Atmospheric magic
Lessons in whipping up a beautiful experience.
I haven’t spent a ton of time in fine dining establishments, but when Alex and I were in Scotland for our elopement-slash-honeymoon last year, we decided to splash out and have a really fancy dinner on our penultimate night in Edinburgh. We would never have a better excuse, right? All of my internet research pointed me to one place: Timberyard, a family-owned restaurant that occupies a former warehouse in the center of the city and earned a Michelin star in 2023.
We arrived for our reservation sweaty and tardy — my nightmare. We left absolutely levitating.
It's probably annoying for people who work in restaurants to constantly hear about The Bear, in the same way that emergency room doctors are surely sick of being asked whether they’ve watched The Pitt. I loved The Pitt, though, and I do have to talk about The Bear. The best episode in the series is “Forks,” in which Carmy sends Richie to spend a few weeks working at a three-star restaurant to learn about high-end service. Richie hates it at first, until his supervisor, Garrett, explains that a task as seemingly menial as polishing forks is part of a larger exercise in mutual respect — for the customers paying to be there, for each other, and for himself.
“Do you see their faces when they walk in here? How stoked they are to see us, and how stoked we have to be to serve them?” Garrett asks. “Every day here is the freaking Super Bowl.”
I thought a lot about that at Timberyard. Every detail was considered and beautiful. Beams of light streamed in through windows overlooking a green courtyard. Atmospheric music floated overhead, and a strange soundtrack echoed in the dungeon-like bathroom downstairs. I drank a non-alcoholic martini, bracing and herbaceous, out of a crimson glass that I would like for my own home; I sipped a tea that made me think of the forest floor at night. The food, of course, was phenomenal. I seem to remember a beet turned into something almost exactly like bresaola. I didn’t know you could do that, but you can, and it’s great.
But it was the people working there who really cracked my melon open. They shepherded us through the meal with supreme composure, patiently circulating around the space and stopping by each table at exactly the right time. It was like watching ballet: You know how much sweat and effort it takes to pull off that kind of poise, but it looks completely natural. And they were kind. A tall guy with tattoos running up his neck and down his hands — he wore a cool, somewhat monastic black jacket buttoned to the throat — crouched down to tell us about the whisky selection, casually and with great enthusiasm. Alex isn’t very familiar with whisky, and I know even less; in many nice restaurants, this would be a recipe for feeling like a fumbling idiot. But this man was gracious and generous with his knowledge, chatting us through the drinks and their origins as though he was thrilled to let us in on the secret.
By the time we were handed complimentary tea to take home, I was chewing on the question of how I could map the Timberyard experience onto my own life. I wanted to figure out how I could give the people who I work with — my copywriting clients, my editors — that same kind of feeling. You’re in good hands. Here’s something beautiful delivered with grace and style.
So, obviously, I reached out to Timberyard to learn more about the people behind the experience and their approach to service. The best person to tell me about all of that was Jo Radford, who oversees the restaurant’s drinks program and front-of-house team, and who happens to be the tattooed guy who helped us out with the whisky. His parents have operated restaurants in Edinburgh since the early 1990s, and Timberyard has been a family affair since it opened in 2012, with Jo’s brother and sister also working in the restaurant over the years.
Jo joined our Zoom call from his car while waiting for his son to get out of school, while I dialed in from my parents’ house in Massachusetts. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity.
Before we get into all of the amazing details baked into service at Timberyard, I’d love to hear how you found your way into this role at the restaurant.
I studied criminal psychology, and I was too young to go into that dark a career path. I went to Australia for what was meant to be three months and ended up being two years. From 2010 to the start of 2012, I got my teeth stuck into restaurants and hospitality there.
My visa was coming to an end, and we were, as a family, speaking about next steps. My parents had wound down their two restaurants, one of which had been open for 18 years. During these conversations, it was clear [the next restaurant] might be something we’d all be involved in, to varying degrees. I always had the idea of coming back, staying for a year, and heading away to do something else.
In my absence, they’d gone to view Timberyard. It was a shell, essentially — it had been abandoned. They turned away from that building at first, because it was too big a project. But we kept coming back to the space, this old timberyard. It was so special. So much character. That was in January 2012, and we opened in August. It was a very quick turnaround, and we didn’t have much money. It was a lot of hands on deck. I came back around June, so I was involved for the last two months of the build. I still thought I’d duck out after the opening. I was involved in the drinks side of things for the first year, and then I stepped up in taking over the wine list and more of service.
I’m sure everyone asks you about the criminal psychology degree. Was the goal to go into that field? It seems very different from hospitality.
For sure. There was always a fascination with that side of things growing up. I was moments away from applying for a master’s. But I’m quite surprised at myself, to be honest, looking back at it — I turned away from it knowing that I wasn’t emotionally mature enough at that stage.
I feel like I have to mention that I just read Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara, about his time running front-of-house at Eleven Madison Park, and it feels very relevant to the conversation we’re having today. Have you read it?
Funnily, I just finished reading that book. It was quite a quick read — I found it very compelling. It was nice reading a book that’s held in such high regard and realizing that we’re perhaps already doing a lot of the things he described. I loved when he was chatting about how he looks at every single touch point to see how he could make it better.
I think you’re definitely doing a lot of those things! When I read the book, I immediately thought about Timberyard. So, if you can break it down for me, how would you describe the experience that you’re trying to create at the restaurant?
My parents always had these ambitions in previous restaurants to deliver a product that aligned itself with some of the great restaurants in the world in terms of experience, but without the fuss and pretense that quite often goes along with that. It’s that same kind of thing — removing a lot of the pretense that comes along with fine dining in terms of white tablecloths and, at times, very cold service.
What's so difficult is that the variables we can control — i.e. the food we put on the plate and the staff that we're working with — are greatly outnumbered by the variables that we can’t control. There can be as many as 80 to 90 people through the door in a day. We try to control some of those variables: staggering bookings throughout the evening, trying to get as much information out of the guests as possible at the point of booking, etc. But people will turn up when they turn up, they won't always announce allergies or dietary preferences before they arrive, they'll turn up with more or less people, or they might not turn up at all.
All of these things can have a huge impact. If you’ve got a party of four or more that doesn’t turn up, it can be 10% of your bookings for that service. It can have a big impact on morale, how much we take in, and atmosphere.
Timberyard is such an open space, with lots of room between tables, I can completely see how a missing group could throw off the ambiance of the room. What are some of the other pain points or big hurdles you and the team have overcome as Timberyard has evolved to where it is today?
I struggled with alcoholism and substance abuse while being a bit of a leader or mentor. Personally, that was the biggest thing. Getting to a point of sobriety, and then getting to a point where there was respect, up and down — for me, me for myself, and for those beneath me.
But as a team, Covid had a huge impact on the trajectory that we were on. There were so many restrictions, in terms of how long people could be in the building, different curfews, etc. For a good amount of time, we weren’t allowed to play music because there was concern that it would encourage people to lean in and talk. We were a pretty high-end offering, pre-Covid, and we had to revert to something more casual, where we could get people in and out but still deliver something special.
Coming out of Covid, my brother stepped out of the kitchen, and we brought a chef in who we really admired. We were trying to deliver a product that aligned itself with Michelin’s one-star rating, which we achieved about 18 months into him being with us.
When we were trying to achieve one star, there was this idea that if we act like we have a star and deliver the product, day in and day out, then it’s a matter of time before there’s recognition. The issue with this is, as soon as you’re trying to deliver a product that aligns with that standard of service, a lot of your costs go up, from raw ingredients to staffing. But you’re not able to charge the price that people would expect from a one-star restaurant.
I feel like we’re in a similar stage now, with our current chef, Bart Stratfold. We’ve come through our first year of retaining a star — so the second year of having one — and we’re going to push to see if we can deliver a product that aligns with some of the great two-star restaurants in the world. But we’re not at the point where we can charge that price point. There’s a slight imbalance that you go through as you try to evolve and improve the product.
That’s so interesting, and I think it’s something that a lot of businesses go through as they’re trying to level up. I wanted to ask you about how you cultivate the atmosphere at Timberyard — when I was there, everyone was really personable while also seeming very calm and confident.
There’s the analogy to a duck [furiously paddling under the surface]. There’s a lot of emphasis in trainings and briefings on trying to maintain that illusion of calm.
If you have a staff member who’s getting overwhelmed, how do you coach them through that?
The good thing about that building is that it's big, so there's plenty of back-of-house space if anyone is ever overwhelmed. There are enough front-of-house members of staff to be able to cover the sections, but also there’s a space for people to go take some time. And that’s not an uncommon thing.
You mentioned an idea of calm. For me, so much of that comes down to the building itself — the room, the space, the atmosphere. It’s kind of multisensory. There are a number of times where aroma is brought into the experience, whether it’s burning palo santo or the candles we make from leftover candles and reform with scent. You probably would have had cold towels in July?
I think so.
It’s hot towels during the colder months, and cold during warmer months. There’s scent on those. My sister works in sales one day a week at Aesop, the skincare company, and we kind of borrowed the towels from them. It’s not an unusual thing in fancy restaurants to be given towels, but 99% of the time I’ve been given towels in a restaurant, they’ve never had any scent. We use Scots pine oil on ours. During the summer, I think it might have been rosewater. But that idea was definitely borrowed more from the beauty world than the restaurant world.
And there’s another scent, Agua de Florida, that goes on the towel that we use to crumb the tables. There’s a lot of aroma going on there. And there’s an acoustic element in terms of the kitchen being slightly open, and also the soundtrack. And there are some interesting sounds in the bathroom.
We have to talk about the bathroom sounds. At first I thought it was a pipe dripping, but eventually I figured out that it was a soundtrack. Who did that? What is it?
So there’s a winemaker called Willi Opitz, who’s based in Austria. My parents used to buy wine from him, and years ago he gave them a CD. I don’t know if he released it, or if it's just something he gave to clients. But essentially, each track is a recording of that grape variety fermenting, and then the final track is the “full orchestra.”
Oh my god, that’s so fun. And how about the playlist upstairs? You had great music going.
Thank you. That was Pete Johnson, our manager, and myself. Over the course of many years, we added to this playlist. All of it is very atmospheric and quite ethereal in terms of the ambiance it creates. There’s some progressive Americana, like Robbie Basho, and then a little more New Wave. There’s this wonderful saxophonist called Cole Pulice, who’s based Oakland way and makes fantastic, atmospheric music.
Then some traditional Scottish folk things on there as well. A little bit of fiddle. If it was just fiddle, it could become overwhelming and a bit grating, but it works nicely to have a little accent of that Scottish identity here and there. Then some really soundscape-y things as well.
I’d love to listen to that playlist while writing.
It’s on Spotify. The profile is Timberyard10, and that playlist is called “Relaxed.” There’s one called “Classical” that we sometimes play at lunchtime when it’s nice and bright outside, because some of “Relaxed” is a bit more minor.
Another really beautiful touch is that when we were heading out the door, someone on your team handed us little packages containing bags of “Sleepy Tea.” I made it as soon as we got back to our hotel, and it had this wonderful sage-y, pine-y smell. It was like sticking your face in a Christmas tree. I also had an unbelievable non-alcoholic martini that night, so I’d love to hear about both the tea and your team’s approach to non-alcoholic drinks.
My father doesn't drink, I now don’t drink, and I think we just find more and more people not drinking for whatever reason. We’d always made soft drinks ourselves, and that’s developed into a full role now. Anna Sebelova takes care of all our soft drink and cocktail pre-batching, and also oversees a good amount of the hot beverage program. She also does a huge amount of foraging and preserving in the warmer months to see us through the colder months.
The Sleepy Tea is literally foraged conifer, whether it’s Scots pine, Douglas fir, noble fir, grand fir, western hemlock, spruce tips — whatever we can get our hands on. We forage it, pick it down, dry it, blitz it. Put it in a bag, with a tag on, then another bag. It’s quite a lengthy process, and every guest gets one. I think this is quite a practical application of the idea of extending the experience past these four walls.
It’s really good! I made Alex give me his. Going back to the idea of evolving and improving, how are you approaching the pursuit of that two-star rating?
It's such a strange one, because I think it becomes more of a theory, the higher up you go. We speak a lot about harmony — I think it’s referenced somewhere by Michelin, in the sense that one star is about the food, and two stars starts to become about the harmony between front and back of house. It’s not just about the chain of events from the kitchen to the table, but before the kitchen, whether that’s the farmer, breeder, forager, winemaker, whatever it may be. We as front-of-house members have a responsibility to weave those stories into the experience.
That’s a tricky one to get the balance right. We have this instant grading of tables, in terms of where we as a team are going to pitch our service. It happens without you even realizing it, but you sit down, there’s an interaction, you receive menus, and whoever is taking the orders grades the table A, B, or C.
What does that mean?
A will be guests that seem like they’d really like to get their teeth stuck into the experience — they’re super interested — or they’re potentially slightly high-maintenance in terms of having certain expectations of service. Those guests will get a little more explanation when we’re at the table, and we’re going into more detail about where the food is from.
B is our standard service: what we do day in, day out, in our level of hospitality and service that we try to give to everyone.
C is someone who might be less interested and engaged. Maybe they're here for a business meeting. They’re here to have a wonderful experience, but it’s very much about them and their guests. We try to interrupt them less.
And then we have a fourth rating, D, that guests can opt into at the time of booking online. Whether it’s someone on a date or an important meeting, or it’s someone who gets a bit anxious socially, they can just tick a box that gives them “discreet service” when they come in. We pare back the presentation of ingredients. We don’t have too much table time. We explain dishes briefly, if at all, to allow them to enjoy a fine dining experience without all the fuss that can come with it.
I don’t actually know of any other restaurants doing this — I borrowed it from some hairdresser friends.
That’s so cool. I think I’ve also seen it in that context, too, and I think it’s a really nice thing for people who are more introverted.
As we dial up what we do, we’re at the table a lot now. I can understand that for some people it might be overwhelming, or just unnecessary, given the context of their dinner. We’re quite proud of that, and I don’t think we shout about it enough.
An important final detail for you: Jo later told me by email that his service outfit — the all-black look he wore when I was at Timberyard — was likely from the Scottish brand Form & Thread. The team also wears Kestin and Vetra: “Garments need to be hard wearing & fairly lightweight & breathable,” as he said. Now we can all dress like we work at Timberyard.
Pining for that martini,
Eliza
