But while Johnson may not mind waiting for a table, the entrepreneur famous for building Pizza Express with Hugh Osmond has grown impatient for his next big deal.
Johnson wants to expand his empire, which owns upmarket eatieries such as Le Caprice and J Sheekey as well as the high-street chain Strada. “This is a good business but I have spare energy and spare resources,” he says. “And I’m an ambitious fellow. I would like to develop.”
He recently failed in a bid to buy back Pizza Express, and two years ago lost out in the auction for Whitbread’s pubs, thwarted on that occasion by Osmond. Now a new opportunity has appeared — Scottish & Newcastle’s (S&N) £2.5 billion pub estate. “I have looked at the business and I may get involved,” says Johnson. “I talk to all sorts of people all the time — different lenders and equity providers.”
If a bid were successful, Johnson would put hot food on the menu of more S&N pubs. “Growth in food sales is driving growth across the whole pub industry — wet sales are flat,” he says. “But the pubs of the S&N estate are mainly drink-led.” He believes that while pubs may not be able to differentiate on the basis of the beer they sell, they can on the quality of their food. “A bottle of Becks is the same everywhere. But you can use different batter for your fish, for example.”
Johnson believes that more than half of the group’s 1,406 pubs could be serving food, compared with about 10% now.
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Converting these pubs also makes them friendlier to the trade’s most important new clientele. “A lot of our customers are women, and the masculine, dull atmosphere of traditional pubs alienates them,” he says.
But the 41-year-old entrepreneur is treading cautiously, having had his hopes dashed before. The economic slump has added to his unease. “The restaurant market in London is in great difficulty,” he says. “Just look at the local economy — media, finance and tourism. All three have had a very difficult two or three years. And I don’t just mean expense accounts. When one highly paid job in the City goes, it is the equivalent of three lower-paid jobs elsewhere.”
With restaurant bookings down a fifth on two years ago, Johnson believes the decline is now bottoming out. But restaurants are still feeling the pinch from higher rents on leases signed during the boom. “It is a real struggle,” he says.
Johnson is nonetheless optimistic and wants to increase the number of Strada resturants from 12 to between 50 and 100 within three years.
The formula for success is simple, he says. “More meals are ruined by bad service than anything else. When your steak is overcooked or they forget your side order, what is important is how they deal with it.”
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Johnson prefers the Tube to taxis, which he says “cost a fortune”, but such modesty hides a hunger for the limelight. “I was part of the Thatcher generation when it was suddenly no longer shameful to say that you were interested in making money,” he says. “But for me it is not about the toys. It is about being successful and making something happen.”