Episode
#245 - Hospitality Meets Ella De Beer - Electric Mayonnaise & Chicken on a Stick
- Published
- Mar 4, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3197
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.hospitalitymeets.co.uk/
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Summary
This week I sat down with the brilliant Ella de Beer co-founder of Electric Mayonnaise and one of those hospitality people whose career reminds you just how brilliantly unpredictable this industry can be. From waitressing at 14 in South Africa (while telling everyone she was 16… obviously), to opening restaurants, running pubs, building multi-site businesses, leading people functions at brands like Ottolenghi & MJMK and now helping shape the next generation of hospitality leaders, Ella’s story is packed with graft, curiosity, and a healthy dose of “why not give that a go?” Along the way there are some absolute hospitality gems… including the moment she handed Leonardo DiCaprio chicken on a stick , worked 3am Soho finishes fuelled by “Chinese tea” and helped open a 300 cover restaurant just as the financial crash hit. Ideal timing. But underneath the brilliant stories is something deeper, a conversation about the power of hospitality as a career, the importance of learning by doing, and why developing people might just be the most important job our industry has. In this episode, Ella and I get into… • Starting in hospitality at 14 and discovering confidence through people • Moving from South Africa to the Netherlands (and learning Dutch while running a restaurant) • The chaos, glamour and 600-cover Saturdays of Soho hospitality in the early 2000s • Why big volume restaurants teach you lessons you never forget • The moment a 300-seat opening met the global financial crash • What London operators learn the hard way when they buy countryside pubs • Building "Sourced Market" at St Pancras and what happens when 1,500 small suppliers meet train station footfall • Moving from operations into people leadership, and why ops experience changes everything • The unique magic (a…