Profile - Anthony Flinn: The recipe for success is serving up just what the customer wants

He may have been out of the public spotlight for the last two years since he opened Piazza by Anthony, but the chef and entrepreneur insists he is working harder than ever.

He divides his time by cooking at the Piazza during the day and then at the flagship Anthony's Restaurant, on Boar Lane, in the evening.

In between the lunchtime and evening peaks, he can be found making bread, cupcakes and chocolates for his range of shops in the basement of the Corn Exchange, delivering the goods to outside customers and catering for weddings, or coming up with new ideas for menus.

"I'm working harder than ever at the moment. We reinvent the wheel every day and try to come up with new ways to try to be different," he says.

The straight-talking 30-year-old clearly has a passion for food that goes beyond just a job but, like many restauranteurs, he has not escaped the effects of the recession.

"The recession had an effect across the board," he says. "The amount that people are spending on a meal out is down. But on the other hand, we've just had a ridiculous weekend where all our restaurants were packed."

Meanwhile, the menu at The Piazza restaurant has been revamped with dishes including mixed grill, sticky toffee pudding and chateaubriand.

"It's a bit retro and old school – giving people what they know. It's going back to the Eighties with big hearty home-cooked food," says Flinn.

"We have not changed but we are savvy about what we are doing. My fillet steak takes an 11 per cent cut on the margin to get it to its price because we don't want to compromise on quality.

"We are not stupid enough to think that the market is strong enough to pay more so we take a hit on the margin. It's the restaurants that take a hit on the quality who won't be here in the future."

Anthony's father, Anthony Snr, who oversees the financial side of the business, admits that the company's turnover has taken a hit, saying its 2.5m turnover would be around 3.25m if it wasn't for the recession.

So with this in mind, does Flinn regret opening the 1m Piazza during the credit crunch in 2008? He says not.

"It was an easy decision for me but difficult to persuade people it was the right thing to do," he says.

"From our point of view, it made great sense as a set-up. We could get tradesmen down here at the drop of a hat and haggle for a deal.

"If the economy had been running smoothly, we would never have managed to open in five months because we couldn't have got the response we got."

There are currently three outlets under the Anthony's brand – the flagship Anthony's Restaurant on Boar Lane, Anthony's Patisserie in the Victoria Quarter, and Piazza by Anthony at the Corn Exchange.

Anthony's at Flannels on Vicar Lane shut its doors in June.

"When we decided to open the Corn Exchange, we knew it would tread on the toes of Flannels," Flinn says. "In a stronger market maybe we could have tweaked the offerings to make it work, but we decided to close."

There are 70 staff, including Anthony Snr, Flinn's partner, Olga, and his sister, Holly.

Flinn is concentrating on the other businesses, particularly the Piazza, constantly coming up with new ideas to drive new business.

"It's not so much a diversification because that indicates that something wasn't working in the first place, and that's not the case," he says.

The Piazza, which includes a bakery, patisserie, chocolaterie and fromagerie, yesterday added a pie shop to the collection.

The patisserie, which originally sold a range of different cakes when it first opened, now just sells their popular cupcakes.

"By tweaking that element of the business, we have made it more successful," says Flinn.

As well as selling products to the public, Flinn also sells to other businesses, supplying Harvey Nichols, sandwich bars, other restaurants and corporates such as law firm Addleshaw Goddard.

"We bake seven days a week and we are very price conscious. We don't have any overheads and we sell where I can walk to. It makes sense that if places in Leeds are going to sell bread, why not sell our bread?"

The Piazza gained a wedding licence at the beginning of the year and has already catered for 10 weddings. It has 12 booked for next year.

"It's all about versatility," says Flinn. "We can do whatever people want. As long as there is a minimum spend on the bar, people can have whatever kind of wedding they want."

Flinn, who trained at Huddersfield Tech before refining his skills at Spain's El Bulli restaurant, was the envy of his peers when he opened Anthony's restaurant in 2004 when he was just 24.

But it was his father who persuaded him to leave Spain for Leeds, who ignored those who said opening a fine dining restaurant was culinary suicide and who spotted the potential in the premises formerly home to Vinnie Jones's late-night bar, Baroc.

As far as the future goes, Flinn says he's got lots of ideas for future expansion and hinted at future projects away from he restaurant scene. He says he did think about expanding the brand outside Leeds and opening a fine dining restaurant in Manchester but decided against it for the moment.

Over the years, there has been much talk about whether or not Anthony's Restaurant can achieve Michelin Star status

but Flinn insists he's not lost sleep over getting the elusive accolade.

"As much as it's nice to get, it's not the be all or end all," he says. "It's something I aspired to when I was younger because it was the way I was brought up in catering.

"But some of the things I saw chefs doing to appease Michelin people made me realise it's not for me."

ANTHONY FLINN

Title: Executive director of Anthony's

Date of birth: February 19, 1980

Education: Shelley High School in Huddersfield and Huddersfield Technical College

First job: Chef at Sandal Court Hotel in Wakefield

Favourite song: I Wanna Be Adored, by Ian Brown

Car driven: I share a Range Rover

Favourite film: Ace Ventura

Favourite holiday destination: Anything to do with food

Last book read: I've never read a book

What I am most proud of: What we have delivered to date but there is more to come.