Wolseley Hospitality Group reshuffles three head chefs
Frank Fletcher, Jenson Santos and Jai Shaikh all move kitchens this month, the latest sign that the Wolseley group prefers promoting its own cooks from within.
The Wolseley Hospitality Group has reshuffled the kitchens at three London restaurants, moving Frank Fletcher to Fischer's, Jenson Santos to The Wolseley City and Jai Shaikh to Colbert.
Fletcher takes over as head chef at Fischer's in Marylebone, arriving from Quo Vadis. He replaces Santos, who moves across to lead the kitchen at The Wolseley City, the group's newest site near the Bank of England.
Shaikh completes the chain of moves, leaving The Wolseley City for Colbert in Chelsea. He joined the group from The Ivy Collection, where he spent several years before switching to the Corbin & King-founded stable of restaurants.
Three chefs changed addresses and not one of them left the company.
A group that promotes from within
The reshuffle is one of several chef moves the Wolseley Hospitality Group has made across its restaurants this autumn, in a season that has also seen Josh Hughes move from Hide and Fox to Updown Farmhouse, as the group leans on internal promotion rather than outside hires for its senior kitchen roles.
At TOZI in Victoria, Francesco Vacca was promoted to head chef after nearly a decade with the restaurant, working alongside executive chef Maurilio Molteni, who keeps overall culinary direction across the group's Italian-leaning sites.
Nearby, Nathan Chapman was made head chef at The Quality Chop House in Clerkenwell after seven years at the restaurant, another case of the group handing its kitchens to cooks who have already proven themselves there.
Why the moves matter beyond London
The group traces back to The Wolseley's 2003 opening under Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, and now operates under Minor International ownership as the Wolseley Hospitality Group, running more than a dozen restaurants across the capital, from brasseries like The Wolseley to Mediterranean-leaning rooms like Colbert.
Keeping chefs moving within the business, rather than losing them to rivals, has become a common defence against London's tight kitchen labour market, where trained head chefs remain hard to recruit and even harder to keep. The same pattern is playing out elsewhere in the city, where Abbie Hendren's move to Trindle Stores followed a similar run through several well-known kitchens before landing a top job.
None of the three restaurants has announced menu changes alongside the appointments, suggesting continuity is the point for now, with each chef expected to hold the kitchen's existing direction rather than remake it on arrival.
