Simon Rogan says UK expansion is off and looks abroad

Simon Rogan says expanding in the United Kingdom is "not a viable proposition at the moment" and that his group is now looking overseas for its next investment.

Rogan runs L'Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria, which holds three Michelin stars and sixteen bedrooms, along with Aulis and Roganic. Speaking after the government said on 10 September that it would let mayors in England charge a levy on overnight stays, he described a business already working with almost nothing left over. "The margins in our restaurants are very, very tight," he said. "To keep pushing forward, we've got to do other things."

Why Simon Rogan is looking abroad

Cartmel is a village of 800 that one restaurant turned into a destination.

Those other things are delivery and volume catering. Rogan has expanded takeaway and moved into feeding sporting events, a business with a different shape to a sixteen-cover dining room in Cumbria. "The easiest way to have a Simon Rogan meal is to have it delivered," he said, which from a three-star kitchen is either a strategy or a symptom.

On building anything new in Britain, he was blunter. "We have no appetite for long-term investment at the moment with the way things are in the UK. We're looking to invest abroad." His group already runs in Hong Kong, and recently named a new head chef at Aulis London.

A tourist tax on top of the rest

"We're under huge pressure," Rogan said. "When you think you can't get any worse, here comes along the tourist tax." That levy is not law yet. The Overnight Visitor Levy Bill is due in the 2026-27 parliamentary session, the charge would be set by mayoral authorities rather than Westminster, it would be a percentage of the accommodation price, and the money is earmarked for local visitor-economy spending. The earliest any English city could apply one is 2027.

The pile underneath it is already there: higher employer National Insurance, a higher minimum wage, energy bills that never came back down. More than 800 hospitality businesses, Rogan among them, signed an open letter this month asking for a cut in hospitality VAT.

"When restaurants close - and they are closing - the impact goes far beyond the dining room," Rogan said. Cartmel is a village of about 800 people that a three-star restaurant turned into a destination. That is roughly the argument for a visitor levy, and roughly the argument against it.