Dish Cult Meets: Melissa Harwood, Founder of Spinach

Dish Cult: What’s your background in hospitality?

Melissa Harwood: I’ve been in hospitality forever, I feel like I was born in hospitality. I worked my way up from glass washer to finding myself working for Howard Marks, Mr Nice.

DC: What was Mr Nice like as a boss?

MH: He was the most chilled out man on the planet. But basically I was his boss! He’d come onto the site, drink a bottle of red wine, eat some food, read a book and make a spliff, obviously. Then he’d leave and I’d have to run things for him. It was kind of more of a friendship, really.

DC: Have you always wanted to open your own restaurant?

MH: I think so. I used to work for Corney & Barrow [wine merchant company], I was responsible for all of their sites. After leaving them, I took a year out and walked the Camino de Santiago. When I came back to London, that’s when we started looking for sites because we’d decided to make a go of it ourselves and finally this site on Lordship Lane [East Dulwich] came up.

DC: Where did the name Spinach come from?

MH: The story behind that, and the reason why it’s called Spinach, is all thanks to [Yotam] Ottolenghi. I wasn’t really sure what my angle was when I was going to open my restaurant, until I was bought the book Plenty by Ottolenghi. It wasn’t until I read that that I thought, ‘this is my calling, this is the sort of food I love to eat.’ It absolutely changed my mindset. We settled on Spinach because there’s a recipe in there for spinach pancakes and I used to make it all the time.

DC: How did you come up with the menu?

MH: It’s so hard! It’s even more complicated these days because the costs of products are so high. So first of all, you’ve got to take that into accountability. Then you’ve got to take in what people want to eat, and then you’ve got to take in sections – so our kitchen is small, meaning you can’t have too much on for one chef to work on. It’s a lot to consider, but it’s just about getting the balance of the menu right.

DC: Which dishes on the menu are your most popular?

MH: Our most popular dish on the menu is a dish we serve in the evenings called Gobi [Gobi Manchurian – Lightly fried cauliflower in a homemade tomato and chilli sauce]. That’s been on our evening menu since we opened, it’s never coming off.

DC: Is it important for you to work with local suppliers?

MH: It is, we try and stay as local as possible. Our meat supplier, for instance, is William Rose [local butchers also based on Lordship Lane] – that’s organic and free range. And our veg supplier is next door.

DC: Do you have any plans to open up a Spinach at a different location?

MH: My life has changed a lot. When I opened Spinach I was in my late 20s. Now I’ve got two kids and a family. We’ve got Baby Spinach in Streatham and we occasionally we do catering for weddings and events. I’d like to have more space for me and my family. I can see myself moving more coastal. I would like to open a B&B one day, so who knows!

DC: Are there any other cuisines you would like to branch into?

MH: Probably not. I mean, my favourite food to eat is dim sum, but I think we’ll leave that to the experts.