Matsudai: From music to ramen kits to debut restaurant

Tell me the history of Matsudai? I'm not from a catering background, I worked in music and events until autumn 2019. In 2018, I got married, lost my job and moved house all in the space of a week, and it was an overwhelming period. I picked up a lot of freelance work around music and events and it was just frustrating. I wasn't getting paid on time, there wasn't a steady flow of work, and as a creative person, I found myself in a position where I was administering other people's creativity. I didn't want that, my mental health got really bad. My wife told me I had to quit. I'm a home cook and someone suggested that I do a pop up, and it became a full time job straight away. Do you have a background in Japanese cuisine? I had been to Japan working on tour and I loved it. I hadn't actually eaten ramen until 2015 when I first had a bowl of ramen that ignited something in me. My nature is obsessive, I move from one thing to the next, I become besotted with things. There is such a rich history with ramen and I fell down a rabbit hole. I didn't actually eat any ramen in Japan, retrospectively it was really rubbish ramen that I first tried, it was on Cheltenham highstreet. It was pretty dodgy. Why do you think your pop-ups were so successful? They went about as well as they could have. People caught onto it really early on, but I think the story was part of it. It was a bold move, I was 40 when I started, I had a career all my life, and I just moved so far away from that and I think that resonated with people. But also, a lot of work went into that food, and people could see the love and work that had gone into it. Then and even now there is a shortage of good ramen in the UK, especially outside of London. The timing was perfect, I announced it when people were ready to try something outside of their comfort zone. How did Covid-19 affect the progression of the business? We started in October 2019, and by January we had agreed we would take over the kitchen where we did the pop ups. The agreement was we would take over from Wednesday to Saturday, and see how it went, and get an idea of if we could run a restaurant. But a month later, it was shut down due to Covid. That was strange. I didn't know where I was going with it but I was able to get a bounce back loan as our finances looked good from the pop ups otherwise this wouldn’t have happened. How did you think of the idea to make ramen kits? I would always have a freezer full of frozen soups, so naturally I had kits on my mind, and I started to get itchy fingers. In the summer of 2020, I got restless and a space became available in an industrial unit nearby and I thought I would give it a go. I had already had the bit between my teeth, I couldn't stop. It would have been a strange feeling to stop there. Originally, I started to do the kits from my house which was a disaster. I had my friend vacuum packing stuff for me and had freezers full of food. We put the ramen kits up for sale on a Monday thinking we would sell 10, and we ended up having to take them down as we had over 450 orders. It was very difficult but I look back on it fondly. But I didn't want to become a kit business, and in the winter of 2020, I questioned stopping it, or going national. In January 2021, we launched nationally, and it just so happened that we went into another lockdown. We had a lot of people approaching to write about the home kits and that gave us fans all over the UK. How did you move out of just making kits? We took Matsudai on tour last year, we went to Manchester, Bristol, London for five weeks, and back to Cardiff. It was just so busy and a really lovely feeling. It's nice to have bases around with supporters. We were very lucky, but Matsudai has always felt right and pure, we don't cut corners and I think people really see that. Why did you open a bricks and mortar restaurant? Bricks and mortar was always the end goal, I have no interest in being a chef whatsoever, I have worked crazy hours and I just wanted to do something creative. Matsudai is about telling the story of ramen and educating people and spreading the word about ramen. I wanted an online pantry of all the ingredients and educational videos for people and that's what we have done. Why did you pick Cardiff for the first restaurant? It's where it started, it wouldn't make sense to put it anywhere else. Strategically, London is the next place. We sell a lot of ramen kits in London and that's where a lot of our customers are. But at the moment, the only thing I can concentrate on is the restaurant we've just opened. What were the challenges you faced opening the new site? The cost of goods is crazy, we import a lot of stuff directly from Japan and import tax just shot through the roof. The war in Ukraine meant that airmail from Japan took three or four months to come instead of a few weeks. When I first started Matsudai, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I had Michelin star chefs wanting to work with me for months, and now I can't even employ anyone. It's very hard to find staff. Hospitality jobs have always been long hours and full of stress, but I am very keen to pay people properly and give them work and life balance, but I came to do this from having all those issues with my previous job, so I naturally look after my staff. How has the opening been? It's gone amazingly. It's been tough behind the scenes; we are finding our feet and the structure of things and processes. It's been amazing. We have had no complaints, nothing sent back to the kitchen, great reviews - it's been packed. The front of the house has been amazing and it couldn't have gone better. I just want to keep the numbers up, and for it to stabilise and get easier, which I know it will. What does the future hold for Matsudai? We have a lot of plans for the menu, operating in a way ramen shops don't operate, making small plates with seasonal and locally sourced, that's the kind of ramen shop I want to have. Traditionally, ramen shops tend to have a static menu. As I have mentioned before, I think the next strategical opening will be in London as we already have a customer base there.