'There's a point where you need to realise that you need a change'

Paul Welburn is set to leave 215 Kitchen & Drinks at the end of 2021 and is considering his next move after rebranding his Michelin-starred restaurant, The Oxford Kitchen, to adapt to the realities of operating in the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The chef said he hopes "to pick up where we left off" before the pandemic, when circumstances led to a rebrand of The Oxford Kitchen, where he was the executive chef and earned both a Michelin star (the city's first in more than three decades) and 3 AA Rosettes.

In an interview with The Staff Canteen, he explained that the move has been in the works for a while, after changing the concept at The Oxford Kitchen to create the more pandemic-proof 215.

"Pre-lockdown, everything was going in the right direction, post-lockdown a lot of things were changed around so for me personally it's the right time with the business as it is to move onto something new," he said. 

The chef hasn't decided on his next step, but is determined to seek out the best opportunities around.

"I've put the feelers out to see what's out there, but I don't want to rush. I don't want to move into something that I feel is not right for where I am in my career at the moment." 

Given the way the jobs market is at the moment, with new exciting projects enticing people into roles left right and centre, "it's about finding the right thing along the way." 

As the jobs market has evolved over the past two years, he said, "the right places are going to be the ones going in the right direction for what people want as chefs and restaurateurs."

"I want to think long term, not short term because this industry is going to come back rocking once we get through all this mess," he said, and it is important to be sure of what you are delving into with a new venture.

"People want appreciation and the work-life balance that people were craving before lockdown has come up again. People need to be enticed back into the industry rather than fooled into things." 

"There's a bit too much of saying the right things to people but not being completely transparent. The more transparent, the more they believe in people and teams, the more they keep the teams going." 

"So let's see what comes out."

As far as he is concerned, "I've done my time at this restaurant, I've achieved a lot of what we sought to do. Post-lockdown was a lot about keeping jobs and putting my pride to one side, and now hopefully find the next opportunity to pick up where I left off before and go again - in a new style of industry, hopefully, where people's mentality is about looking after people and appreciating them." 

215 will continue without Paul, as he helped change the business in the pandemic but wants to get back on track with his ambitions somewhere else. 

"There's a point where you need to realise that you need a change."

Hoping to stay in the Oxfordshire area, the chef would like to keep feeding the guests who have been so good to him in the past few years. 

"I'd like to stay because of what the locals have been towards me since I got here. They've been incredible, I've been overwhelmed - in the lockdowns, the takeaways, reopening, everything."

"That all depends on what the project that comes up is - I'm very open at the moment, I just want to go somewhere that has a great belief, a blank canvas to go, 'right, let's go, let's create something special that's not been done in that area,' wherever it's going to be." 

What the pandemic has shown, he said, is that "people want to be dynamic and change, maybe there are a lot of places that were just rolling with copy and paste concepts. Now it needs to be about what people want - people want to eat out and we want to showcase the best quality of food and what we can do in this country." 

"I've got plenty of time, I'm not in a rush, we're just going to work through the next three months and see what happens." 

"Let's get through Christmas, another winter of the pandemic and hopefully in 2022 we can all start shouting about the industry again, get some positivity back into it."