Top British chefs warn restaurants are fighting for survival as closures hit three-a-day

Tom Kerridge, Ravneet Gill, Simon Rogan and Yotam Ottolenghi say VAT, staffing costs, business rates and tax rises are pushing hospitality businesses to breaking point

Some of Britain’s best-known chefs have warned that restaurants, pubs and cafes are fighting for survival as hospitality businesses close at a rate of three a day.

Tom Kerridge, Ravneet Gill, Simon Rogan and Yotam Ottolenghi said the industry was being squeezed by VAT, staffing costs, business rates, National Insurance rises and weaker consumer spending.

Industry body UK Hospitality says three hospitality businesses have gone under every day since the start of 2026.

The warning comes amid growing concern over the impact of restaurant and pub closures on high streets, town centres and job opportunities for young people.

VAT is charged at 20 per cent on UK hospitality businesses, making the rate the second highest in Europe behind Denmark, according to UK Hospitality.

The trade body has repeatedly called for the rate to be cut closer to levels in Germany, Ireland, France, Italy and Spain, where hospitality VAT is lower.

Kerridge, who runs five restaurants and pubs, said the sector had reached a “peak point” where further price rises could no longer simply be passed on to customers.

He told BBC Newsnight there were “so many different factors” driving up costs and eroding margins, including government policy decisions such as higher employer National Insurance, business rates and the minimum wage.

And he warned that pushing prices up further “just doesn’t work because it will stop people coming out.”

Ravneet Gill, the pastry chef and author who opened her first restaurant a year ago, said she “never imagined it would be this tough”, particularly because of the cost of employing people.

Rogan, who has nine Michelin stars across his restaurant group in the UK, Malta and Hong Kong, said VAT was “a killer”.

Kerridge and the other chefs said they supported the rise in the minimum wage, but argued that cutting VAT from 20 per cent to 10 per cent for hospitality would “allow operators to breathe” and reinvest.

He said the issue was “survival” rather than using a VAT cut to offer cheaper prices to customers.

Gill said: “Don’t look at us as having profit is a dirty thing.

“We’re not going on fancy yachts and driving expensive cars. We are doing it so we can regenerate our areas that we’re in, employ more people.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves last week announced a VAT cut from 20 per cent to 5 per cent on some attractions over the summer holidays, including children’s meals in restaurants and cafes.

Gill criticised the move as a “very poor attempt at trying to offer something to hospitality and quite frankly it will lead to loopholes, fraud, misuse and no genuine good”.

The pressure on hospitality is also being linked to shrinking opportunities for young workers.

Restaurants, cafes and pubs are often the first employers for many young people, with the sector employing 28 per cent of all 18 to 20-year-olds, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

A report by former Labour minister Alan Milburn warned that the UK was “at risk of a lost generation” as job opportunities for young people shrink.

Official figures show more than one million young people are not in education, employment or training, the highest level in more than 12 years.

The government has said it is creating 300,000 work experience and training placements in sectors including construction, health and social care and hospitality.

Treasury minister Torsten Bell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that employment rates among 18 to 25-year-olds were “exactly the same as when we took office in 2024”, but admitted higher taxes were affecting hospitality businesses.

Allen Simpson, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said the answer was to reduce the cost of employment.

He said: “The government needs to make it economically beneficial to employ young people once again.”

Rogan said that when “restaurants are under pressure”, investment in young people and sustainability are “the first two things that fall by the wayside.”

Ottolenghi said the closures raised a wider social question about what communities lose when restaurants disappear.

He said: “The risk for me is if those go… we’re just going to kind of become a society where people sit around at home, look at screens and never interact with each other.

“We end up as an industry taking so much of the burden and government lays on more taxes. Those could come down quite easily for us because we employ all these young people and we give them skills.”

The chefs’ warning follows the pandemic-era Eat Out to Help Out scheme and previous VAT relief, which gave the industry a temporary boost but did not remove the long-term pressure on costs.

READ MORE: Ivy and Annabel’s owner agrees £1.4bn sale of hospitality empire to Abu Dhabi-backed buyer. ‘King of Mayfair’ Richard Caring’s majority stake in the business behind The Ivy, Annabel’s and a string of London restaurants and clubs is being sold in a deal that includes a planned £1bn investment.

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_{Main image: Composite image illustrating calls by leading hospitality figures for VAT on restaurants, pubs and cafes to be cut from 20 per cent to 10 per cent, as closures put jobs and businesses under pressure. Artwork: Belters News. Credits: Tom Kerridge image by The British Library, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Yotam Ottolenghi image by Keiko Oikawa, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Ravneet Gill image: Amazon; closed sign image by Tim Mossholder, via Pexels.}