Company of Cooks absorbs Restaurant Associates Venues
The hospitality group folds two Compass-owned brands into one as Company of Cooks turns 30, taking on sites from the Royal Opera House to RHS Wisley.
Company of Cooks absorbs Restaurant Associates Venues this week, merging two Compass Group-owned hospitality teams into a single brand just as Company of Cooks turns 30.
The move brings together two businesses that had run in parallel since Compass Group UK & Ireland bought CH&Co for £475m in 2024. Restaurant Associates Venues handled food and events at some of the same cultural and heritage sites Company of Cooks already served, and the overlap made a single brand the simpler fix.
Clients keep their existing contracts and contacts, Compass Group UK & Ireland said. The Royal Opera House, RHS Wisley and Apothecaries' Hall in the City of London are among the venues now running under the Company of Cooks name; Apothecaries' Hall only signed on as a food, drink and events partner last month.
Compass keeps choosing the same fix: one brand, one culture, one invoice for every heritage venue it feeds.
One brand for cultural venues
Dirk Talsma, managing director of Company of Cooks, called the merger a natural evolution that strengthens operations, culinary development and event sales across the combined portfolio. Matt Thomas, chief executive of workplace and leisure at Compass Group UK & Ireland, said the two brands had long worked side by side and can now share expertise while each site keeps its own identity.
Company of Cooks built its name on contracts with galleries, gardens and historic buildings rather than offices or hospitals, a niche within contract catering that rewards long tenancies and menus tied to each venue's own events calendar. Compass's rivals have been consolidating their own venue arms too: Sodexo's UK business has leaned on exactly this kind of contract catering for its recent growth.
The combined teams move onto the Company of Cooks brand across all sites this month, with the Restaurant Associates Venues name retired.
Training is the next step
Compass Group UK & Ireland said the merged business will get more investment in training and career paths for staff, a pledge that echoes a wider push across the group to hold onto kitchen and front-of-house workers amid persistent hospitality staffing shortages — the same pressure that pushed Compass-owned Vacherin into a chef exchange with Akoko this month.
No venue contracts or prices change because of the merger, the company said. The next test is whether one brand can keep both client rosters loyal through a round of consolidation that has already reshaped much of UK contract catering.
