Founder, operator, and long-term thinker. Building businesses and assets designed to outlast the effort it took to create them.
There's a version of the hospitality story that ends in a head chef role at somewhere well-regarded, a reputation built over decades, a life spent in other people's dining rooms. I could see that version clearly from the inside. I chose a different one.
It started collecting glasses in a Manchester nightclub. That led to running some of the city's best bars, then a move to Melbourne where I worked for Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck Group and immersed myself in a wine and restaurant scene that changed how I thought about both. It shifted my palate and my ambitions in equal measure.
In 2019 I founded Top Cuvée. What started as a neighbourhood restaurant became something more deliberate when COVID hit. Rather than wait it out, I pivoted hard into retail and e-commerce, building an omni-channel wine brand from the wreckage of the hospitality industry. That decision defined the shape of the business: hospitality, retail, e-commerce, and wholesale running simultaneously, anchored by a proprietary product range that now drives the majority of revenue and delivers margins that are unusual in an industry not known for them.
The result is a seven-figure business stocked nationally, from Selfridges to independents across the country, delivering direct to customers from Cornwall to Aberdeen, with brand partnerships spanning Google, Nike, New Balance, Ganni, and Oatly, among others. Built without outside capital, and deliberately structured so the business doesn't depend on me to function. That was always the goal.
Getting the business to that point gave me something back: time and headspace to lean into the thing I've always been drawn to, which is learning and building from scratch. Property is the next chapter, and deliberately so. The skills that built Top Cuvée — operational rigour, systems thinking, the ability to spot where the real value sits in any given industry — translate. And property is an industry that rewards the long game in a way I find genuinely compelling.
The goal isn't just capital. It's passing on the knowledge and capability to run systems to my kids. Every decision gets measured against that.
Top Cuvée is the wine brand I founded in 2019 with a simple brief: make wine less intimidating and a lot more interesting.
It grew from a single neighbourhood restaurant into a national omni-channel brand with its own product range, a loyal direct customer base, and a wholesale operation supplying independents and institutions across the UK.
topcuvee.com →Property isn't a pivot. It's where the logic of the last decade points.
I've spent years on the operator side of the table, understanding how value is created and where it actually sits in an industry. That same rigour is now being applied to building a UK property portfolio — identifying the right deals, structuring them properly, and delivering consistent returns for the people who back them.
I'm interested in hearing from property investors, operators, and anyone with a deal, an introduction, or a perspective worth sharing. Less interested in pitches.
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