Assistant Restaurant Manager

MARIAGE FRÈRES | Covent Garden, London | Full-Time

Founded in Paris in 1854, MARIAGE FRÈRES is one of the world’s most prestigious luxury tea houses, internationally recognised for its exceptional teas, French heritage and distinctive approach to tea gastronomy.

Our landmark Covent Garden flagship is the largest MARIAGE FRÈRES Tea Emporium in the world and home to the world’s largest tea wall, bringing together our Tea Boutique, Tea Room, Terrace and Private Dining within one unique destination.

As we continue the relaunch and development of our London Tea Room, we are looking for an experienced, energetic and highly hands-on Assistant Restaurant Manager to lead our Front of House operation.

Your Mission

We are looking for more than someone to manage shifts.

We want a hospitality leader who can build and develop a small team, create structure and consistency, and establish a genuine culture of exceptional service, positivity and enthusiasm.

You will be the principal Front of House leader during service: highly visible on the floor, leading by example, coaching your team and ensuring every guest receives a polished, warm and memorable MARIAGE FRÈRES experience.

Alongside service excellence, you will have a clear commercial objective: to help us increase footfall, covers, average spend, repeat business and revenue.

What You’ll Do

• Lead, motivate, train and develop a small Front of House team.
• Create clear service standards, structure, routines and accountability.
• Lead service from the floor and create a consistently flawless and personalised guest experience.
• Manage service flow, sections, table allocation and communication with the Kitchen.
• Take ownership of the restaurant reservation and table-management platform, maximising bookings, occupancy and covers.
• Develop the team’s product knowledge, guest engagement and professional recommendation skills.
• Drive commercial performance, including footfall, covers, average spend and revenue.
• Build guest loyalty and confidently manage feedback and service recovery.
• Maintain exceptional standards of presentation, organisation, cleanliness and professionalism.
• Support and develop Afternoon Tea, Private Dining, events and seasonal experiences.
• Bring ideas, energy and practical solutions to continuously improve the operation.

One Flagship, One Customer Experience

This role goes beyond the Tea Room.

You will work closely with the Retail Manager and Retail team to create a seamless, customer-centric experience throughout our Covent Garden flagship.

Our ambition is for guests to experience one MARIAGE FRÈRES journey across Retail and Hospitality — creating natural opportunities for Tea Boutique visitors to discover our Tea Room and Tea Room guests to explore our extraordinary tea collection.

Who We’re Looking For

You are an experienced hospitality professional who genuinely enjoys being on the floor, developing people and creating energy within a team.

You combine excellent service standards with commercial awareness and understand that exceptional hospitality should create loyal customers, recommendations and strong business performance.

You will have:

• Previous restaurant management, supervisory or senior Front of House experience within a quality restaurant, luxury hotel or premium hospitality environment.
• Fluent professional English – essential.
• Strong leadership, training and people-development skills.
• Excellent guest-relations and service-recovery skills.
• Commercial awareness and confidence working with restaurant KPIs and sales targets.
• Experience with restaurant reservation and table-management systems.
• A positive, proactive and solution-oriented management style.
• The flexibility and hands-on attitude required to lead a hospitality operation.

Particularly valued

• French language skills – a strong advantage.
• Training from an École Hôtelière, hotel school or recognised hospitality programme.
• Experience or training in French-style or classical restaurant service.
• Premium or luxury Afternoon Tea experience.
• Strong food and beverage knowledge.
• Wine, Champagne, bar and cocktail-making experience.
• Private Dining and events experience.
• Experience helping to relaunch, reposition or grow a hospitality operation.

Previous specialist tea knowledge is not required. Comprehensive MARIAGE FRÈRES tea, product and service training will be provided.

A Hospitality Role With a Difference

We know that working patterns matter.

This is a 40-hour, five-day position, requiring flexibility according to business needs, including weekends and Bank Holidays.

However, our current Tea Room operation is predominantly daytime and early evening, offering a particularly attractive working pattern and work-life balance compared with many traditional restaurant management roles.

What We Offer

• A key leadership position within an internationally recognised French luxury Maison.
• The opportunity to build, shape and develop our London Tea Room and its team.
• Genuine influence over service culture, guest experience and commercial growth.
• An attractive hospitality working pattern.
• Comprehensive tea, product and service training.
• Food and travel allowance.
• Private medical benefits following successful completion of probation, subject to eligibility.
• Company pension and employee discount.
• Uniform and professional dry cleaning.
• Employee benefits programme.
• 20 days’ annual leave plus 8 Bank Holidays.
• Training and development opportunities.

Join MARIAGE FRÈRES

We are looking for someone who can bring leadership, structure, positivity and enthusiasm to our Tea Room — someone who wants to build something, develop people and make a visible difference.

Our ambition is simple: exceptional service, a thriving Tea Room and guests who want to return and recommend MARIAGE FRÈRES to others.

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Discounted or free food
• Employee discount
• Store discount

Experience:

• Hospitality: 5 years (preferred)
• Restaurant: 5 years (preferred)
• Team management: 3 years (preferred)

Language:

• English (required)
• French (preferred)

Work authorisation:

• United Kingdom (required)

Work Location: In person