Doing Birthdays Right

Luca, the restaurant in Farringdon, turns 10 this year. A favourite among FT readers for various reasons – quality of service, food, location, vibe – the restaurant is marking its anniversary with a number of events, including a dinner I attended last week with other journalists.

The menu featured some of their greatest hits. The churro-like parmesan fries for which Luca is renowned was among them. There was a tomato and yellow peach salad, ravioli of Cornish lobster and, having relocated from the Terrace to the Loft upstairs (a private dining room/ party space where co-founder Danny Willis got on the decks), a caramelised lemon tart and roast fennel ice cream to finish. We were also gifted limited edition Ally Capellino keyrings in the shape of bucatini, which will be going on sale on the website ahead of Christmas.

How to mark a restaurant’s birthday in a way that honours what the restaurant has achieved, thanks its patrons and supporters, generates publicity and sales, and keeps the restaurant on everyone’s radar? Luca’s birthday schedule offers some answers.

The team have already partnered with longtime collaborators Vitra on a limited-edition range of chairs for the Terrace. They hired out Belmond’s Pullman for a trip to Brighton for key patrons. They are launching a book (“not a cookbook but you will be able to cook from” said co-founder Johnny Smith intriguingly). And a big party is planned in November. I get the sense others ventures may be announced too.

In some ways, the most valuable outcome of last week’s dinner was getting to spend quality time with the founders, whom I’d met but not properly chatted to. Restaurants are more than just their founders, of course. But it’s hard to get excited about a restaurant and pitch stories about it to my editor without having a clear feeling for the people behind it. Journalist dinners are almost certainly hell for most restaurateurs. But they pay dividends.