with the groups in around Aalto University, like Aalto es, Kiwas Freight, other VC groups, entrepreneurial clubs that we work most closely with.
- [25:35]
Petri Burtsoff
Finland's startup ecosystem has evolved quickly and Aalto sits at the center of it all.
- [25:41]
Martin Mikos
What we see is that the startup world is very, very strong in Finland, as you can see from the Slash conference. And of all universities in Finland, Aalto completely stands out in terms of how many entrepreneurs come out of its ranks. So this is really the place to build something new. What's different from when I was a kid, I was 24 years old when I started my own first company here, but now it's so international, like it looks like half of the students are from somewhere else and it makes it much, much, much stronger. So I think Aalta has never had an opportunity that it has today to build amazing businesses for the future.
- [26:17]
Petri Burtsoff
Beyond the Sprints, Aalta founder school runs guest talks with some of Finland's top entrepreneurs.
- [26:23]
Martin Mikos
We have a founder talk Series where we invite great founders to come and share not just their success, but how they overcame struggles and problems. Tomorrow we have Mika Antonen, self made billionaire. He will be speaking to us and sharing his experiences. We also have a minor program, minor study program that you can add to your degree in entrepreneurialism. We have courses in production, go to market and other things. And here we use a lot of real world examples so they are not theoretical courses. We look at startups, we have guest lectures and others to make sure it's very relevant and current and really what these people need. And there's much, much more than this. This is just the start. We know that in the startup world there aren't two things that are the same, they're all different. Like for instance, we have researchers who do deep tech, in nuclear physics, in space exploration, whatever, and they build their own startups and others are in the consumer space, the design space, like fashion. So we have startups from all walks of life, so to speak. And that's all happening here in Otaniemi on the campus area.
- [27:30]
Petri Burtsoff
So what can other universities learn from Aalto's approach?
- [27:34]
Padit
One thing in that sector that I really, really like about Aalto is the flexibility of courses here. So if I want to explore a topic, I can sign up for the course today, check the lectures for a week, and if I'm not interested in the course anymore, I can just drop it and take another one. And just through that I have been able to explore so many different fields, take entrepreneurship outside of the academic classrooms and bring it into life. Something really key and amazing about Aalto is the community startup Sauna Alto Es, Aalto Founder School. I think they all shape what the university is and that is the reason why we have so many amazing founders.
- [28:13]
Martin Mikos
And people here engage people who have actually built companies themselves. You need them there as well. You need others too, but you need them for sure. The other thing is Joy Ito once said to increase innovation, lower the cost of failure. And in the academic world we we are taught that failure is something bad. But in innovation, failure is the step to learning.
- [28:37]
Petri Burtsoff
As Aalto Founder School shows, academic institutions can be real engines of entrepreneurship. If Europe's universities want to build the next generation of founders, they might start by looking north for Monocle in Espoo, Finland. I'm Petri Burtsoff.
- [28:56]
Tom Edwards
Big thanks to Petri for that report. You can find out more about the school by heading to Alto Fi. And that is all for this edition of the Entrepreneurs. We'll be back at the same time next week. The program's produced by Laura Kramer with audio editing by David Stevens. If you'd like to get in touch with us, do email Laura. She's on lrkonical.com I'm Tom Edwards. Goodbye, and thanks for listening to the entrepreneurs.