Meet the Londoners who decide what you eat

What's the secret behind Super 8's erowines list of A-lister restaurants?

- WORDS BY DAVID ELLIS

SongSoo Kim is looking ahead, clear-eyed. "Certainly, I think," she says, "there's a lot of work to do. For sure." Kim is the head of sourcing and development for the most influential restaurant company nobody's ever heard of, Super 8. Not famous, Super 8, but its restaurants are London A-listers, and easily up there with the city's best: Mountain, Brat, Kiln, Smoking Goat. A cast-iron critical reputation, and two Michelin stars from five restaurants (Brat has a sister in Climpson's Arch).

But Kim isn't talking food or service or suppliers she's on sexism in hospitality. A little over a month since 70 female chefs signed an open letter decrying gender discrimination in the workplace, how does she think her company is doing?

"Super 8 has been talking about it for a while and, I believe, it wants to do better. I think that's the best we can do, right? It's the belief that we want to create an equitable society together," she says, choosing her words. "I agree," nods Fanny Derozier, Kiln's general manager.

"We don't have the solution to this problem, but we have conversations on a daily basis with our teams, open debates."

At the table with them are Super 8 co-founders Brian Hannon and Ben Chapman, Kiln's long-term chef Meedu Saad soon to open a new restaurant with Derozier - and, joining from Australia via zoom, the group's best-known chef, Tomos Parry. It sounds, I say to Chapman and Hannon, like the group's quite good on these things. A wrinkle draws itself on Chapman's face.