A useful marketing podcast if you work in restaurants or hotels
When Will Guidara took over the struggling Eleven Madison Park at twenty-six, nobody could have imagined it would be named the world's best restaurant eleven years later. His secret? Exceptional gastronomy and a radical vision of hospitality as the most powerful form of distinction. In Unreasonable Hospitality, Guidara shows how any company, beyond restaurants alone, can turn ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences through one simple choice: give more than expected.
Will Guidara is the author of Unreasonable Hospitality and co-founder of the world's number-one restaurant, Eleven Madison Park.
He explains how insights from hospitality can create an enormous competitive advantage for your brand.
Will was twenty-six when he took over Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-Michelin-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to the promise of its imposing setting. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world.
How did Guidara achieve this extraordinary transformation?
Through radical reinvention, genuine collaboration between kitchen and dining room and, above all, unforgettable, over-the-top, personalised hospitality.
Guidara's team surprised a family who had never seen snow with a magical sledging trip in Central Park after dinner. They also filled a private dining room with sand, complete with mai tais and beach chairs, to console a couple whose holiday had been cancelled.
His idea of hospitality extended beyond restaurant guests to his own team. They learned to give praise and criticism with intention, discovered why the answer to persistent business dilemmas is often to give more rather than less, and experienced the magic that happens when even a server starts thinking like an owner.
Today, any company can choose to become a hospitality business, turning ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences.
Through vivid stories from his restaurant career, featuring leading figures such as Daniel Boulud and Danny Meyer, Guidara encourages us to find the magic in what we do: for ourselves, our colleagues and the people we serve.
The podcast explores the power of small but meaningful gestures, the idea of intelligent naivety, the 95/5 rule and the importance of investing in things that cannot be measured but make a difference.
Will also reflects on the mindset that took Eleven Madison Park to the top, what businesses can learn from restaurants and how applying unreasonable hospitality can turn any customer experience into something truly extraordinary.
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