Shareen Campbell and Phil Saunter, owners
of Los Gatos and Bistro Les Chats in Wood Street, and the Swindon Business People of the Year, talk about life in the restaurant business

 We’re recruiting at the moment. We’re looking for chefs, a kitchen porter and some bar staff for the tapas bar.

It’s always a nightmare, trying to find the right people. So here we are, wading through the inbox full of generic CVs that start with descriptive “profiles” apparently taken out of a phrasebook. Would you like to be served by someone who “approaches situations with a lateral and logical thought process and has the ability to focus and deliver solutions with productive results” or would you rather someone who can make you feel welcome?

In the restaurant business you are essentially looking for some unique sets of skills, some of which are highly subjective. For example, as well as the obvious experience and willingness to work, you want your front of house staff to have a bit of personality, a little idiosyncrasy, something that your customers might remember and want to come back for. You can’t define it, you just know it when you see it.

When looking for a chef, you want them to have enough training and experience to be able to work in a clean, safe, speedy and organised way – but they also need a good palate, an eye for detail, and, however clichéd it may sound, a real passion for giving other people pleasure through food.

A kitchen porter’s job can be a heavy, monotonous and thankless one. We try to make it more interesting. Washing pots, pans and dishes keeps the restaurant wheels turning, but running for ingredients, preparing vegetables and cleaning tasks are also key.

We have one guy who’s been in the job for four years – he’s so good, he’s an absolute lynch-pin in the organisation and, frankly, the chefs can’t work without him. When will they bring out that cloning app?

These things are always difficult to judge until you’ve worked with someone for a while, so you have to take a risk.

When you find the right people and build a good team, however, the feeling, as with almost everything in this business, is just great.