Fallow hires managing director amid plans to expand chicken concept Fowl

Fallow has recruited a new managing director as it considers expanding its beak-to-feet chicken concept Fowl into the QSR segment.

Julia Gilbert joins from Ivy Asia, where she was based for five years, having most recently been operations director for the brand.

She has known executive director and chairman of Fallow, James Robson, for the past two decades, having worked with him to launch Mews of Mayfair as a manager in 2014.

Gilbert will also be working closely with Paul Robinson-Webster, operations and projects director at Fallow, who has known Robson for equally as many years.

Fallow was founded by chefs Jack Croft and Will Murray, who were named runners-up at the Brixton Kitchen Competition in 2019 for the same concept.

Under Robson’s guidance, the pair grew Fallow into a restaurant residency in London’s Heddon Street before opening a permanent site in London’s St James’s in late 2021, which won them the Newcomer Award at the 2022 Cateys.

Over the past three years, Fallow has grown rapidly without any backing from private equity, having launched chicken restaurant Fowl in St James’s in September 2023 and Roe in London’s Canary Wharf earlier this year.

It now employs over 300 staff in total across its sites, with expectations for Roe to double its existing staff count of 120.

Robson told The Caterer: “Ultimately Julia’s here to make the most out of those three sites as we grow. Where we go next is the exciting part, but at the moment we want to solidify what we’ve got.

“Like with Paul [who I had met] at 190 Queen’s Gate, I genuinely wanted to get one or both of them at Fallow since we set it up. It’s more coming home than anything else, and we’re growing to a point where three shareholders/operators physically can’t keep control of it all. It’s its own machine now, and we’re curious to see where it goes.”

Robson added the team are currently experimenting with Fowl, with aims to solidify what began as a pop-up serving the likes of chicken liver parfait, black cherries and sourdough soldiers into a “QSR brand/chicken restaurant brand”.

“It’s round the corner from Fallow, not in a high traffic area, so that’s clearly one of the areas we could expand,” he said.

He also hinted at Fallow’s future plans, commenting: “We’ve just started chatting with Selfridges but it’s very early days, and we’re also talking about a site in Kensington and Chelsea. We’re always on the look-out, but this is all two, three, four years away.”

Robson had posted on LinkedIn this morning: “Landlords we are looking for signature sites 6,000 to 15,000 sq ft and a smaller QSR high foot fall site for our Fowl concept.”

Earlier this month, Fallow also received B Corp certification for its commitment to social and environmental sustainability.  

Image: Steven Joyce