At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Restaurants space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Anton Soulier
Founder & CEO of Taster
Anton Soulier is the Founder of Taster. He is a former Business Development, Business Operations Manager, Regional Manager, and Deputy General Manager France at Deliveroo. Mr. Soulier received a master’s degree in Finance at NEOMA Business School.
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About Taster: Taster is a food delivery company that operates dozens of restaurants that only exist on food delivery platforms.
Pieter-Bas Jacobse
Chief Executive Officer of Rhubarb
P.B. has over 20 years’ experience in the food and beverage industry and is a respected figure in the community. After completing a Bachelor Degree of Business Administration at Maastricht Hotel Management School in the Netherlands, P.B. left for the US where he completed the Hospitality Summer Program at Cornell University. Upon graduation P.B. worked at the world-renowned Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York for 5 years. In 2005 P.B. was appointed as the first Managing Director and board member of rhubarb. In his tenure at rhubarb P.B. has been instrumental in developing and implementing rhubarb’s business strategy, driving the portfolio development from a single channel events business to a multi-channel business incorporating events and locations, significantly increasing the group’s revenue. As CEO, P.B. has an unwavering commitment to driving the company vision.
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About Rhubarb: Rhubarb is a food company that creates and delivers culinary services.
Kelu Liu
Founder & CEO of HungryPanda
Kelu Liu is the Founder & CEO at HungryPanda.
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About HungryPanda: HungryPanda is a Chinese food and grocery delivery company with extensive market coverage.
David Abrahamovitch
Founder & CEO of Grind
The first of the Grinds, Shoreditch Grind was born when David turned a stand-alone perfectly circular building perched on the edge of Old Street Roundabout, into an Espresso Bar. A UCL Economics graduate, David has extensive business experience in previous roles.
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About Grind: Founded in Shoreditch in 2011, Grind & Co. has since opened espresso bars, cocktail bars, restaurants and recording studios across London.
Peter Georgiou
Founder and CEO of Supper
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About Supper: Delivering London exceptional food.
Mohammad Khodadadi
Founder / CEO of SATIS.AI
Mohammad Khodadadi is a Director/Chief of data, Technologist, Entrepreneur. Mo is an accomplished technologist and entrepreneur with over 15 years of industry experience that includes building and managing large teams, designing complex AI oriented data architectures, and leading high-growth intelligence-driven businesses. His interests include applying artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts to health and biotech and developing cognitive ecosystems capable of contextual deduction from data for actionable suggestions. Prior to joining Babylon, he founded and ran um.ai, a food advisor that tracks/suggest what you eat. He was also CTO at Klappo, a semantic platform for food ingredients, enabling the development of applications that help people to make educated choices about what they consume. He completed his PhD in Computer Science, speciality in formal methods, and his MSC in Bioinformatic at The University of Manchester. He is also one of the first of 100 tech exceptional talent visa holders in the UK and the winner of sirius enterprenurship competition by UK Trade and Investment ministry.
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About SATIS.AI: Food that makes sense | Delicious, Nutritious and affordable, while green and fair
Alessandro Savelli
Founder, MD and CEO of Pasta Evangelists
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About Pasta Evangelists: Pasta Evangelists is freshly made by Italian hands every day.
Gary Goodman
Founder & CEO of Yumpingo
Gary Goodman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Yumpingo.
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About Yumpingo: Yumpingo is an internet company that specializes in customer engagement and analytics platforms designed for the Hospitality Industry.
Igor Svehla
Co Founder & CEO of Trakbar
Igor Svehla is the Founder at Trakbar .
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About Project 3 Mobility, Trakbar: Smart business intelligence and predictions for bars & restaurants
Jeremy Hibbert-Garibaldi
Founder & CEO of Collectiv Food
Founder and CEO at Collectiv Food .
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About Collectiv Food: Collectiv Food is an automated and sustainable food supply chain that provides businesses with transparency and lower costs of ingredients
Jean Michel Petit
Co-founder and CEO of VizEat
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About EatWith, VizEat: VizEat is a European startup that operates a “social dining platform.
Rich Martell
Co-founder & CEO of orderswift
Richard Lewis Martell, also known as “Rich Martell” or “Dicky M” (born 10 February 1989) is an Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Floxx Media Group and being the creator of FitFinder. According to sources, Martell started his first internet business, when he was only 15 years old to provide income throughout his education at Bedford School and later University College London. Whilst at University Martell worked in the Technology divisions of a number of investment firms including Goldman Sachs. Martell launched FitFinder on Friday, 23 April 2010 at 9am; within 6 hours of the site being up it had to be pulled down due to such high demand and abuse. He said the site was intended “just for a few of us to communicate on throughout the day, however word got out at UCL, and after 2 days of it being online, the UCL one alone had over 25,000 unique users.” He was quoted later describing his surprise at the popularity of it as it was ‘only a joke’. In May 2010, Martell was given the maximum fine by his university for ‘bringing the university into disrepute’. Martell refused to remove the site; however, on May 28, 2010, the website was removed and replaced with a holding page and message signed off by Dicky M citing ‘increased pressure’ from universities to remove the site. He vowed to bring back a new improved FitFinder for the next academic year. On 3 January 2011, Martell launched his new business, Floxx. The initial concept of Floxx was based around a mobile app which was similar to FitFinder but with a few subtle differences. It was reported that Martell had initially raised funding from Dragons Den investor, Doug Richard and US super angel Kevin Wall. In July 2011, Martell announced that Floxx was going to focus on developing ideas that were specifically for use on mobile platforms, especially location based social networks. A few months later, the app MapChat was launched reaching a top 10 ranking in the app store. In October, Martell launched Spottd – a location based social network allowing users to share and discover posts around them. In early 2012, Martell announced that Floxx would be expanding and launching a digital media agency business as part of the company, thereby drawing from his team’s experience with mobile apps, product design and highly scalable websites.
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About Buckmore Park Karting, orderswift: orderswift is a desktop and mobile application that enables restaurants to manage their online orders.
Dennis Collet
Co-Founder & Co-Chief Executive Officer of Orderella
Dennis Collet is the CEO and co-founder of Orderella. He is also the COO of Kaiser Advisory ltd. He earned his master’s degree at Copenhagen Business School and his bachelor’s degree at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
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About Orderella: Orderella is the leading mobile ordering and payment platform for the hospitality industry available in the UK.
Mark Lilley
CEO of Abokado
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About Abokado: Abokado owns and operates a chain of food bars and restaurants in the United Kingdom.
Tom Weaver
CEO of Flypay
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About Flypay: Flypay is an app platform to transform the restaurant experience.
Mark Derry
CEO of Brasserie Bar Co
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About Brasserie Bar Co: Brasserie Bar Co operates within the premium casual drinking and dining market in the U.K.
Mark Derry
CEO of Brasserie Bar Co
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About Brasserie Bar Co: Brasserie Bar Co operates within the premium casual drinking and dining market in the U.K.
Prithvi Dhanda
Founder, CEO of Sentiment Search
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About Sentiment Search: The next generation of review insights for restaurants.
Ben Portsmouth
Co Founder and CEO of Andromeda POS
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About Andromeda POS: POS , Digital Ordering and Cloud Services for Delivery Restauarants
Dave Thompson
Founder & CEO of Magictab
Dave Thompson is Founder & CEO at Magictab.
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About Magictab: MagicTab is a visual, interactive tabletop menu that makes food look beautiful.
Martin Williams
Founder and CEO of M Restaurants
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About M Restaurants: M Threadneedle Street; our award winning, multifaceted venue, houses two restaurants: Grill & Raw.
Carlos Butler Almécija
Co-founder & CEO of ORDR
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About ORDR: Online in-restaurant food ordering, queueing and reservation, and takeaway ordering software.