Covid was hell but restaurants are in for a boom, says chef Liam Tomlin

Hot on the heels of the partnership and success of Chefs Warehouse Tintswalo Atlantic, which opened at the end of 2020, chef and restaurateur Liam Tomlin opened his latest restaurant, The Bailey, last month.

We spoke to him about how he managed through Covid-19, what he envisions for The Bailey and what he’s cooking up next.

You were a vocal proponent against damaging government regulations during lockdown. In your opinion, what’s the state of the local restaurant industry “post”-Covid-19?

I think it’s extremely good — strong, really. This past season we had an amazing amount of tourists back in Cape Town — not the numbers we used to get, but I believe in summer we are going to be in for a bumper season.

Obviously there have been quite a few closures, but do you think most restaurants managed to be resilient through this time?

Covid was very difficult for all of us. Pre-Covid I would imagine there were a lot of restaurants that were struggling and probably used Covid as an excuse or, rather, like the last nail in the coffin, if you’d like. There are also a lot of people in the industry who just had to get out of [it] during Covid. The downfall of that is there is a shortage of quality staff, but that’s not just in Cape Town, that’s a worldwide problem, from Australia to New York to London.

I wouldn’t have got through Covid if it wasn’t for all the local support I got. What kept us alive was the local people getting behind us and now I really believe we are over the worst [of] Covid.

Where does the name The Bailey come from?

Bailey was a dog that Jan and I had for 15 years. She was this beautiful chocolate Labrador. When we had Chefs Warehouse across the street, she use to come with us to work every day and she use to lay out on the porch. She became quite well known on Bree Street; she was there every day and all the guests used to greet her.

Then she passed away about 18 months ago and we decided to call this business after her, The Bailey. The bar is called Old Bailey, not after the court in London, but after her because of her age when she passed away. I haven’t had the heart to replace her. So this is just in her honour.

What were some of the hurdles involved in renovating and opening up this heritage building?

The building, I believe, was built in 1862. [When we acquired it] it was in a very bad state and very rundown. The front half of the building is heritage and the back half was built much later. To convert a commercial building like that into a restaurant was a huge job. Obviously there were lots of restrictions with heritage and lots of demands with council. We had to upgrade all the electricity and all the water supply. We basically started with four walls and rebuilt the whole place, but we kept as much of the heritage as possible because I love heritage buildings. It was a mission and took a year from start to finish.

It’s not completely finished; I don’t think we’ll ever finish to be quite honest. I hope we will be here for a long time and over the years it will evolve, it will get better, it will get more lived in, it will get more comfortable. I hope it becomes part of the Cape Town landscape.

Is there something else you’re cooking up?

There is something simmering. It’s very stressful opening restaurants, especially on the scale of this one. Always halfway through it I’d go: “I’m never doing this again. This is the last restaurant I’m going to do.” And then when it’s finished I think: “OK, what am I going to do now?” So we’ve got something simmering in the background. I can’t really say too much about it yet as it’s not 100% finalised, but it’s going to be something very, very exciting and something very different in Cape Town. There is actually nothing like it in Cape Town.