Leading chefs and restaurant owners have warned the hospitality industry is at breaking point as businesses struggle with rising costs, mounting taxes and falling customer spending.
Tom Kerridge, Yotam Ottolenghi, Ravneet Gill and Simon Rogan have called on the government to slash VAT for pubs, cafes and restaurants from 20% to 10%, saying the sector is fighting to stay afloat.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight, the chefs said many businesses across the country were no longer making a profit and warned closures could continue unless action is taken.
Simon Rogan said restaurants were “just keeping our heads above water”, while Tom Kerridge accused the government of getting business taxation “very, very wrong”.
Hospitality businesses have faced years of pressure following the Covid pandemic, soaring energy bills and the wider cost of living crisis, with many customers cutting back on eating out.
Industry body UK Hospitality says three hospitality businesses have closed every day since the start of 2026.
The group has repeatedly argued the UK’s VAT rate for hospitality is among the highest in Europe. Countries including France, Spain and Italy apply rates closer to 10%.
Kerridge said restaurants and pubs were also struggling with higher employer National Insurance contributions, rising business rates and increased staffing costs.
“We’ve reached the point where businesses can’t keep putting prices up because customers simply stop coming,” he said.
Pastry chef Ravneet Gill said running a restaurant had become far harder than she expected, especially because of the cost of employing staff.
The chefs insisted they supported higher wages for workers but said reducing VAT would give businesses room to survive, invest and continue employing people.
Gill said hospitality businesses were vital for local communities and jobs, particularly for younger workers entering employment for the first time.
The warning comes amid growing concern over youth unemployment, with more than one million young people currently not in education, employment or training across the UK.
Yotam Ottolenghi said the loss of restaurants, cafes and pubs would damage communities socially as well as economically.
“The risk is we become a society where people sit at home looking at screens and stop interacting with each other,” he said.
A government spokesperson said ministers recognised the pressures facing businesses but had to balance calls for tax cuts against wider spending demands.
Main Image: Tom Kerridge in Conversation, The British Library. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
