A special chat with Tim Shanks – Head of Operations at Lima London about challenges of working in hospitality, his favourite spots in London as well as future plans for Lima.

Q.1. Why did you choose London as your next destination after South America?

Lima was set up by two Venezuelan brothers in 2012 and they saw a gap in the market as there were no Peruvian restaurants in London basically or it was a very small kind of niche thing.

Q.2. What are the main challenges you have faced in the industry?

The biggest one is people, the lack of good people. Hospitality is a very transient industry, the continual churn of people and trying to find the people to deliver the kind of standards of the offer we want to deliver. That’s always been Lima’s biggest challenge, the retention of good people. I guess other challenges are customer spending habits, being a high-end restaurant when the market place is shifting towards more casual offers and more value for money restaurants rather than high-end.

Q.3. How are you going to plan to overcome some of these issues?
 

We’re reshaping our offer at both restaurants – just making sure the offer is still very current. And in terms of people, well we just invest more time and money in training, development, and employee progression to become an employer of choice.

Q.4. What are your top 5 spots in London at the moment?

Probably all of the ones that are already really well known. You’ve got Sabor, Kilm, Brigadiers, it’s really good what JKS Restaurants are doing and I really like the new operation over in stoke Newington called Jolene’s and that’s, yeah, a fantastic patisserie focused offer, in house baking and all that kind of stuff.

Q.5. What do you think is next for Lima?

Lima is continuing what we’re doing and potentially expanding through more grab and go concepts.

Q.6. Are there any particular trends at the moment that you are excited about?

 I think Peruvian food really fits the vegetarian, vegan trend that’s currently happening. It’s a big growing market place and that’s quite exciting. Whilst I would never ever consider myself being vegan I think it’s an exciting opportunity.

Q.7. Any particular Chefs you have got your eye on?

I really like Andy Oliver who runs Som Saa – I think he’s exciting.
He basically does very, very authentic Thai food with British ingredients operated into his cuisine.
But it’s really light – proper pestle and mortar, and he makes curry paste by hand, very authentic.