Building the rooms people return to.
Great restaurants are made by people. Hestia backs the ones who make them, with the capital, the care and the patience to let them flourish.
4,312
tasting menus, strictly for research
0
desserts ever declined
1,000+
openings, still nervous before every one
9,400
chairs sat in before choosing one
1
rule: the room comes first
The leadership team
JK
Advisor to the CEO
Justin King CBE
Justin is Chair of Allwyn, operator of the National Lottery, and Chair of Dexters Real Estate. He was Chief Executive of Sainsbury’s for ten years, leading the business through a major turnaround, and previously Vice Chairman of Terra Firma.
He was a board member of the London Olympic Organising Committee and the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group, and was appointed CBE in 2011.
RW
PROPERTY DIRECTOR
Richard Wassell
Richard has worked in commercial property for over thirty-five years. He established Carter Wassell in 1990 and in 2005 formed twentyretail, advising retail and restaurant brands on property.
He was one of the four founding board members of The People’s Supermarket on Lamb’s Conduit Street, set up as an alternative to the big supermarkets and to give people recovering from addiction or leaving prison a route into work. He was among the first Chairmen of the Shop Agents Society and has chaired the Restaurant Property Advisors Society.
AF
FOUNDER & CEO
Andrew Fishwick
Andrew is Chief Executive of Hestia. Before returning to hospitality he produced more than two dozen West End and Broadway shows, winning Tony, Olivier and Evening Standard Theatre Awards, and built and ran theatres including the first new purpose-built theatre in London for over half a century.
He founded SALT, the food and drink marketing consultancy, and was its Executive Chair; he is a Non-Executive Director of All Things Bloom, co-founded the hospitality training charity Home Kitchen, has sat on the board of the British Institute of Innkeeping and mentored for the King’s Trust. He is a Fellow of the RSA, holds an MBA from Warwick Business School, was awarded the Freedom of the City of London and is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Entrepreneurs.
SJ
STRATEGIC FINANCE DIRECTOR
Simon Jonsson
Simon has over thirty-five years’ experience in the accountancy profession, including twenty-four years as a partner at KPMG. His background is in M&A and international and family office taxation, with particular depth in the food and packaging sectors.
He is an experienced non-executive director and board adviser, a former Prince of Wales Ambassador for Socially Responsible Business and a former advisory board chair for Business in the Community.
TK
ADVISOR TO THE BOARD
Tom Kristensen
Tom has spent fifteen years as a finance director in hospitality. He was CFO of Rosa’s Thai for eight years alongside the founders, through to its sale to private equity, and later CFO and then CEO of Ceviche and Andina. He is a co-founder of and investor in TipJar, now Europe’s largest provider of cashless tipping.
He began as an equity analyst at Linde and Partners in his native Denmark and was CFO of Plymouth Argyle Football Club from 2009 to 2011. He holds an Executive MBA from Bayes Business School and an MSc in Accountancy.
Operators, brand builders and financiers who have built and run some of the best-loved names in British hospitality.
MV
Partner, Wedlake Bell
Simon Longfield
FINANCE ADVISOR
Simon advises on the finance side of Hestia’s acquisition programme, supporting the buy-side process and acting as finance lead to CBGM and the lending banks. He is a Fellow of the ICAEW, a member of the Institute for Turnaround, and holds an ICAEW insolvency licence.
Simon joined FRP as a Partner in the Financial Advisory team in 2020 and now works with the firm in a consultancy capacity, alongside a non-executive director role at Embrace Steel Group and an advisory role with Clara-Pensions Group. He spent more than twenty years as a restructuring and financial advisory partner at major London firms before working as an independent consultant on transformation and shareholder value restoration for public and private equity-backed companies, with assignments across hospitality, steel, healthcare, retail and leisure.
Julian Mathews
Julian is a corporate partner at the London law firm Wedlake Bell, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital, with a particular focus on the hospitality and leisure sectors.
Admitted as a solicitor in 1996, he joined Wedlake Bell in 2013, having previously been a partner at Dundas & Wilson and at DLA.
SS
ADVISOR TO THE BOARD
Steve Smith
Steve has spent over thirty years in financial markets, twenty-seven of them at Morgan Stanley, where he was a senior sales executive in European and then global equities and hosted the firm’s flagship macro conference in London.
For thirteen years he sat on the firm’s European Equity Underwriting Committee, overseeing 150 IPOs and numerous rights issues and secondary offerings. He read Economics and Politics at the University of York.
Creative flair, operational discipline
Our mission
We acquire premium restaurant groups and give their founders the capital, infrastructure and leadership to grow.
Who we are
Hestia is led by operators. The executive team has built businesses worth some £5bn and delivered brand work for Fortune 500 hospitality companies. Every investment is supported centrally: HR, operations, sales and marketing, financial oversight, M&A and board-level experience.
What we believe
We believe hospitality is one of the most valuable things a business can offer: a room where people meet, talk and come back.
Hestia backs the people who make those rooms, and gives them the capital, the platform and the time to build brands that last.
Our strategy
Profitable, well-loved brands with a clear roll-out plan, spanning Michelin-starred restaurants, private members’ clubs and all-day dining.
Our objective
A £500m-plus premium hospitality portfolio of ten brands within five years.
Everything a great restaurant needs to become a greater one.
Hestia exists to take the weight off the people who make the magic, so that chefs cook, hosts host, and the business behind them is the best it has ever been.
Run by people who have done it
Every Hestia restaurant is led by operators who have opened, grown and sold restaurants of their own. We know what a good night feels like from the kitchen pass, and we know what it costs to get there.
The right rooms, in the right places
Property is where hospitality is won or lost. Our property team and a network built over thirty-five years find the sites, negotiate the terms and get the keys, so that growth never waits on a landlord.
Brands people fall in love with
Positioning, storytelling and the calendar of moments that keep a restaurant in the conversation, shaped by a team that has done this for some of the biggest hospitality names in the world.
Technology that gets out of the way
One group platform behind every brand, from forecasting and hiring to guest insight and food waste, so teams spend less time on admin and more time with guests. The kitchen, the dining room and the booking journey stay exactly as guests know them.
Room to create
A central team that develops new ideas, scales the ones that work and brings founders together to share what they have learned. Ambition is encouraged, funded and backed.
Built to last, in every sense
Provenance, construction, operation and renovation run on one standard: resource-efficient, honest about impact, and good enough to be proud of in twenty years.