Restaurant: public relations.

karine bakhoum is the president of KB Network News, a boutique public relations, consulting and media networking company. Bakhoum was born in Switzerland and educated in Paris, and left behind a career in fashion to pursue her interest in food and public relations. She learned the ropes at Kratz & Company, and opened her own firm in 1993.

KB NETWORK NEWS

AC Why do you feel that chefs need a publicist? And do all chefs need one?

KB Chefs need guidance and support. They need somebody who understands what they're doing, to help them bring out their best. Before we start promoting them, we make sure we understand them. I believe I know what the public is looking for, and I believe I know what the critics are looking for. They're two different things, and it's important that a menu reflects and cooks for both audiences. Some chefs come in and say, 'I want to be a TV superstar.' Well, that's a bad attitude. You should be a chef Look at the most famous chefs out there--Boulud, Ducasse, Thomas Keller--all the press you ever see about them is about being a chef. The chefs marketing their pots and pans, promoting this and that, at some movie premiere--that's not about being a chef. Cooking extraordinary food is what makes you famous, so don't stop doing it. I tell them do what you love, the money will come. Our goal is to make sure the public is enjoying the experience, and the restaurant is going to get well-reviewed. We get their name out there, get the pre-opening press, opening press, bring them to the attention of the critics, and get as much editorial coverage as possible. Make sure that everybody knows this restaurant is opening. Then it's up to them to keep the restaurant open and keep it successful by delivering the experience. We can only deliver the promise. They have to keep the promise.

But I don't think every chef needs a publicist. They have to be ready. They have to be able to afford it. They have to have something interesting to say. There has to be a news hook. We won't represent anything we don't believe in.

AC What about chefs in smaller markets, or in rural areas--do they need publicity?

KB I think even more so. [Publicists] are bringing the chef to the attention of magazines that they wouldn't necessarily be familiar with. If it's something that's exciting, this chef from the middle of nowhere is doing this fantastic thing--you know, people graduate from the CIA or the French Culinary Institute, they come to New York, it's on easier route, but if somebody's really doing extraordinary food--whether you're looking in the Michelin guidebooks, or any kind of books, they're always telling you about restaurants off the beaten path. Those are the ones that you look for ... That's what's exciting. That's the kind of stuff that journalists and editors and food writers get excited about, too.

AC So, it sounds like a publicist's role varies based on who the client is. Is there anything that a publicist doesn't do?

KB Don't date the client. Ever. Or you're fired. There's no way. There's no dating clients. Absolutely not. Or journalists for that matter. If an employee happens to be married to a chef, that's lovely, but he's not going to be our client. And [my employees] can never talk back. I believe we have to always behave like ladies and be very gracious and strong, but accommodating. Especially with a chef, you don't cross the line by being negative.

I think we have to always understand that the chef is the client and we are the publicists, and we get abused all the time. It's part of the job, unfortunately. It shouldn't be, but it is. I tell my girls, instead of saying, 'You know where you can go,' I will say to the chef, 'As your publicists, we need to love you so that we'll pitch you and represent you better. If you're mean to your publicist, how is she supposed to say that you're the greatest thing since sliced bread?' Chefs should be nice, be supportive, be grateful, because people are working hard for them. They can't treat us like their psychiatrists, even though they do. They can't treat us like their girlfriends, even though they do. You want the client to trust you and feel comfortable around you, but you have to create a level of professionalism and not let them cross the line. We're not their personal assistants. Forget it. We do only what pertains to the job, the PR. We're always accessible to them, and we'll go the extra mile. They have to go to a TV shoot on a Sunday at o am, we go with them. We'll do all of that, but it has to pertain to their professional career.

AC What do you ask or encourage a chef to do in order to become a great client?

KB They need to understand what their concept is, who they want to feed. I'll ask them, what do you want the New York Times review to say about you? And they'll say, That I'm doing really good food that's ingredient-driven.' Well if it's not ingredient-driven food, what the hell is it? What does that mean? Bottom line, I'll say, 'Who are you cooking for?' It's about bringing them to the truth. We give them advice on their appearance, of course. We tell them if they need media training. We'll tell them to deliver the promise that we're making on their behalf. Another thing that I'll do with chefs is tell them what restaurants to eat at. Don't copy it, but be inspired. Get to know your market, know your industry, empower yourself with

What can you do once a bad review or other bad press has materialized?

Well, that's always very difficult. More often than not, we've warned them. We give tasting reports and pre-review restaurants constantly in the beginning phases and throughout the process. Often, if they don't pay attention to what we've said, you'll read the exact same comments in the newspaper review. Then they'll say, 'You were right.' I don't want to be right. I just want you to have had a good review. We do a complete analysis of the review, and separate the good from the bad, look at the bad and say, 'Do we agree with any of these things?' It's very damaging. Very damaging. However, some restaurants have never been reviewed, or had not-great reviews, and are still always busy. Why? Consistency. They're delivering the promise. So it's not just about press, it's not just about reviews. Word-of-mouth is very strong.

What would you recommend for a chef whose establishment can't afford to retain a publicist--are there things that they can do that won't cost them a lot of money?

I think anyone can afford a publicist. You don't have to go for haute couture, you can go off the rack. You have to spend money to make money, and everybody knows that as well. I wouldn't recommend that chefs just do it themselves, although they can. I would recommend that they have an assistant helping them. Or their wife. Not everybody needs a big national campaign. A lot of chefs really don't write well. They're not writers. They're chefs. In a small town, maybe the chef wears all the many hats and he's on the phone talking to press, because there's maybe five people in the whole town that are journalists. Fine, but you can get yourself into trouble. They don't all want the same story. You need to worry about exclusives. It can get a little difficult, and they can find themselves in an area that they're not familiar with and say the wrong thing. Who knows? It can be pretty serious. But it depends on the individual. I have some clients that I tell them, 'You could do this yourself. You should be my publicist.'

jennifer baum is the founder and owner of Bullfrog & Baum, a full-service public relations, consulting and marketing firm with a focus on restaurants, hotels, retail stores, personalities and products. Baum got her start in the world of beauly PR, paid her dues in New York and Philadelphia restaurants, and holds an MBA in finance and management. She has worked in management, marketing and business development for a number of restaurant groups, including Ark Restaurants and Toscorp, and she opened Bullfrog & Baum in 2000. She currently manages a staff of seventeen, in New York and Los Angeles.

BULLFROG & BAUM

AC What's a typical day for you?

JB Well, there is no typical day. That's why I like this business, because nothing is rote. There's definitely task work and administrative work, but--I'll tell you what I did today. I had my weekly staff meeting. Then we had a meeting with a new video producer. I had a conference call with a new client. I had lunch with a journalist. Then I came back and had to do some dining reports. I had to touch base with some new clients, deal with getting their contracts back. Then I took Pilates (laughing) which I do twice a week because that's for my sanity. Tonight I'll go to dinner with a journalist at a new restaurant that we represent. That's today. That's sort of representative of how any day can be. I'll have client meetings, tastings, media dinners or media lunches. I don't have an assistant, so I write my own proposals and I write my own contracts, with my lawyer. Twice a week I'm out at dinners. So that's my basic week.

AC Why does a chef or restaurant need a publicist?

JB I feel that in order for people to stay ahead of the curve and on top of the media in this market [New York], they need an advocate. There are great chefs out there without publicists. I've always said this. I sat on a panel for Women Chefs and Restaurateurs, and there was this big argument in the audience about why chefs need publicists. I do think, in a perfect world, that great journalists will find those restaurants that are family-run and putting out great food and great hospitality, but the reality is that there's so much of that going on in major markets that, in order to navigate the landscape, you need some help. That doesn't mean that there aren't [well-known] chefs and restaurants who don't have publicists, or who didn't for the longest time. Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, Danny Meyer--they never had PR until very recently.

[As publicists] we don't just send press releases. I will eat at one of my new restaurants four times this week, because I have to work my way through the menu. We give them dining reports. We work on the menu with them. We work on the dining experience with them, to get them ready for the public.

AC Is PR as essential in smaller markets and rural areas?

JB You'd be surprised how many people call for PR from those areas. They don't necessarily need PR. In some places, it's all word-of-mouth and loyal customer following, and there aren't thousands of choices, so if you put out good food at a decent price and your maitre d' knows the people who come in, that's enough. The press is not going to increase their business. Those smaller markets have maybe three local media outlets. You invite them in, and they review you and that's the end of it.

AC What kind of advice do you give chefs to make them more marketable?

JB I encourage them to be truthful and honest about what they're doing. We encourage goodwill participation in [charity] events. One thing I absolutely cannot stand is when a chef says he's going to do something, and then wants to know what he's going to get in return for it. You have to do it because you want to do it.

AC What happens when a bad review or other bad press surfaces?

JB 0It depends. If it's on a blog, we do not respond. It is our policy not to respond. [Blogs] represent one person's voice, and they have this need to be heard. What they seek is power, and if you respond, you give it to them. How do we respond to a bad review? We let it go. I had a client who got a "satisfactory" [from the New York Times]. We had given him dining reports, everything in writing that we suggested before he opened. He sat us down and said, 'I got a call from another PR firm and they said that if they represented me, I wouldn't have gotten a satisfactory.' We ended that relationship. He just called me to represent him againl (Laughing). Here's the deal. I will do what I can to get you ready but if you don't listen to me, there's nothing I can do.

AC Do you have advice for those chefs whose restaurants cannot afford PR?

JB For them, it's about getting the local people in. We would advise smaller restaurants to write a release, send it to all the local publications. Invite the reviewers in, and keep sending them your menus. That's the only thing you can really do if you don't have an advocate out there. The bottom line is that people should build PR into their budget. When people don't put it into their budget for PR, it becomes a reactive expense. But smaller restaurants really need to reach out to their local community. I really believe that if you're serving good food in a friendly environment, someone will find you. Even if no one ever writes about you, your local community will support you.

I think it's a shame that everybody needs to have a publicist, because it's a lot of money. Let's say the fee is $5,000 a month. That's $60,000 a year. As it is, only 15 percent of a restaurant's revenue comes back to them, if that, so then we're taking a piece of that? It's so much money. I'm not saying that we're not worth it. We work really hard and we do keep our chefs out there. But it feels bad to me that every restaurant feels that they're nothing if they can't hire a publicist.

'blog: Short for 'web log': a web site that contains a journal with reflections, news or comments, as well as links to related sites, proviaed by the author.

steven hall

sam firer

THE HALL COMPANY

Steven Hall and Sam Firer are the founders and co-owners of the Hall Company. They are both veterans of the New York restaurant scene who began their careers in front-of-house positions. Hall got his start in PR as an associate at KB Network News, and left to open his own firm, with the help of Simon Oren's Tour de France restaurant group. He then recruited Firer, whom he'd met working at Iridium. The company recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and opened a satellite office in Tokyo.

AC Why do you think that chefs need publicists?

SH We're the eyes and ears of our clients. Let's face it, how often does a chef get to go out and eat in other restaurants if they're working? But we do. We can say, 'We went to this place, maybe you should check it out, look at this menu, and learn from what your peers are doing.' So I think they hire us to be that sounding board, and not just to handle the press. They want us to let them know what's going on in the industry.

AC Is there a holy grail of press or publicity that chefs aspire to?

SH If they're a first-time restaurateur, they want to be part of the restaurant game. They want to know that they can be included in events. They want to be known as a restaurant owner. They want to develop a personality for themselves as restaurant owners because they're thinking about the next project as soon as they've opened their first project.

SF I think that the two biggest holy grails are, they want a fabulous career, and they want to retire early. (Laughing).

AC What do you do when a bad review or other bad press materializes?

SF Buy every single paper. (Laughing).

SH Life goes on, life definitely goes on. Part of the reason we have a business is because there's life beyond good reviews and bad reviews. One review doesn't make or break you anymore. New media has really changed the scene. I think things are creeping up that are going to be amazing. Podcasts, stuff like that. There's a whole world of people out there that don't care about the printed word. They get their news somewhere else.

SF We've found that blogs are becoming a very popular way for people to get their news. You know, we've combated many bad reviews. Years ago, when we did Roy's New York and it was Bill Grimes' second or third review as the critic of the New York Times, that was brutal. It took down somebody who was a nationally known figure, but the fact is, so many people loved Roy anyway that the review didn't matter. People still wanted to write about him.

SH You have to think that people have five minutes of memory. That's all they have. I said to Roy [Yamaguchi], 'It's not a big deal, people will not remember this in three weeks.'

SF Who has time to read, in New York City, all five weekly and daily publications that are out there, plus the monthly publications? I can sometimes not remember who got reviewed last week. How can I expect somebody who's not in the industry to remember who got reviewed last week? So, nothing has the same staying power that it used to. What we try and do is take every single aspect of our restaurants to get them press. There's a lot of press on cocktail culture. Soon the bar chef thing will be tiresome to people. They're not going to write about it anymore. Now one of our clients has a beer sommelier. So far we've gotten more press on that than we have on the food.

SH I've found it's the elements of the restaurant that give it buzz, not the whole concept.

SF Right. I mean, how many stories have we seen on restaurant bathrooms?

AC What would you suggest for the chef who wants to raise his or her profile, but whose establishment cannot afford the services of a publicist?

SH Keep in touch with hotels and concierges, people who send people to restaurants. Become a part of your industry, so people will recognize who you are Do events. Make friends with other chefs. Make sure that you shake hands and kiss babies when you're out on the floor. Look clean. Go out there, say hello to your customers, and keep them coming back. know the key media people in your area.

SF It's the message on the phone, and what the host says when guests arrive, and what the waiters say, the words and the images that they're looking at It's not that magical. It's really the management of a thousand tiny things.

robin insley earned a master's degree in nutrition from Tufts University, and is a veteran of the New York restaurant PR game, having spent eight years working with Fern Berman Communications and another two with Susan Magrino Public Relations. After a stint with global PR powerhouse Fleishman-Hillard, Insley opened her own firm, representing chefs, restaurants, wines and spirits.

ROBIN INSLEY ASSOCIATES

AC Why do you think that chefs and restaurants need publicists?

RI There have been high-profile restaurants that I've worked with that need a publicist to help manage all the press inquiries, making sure it's being handled appropriately, because there is just so much going on in a restaurant, that they can't possibly be able to do it all. The other thing is for new restaurants, getting them known to the public. Sometimes it's hard for a chef to reach out and explain, in his or her own words, what makes them unique and worthwhile. They need to be guided.

AC What about a chef that's working in a suburban or rural area, where there's not a huge media presence? What can a publicist do for them?

RI I think what a publicist can do for them is make people aware that they're out there, make people aware that these are quality chefs. They've chosen a particular region for a particular reason, and they're a talent that's worthy of recognition. They're contributing to the culinary landscape of America. A publicist can also serve a marketing role within a community, and still help chefs with their press needs on a local level.

AC What are some of the things that chefs typically expect when hiring a publicist? Is there a holy grail of publicity among chefs?

RI Instant stardom. (Laughing). You know, they want to be on the 'Today' show, and be the front-cover story of the big magazines. Chef and restaurateurs approach publicists for different reasons. They want to become well-known. They want be a personality on television. They have a long-term goal of writing cookbooks. I get behind them and raise the public's awareness of them.

I think a lot of it is teaching and making them aware of how the whole system works. There's a lot of media training. People sometimes want me to work with advertising and marketing, but that's not my expertise and it wouldn't do them any service to have me do it. There's a lot of hand-holding. I've worked with a couple of clients who have been new to the whole idea of public relations, some that have come to New York from smaller cities. New York is a different animal. I do a lot of explaining in simple but explicit terms that this is what I do, this is what you do, kind of laying it all out, and letting them know that it's ultimately up to them to sell themselves. We can bring the journalists to them and showcase all the positive things, the uniqueness of the story, but when the journalist goes to the restaurant, it really is their own dining experience, and we can't write their experience for them. Public relations makes people aware, but it doesn't determine the outcome. I think that's hard for some chefs, when they're first starting out with PR, to understand.

AC Are you saying that hiring a publicist doesn't mean you're hiring a sure-thing good review or other positive editorial mention?

RI Yes. You could hire the most high-profile publicist around, spend so much money on it, and they can bring the high-profile journalists in, but it's ultimately up to you, the chef, to make them have that great experience. And I do think that the media wants to hear from the chef him- or herself. They can have a whole press kit and learn about the chef, but it's not until the chef comes out for that one-on-one interaction that the journalist is satisfied.

AC What advice or encouragement do you give to help chefs become more marketable?

RI You can do outside media training, or the publicist can sit down with them one-on-one, rehearse, for their first couple of interviews. Run some questions by them and talk about how to answer them. It helps when I get the questions in advance. Or, we go through a list of standard questions they can expect. For a chef who is just breaking into the industry, it's important to make sure that all the talking points are reviewed. Being on television is much harder and much more complicated than it appears, so, I do encourage chefs who've never been on television to go to a media trainer, because that is a certain expertise that's not necessarily instinctive. I also make sure they're out there on the scene, being seen in public, being seen in the dining room. It doesn't mean that you spend your whole night in the dining room, because everyone likes to know that the chef is in the kitchen cooking for them, but it is nice to maybe make a sweep during each turn. You want to seem visible. The other thing is participating in charity events. Participating in cooking classes. A lot of places do their own advertising, so you'll benefit from their advertising with your picture and the name of your restaurant.

It doesn't happen overnight. You also have to understand that some publications are working as far as four or six months in advance, and just because I make a phone call, it doesn't mean that you're going to be in that issue. It's a long process, even for daily and weekly publications, it's a long process of needling away and being persistent. You have to look at the person who handles your PR as part of your team.