Less than a year after making its London debut, Paris-founded Latin American restaurant brand Tigermilk has lined up a second site. Founders Alexis and Nina Melikov are doubling down: their upcoming restaurant in Spitalfields will dwarf its Charing Cross Road sibling weighing in at a whopping 300 covers.
Set to open later this month, the restaurant will bring the brand up to 13 locations joining 10 sites in France and a further restaurant in Brussels. Not bad going for a group that opened its first restaurant in 2019.
Alexis has achieved this rapid and apparently wholly organic growth by applying a fast-casual mindset to a premium-leaning restaurant format. Tigermilk might look fancy, but it’s been built with volume in mind: just down the road from Tottenham Court Station, its current London restaurant serves more than 700 people on a Saturday.
High volume allows Tigermilk to keep pricing accessible - around £45 per head - while maintaining strong margins, with Alexis claiming EBITDA of a healthy 45% and capex paid back within months not years. We caught up with him about his policy of tight cost control, his aim to expand across the UK, and turning tables which, it turns out, is much easier in France than in London.
The first London Tigermilk has obviously gone well…
Yes, it has. But it was always the plan to open multiple sites in London - we signed for the second site less than four months after launching Charing Cross Road. We’ve moved here as a family. My wife used to live in London, so she knows the market, and as a Parisian I know it a bit too - I come here a lot, it’s not that far on the Eurostar. We were confident London would be a good opportunity. It’s a strong market, but it’s also a very competitive one.
Your upcoming East London restaurant is huge
We have 229 covers, and nearly 300 including external seating. It’s twice as big as our current London site, which seats 138. We’re turning away a lot of customers in the evening even early in the week, so it makes sense to open a much larger restaurant. I don’t have a problem being quiet at lunchtime if we’re packed in the evening. The key to making our model work is volume. Our restaurants look premium, but the experience is affordable because we serve a lot of people. Our margarita costs £10 and spend per head is about £45. Our positioning isn’t exactly the same as Big Mamma - who are friends of ours - but it’s comparable. We’re certainly sharing the same crowd. Spitalfields is a risk, but looking at the data from the first six months of Charing Cross Road, it should be fine. We do over 700 covers on a Saturday.
“In France people are absolutely fine being tapped on the shoulder and told we need the table back. In London, we’re getting a lot of shit. Sometimes people are like ‘fuck off, we’re not moving”
That’s a lot of table turning...
It’s funny - in France people are absolutely fine being tapped on the shoulder and told, you’re done, we need the table back. People get that the fast turn is the reason it’s not expensive. In London, we’re getting a lot of shit - it’s crazy. Sometimes people are like ‘fuck off, we’re not moving’.
Is there more competition in Paris or London for Latin American cuisine?
That’s an interesting question. Yes and no. The standard of food in Paris is high, but things like fit-out and service are much better in London, especially when it comes to restaurants that serve international cuisine. Restaurateurs in France don’t care nearly as much about the overall hospitality experience. The guest is also different. In Paris, people want good food and to interact with the people they’re eating with. In London, guests are much more likely to want to interact with the people serving them. That’s been a challenge - we need more staff here than we do in Paris.
In France VAT is just 10%, but in the UK it’s 20%. How does that change your pricing structure and overall economic model?
Not that much, because we can be affordable in London while still being around 15% more expensive than we are in France. On top of that, in the UK you can get significantly better deals on produce from good suppliers. As a London-based consumer, I find supermarkets very expensive but buying stuff for the restaurants feels far more reasonable. There’s a much smaller gap between retail and restaurant prices in France.
Why did you launch a Latin American restaurant?
We weren’t targeting a gap in the market. We did it because we love the cuisine and it’s relatively easy to deliver high-quality dishes without relying on a big-name chef. The ingredients are also fairly cost-effective. We think Latin American food offers one of the best quality-to-price ratios there is. It’s colourful, fresh and easy to present in an attractive way.
How do you divide the work between you and your wife?
We created the brand together and work on the creative aspects together. I’m more involved in operations, while she leads the finance team. But we both come from a finance background.
You launched in 2019 and now have 15 sites. How have you managed to expand the brand so quickly?
That depends on your point of view - I feel like we haven’t been quick enough. I’ve worked in the US and things happen much faster there. For example, I helped develop a poke brand called Pokeworks, which went from zero to 95 sites in three years. That’s how I got into the food industry. I was meant to help a friend for three months and ended up staying for three years in a CFO and real estate development role.
I’m essentially running Tigermilk like a fast-casual restaurant business. We’re lean on staff across the restaurants, and it’s the same with the supply chain and back office.
What is your funding model at Tigermilk?
It’s 100% organic. We have no debt or private equity backing. We’re following the same model we built in the US with Pokeworks - it’s efficiency-driven. I’m essentially running Tigermilk like a fast-casual restaurant business. We’re lean on staff across the restaurants, and it’s the same with the supply chain and back office. When you do all that, EBITDA for a restaurant like this is around 45%. After three to five months, I’ve paid off the capex and can move on to the next site.
Will you look to open more restaurants in London?
We hope to launch two more restaurants in the capital this year. And we’re actively looking in Manchester, Birmingham and Cardiff. It’s exciting to be in the UK but also challenging because there is a huge amount of investment. Operators in France don’t pump money into F&B like they do here. Restaurants are culturally important, but people don’t tend to spend huge amounts on fit-outs. In London, there are a lot of investors who will happily spend £3m in capex to see how it goes. People would never do that in France.