North London Restaurant jobs in London

About Efrikan

Efrikan is a new East-African restaurant opening in Edgware in autumn 2026. Built around a live charcoal mangal grill and a generous sharing-plate format, it brings the warmth, colour and bold flavours of East-African cooking to North London. This is a ground-up opening - the chance to shape a new venue's service culture from day one.

The Role

The Restaurant Manager leads front-of-house operations and owns the guest experience across every service. Working alongside the General Manager and Head Chef, you will build and lead the floor team, set and hold service standards, and run a profitable, compliant, well-organised operation. In the run-up to opening you will play a central role in recruitment, training, supplier set-up and getting the room service-ready.

Key Responsibilities

• Service and guest experience

- Run daily FOH operations across lunch and dinner, leading from the floor during service

- Own the end-to-end guest journey, from booking and arrival through to departure and feedback

- Set, train and enforce service standards consistent with the Efrikan brand and sharing-plate format

- Handle guest feedback and complaints promptly, turning issues into repeat custom

• Team leadership

- Recruit, induct, train and develop the FOH team - supervisors, servers, hosts and bar staff

- Build rotas that balance service cover with labour-cost targets

- Lead pre-shift briefings, set daily priorities and maintain morale and retention

- Manage performance, conduct and ongoing coaching

• Commercial and financial

- Deliver revenue, average-spend and labour-cost targets against agreed budgets

- Drive average spend through the sharing-plate and drinks offer, upselling and menu knowledge

- Manage cash handling, tills, banking and end-of-day reconciliation

- Control FOH stock, beverage ordering and wastage; support GP targets on drinks

- Contribute to forecasting, reporting and weekly trading reviews

• Compliance and safety

- Ensure full compliance with food safety, health and safety, licensing and allergen law

- Maintain due-diligence records, temperature logs and cleaning schedules across FOH

- Uphold the 14-allergen information standard at point of order, in line with UK law

- Support premises licence obligations as a Personal Licence holder

• Pre-opening

- Support FOH recruitment and build the opening team

- Develop SOPs, service scripts, training materials and the opening-day plan

- Set up reservations, EPOS, suppliers and FOH systems

- Run mock service and soft-launch sessions ahead of the public opening

Experience and Skills

- Proven restaurant management experience in a quality, high-volume or premium-casual setting

- Strong floor leadership - confident, visible and calm under pressure during service

- Commercial literacy: comfortable with P&L lines, labour %, GP and average spend

- Track record of recruiting, training and retaining strong FOH teams

- Sound knowledge of food safety, allergen and licensing requirements

- Personal Licence holder (or willing to obtain); Level 2/3 Food Safety

- Confident with EPOS, reservations platforms and rota/labour software

Desirable

- Pre-opening or new-launch experience

- Knowledge of or genuine interest in East-African food and hospitality

- Wine, beer and cocktail knowledge to support the bar offer

- Familiarity with the North London independent restaurant market

What We Offer

- The chance to open and shape a distinctive new restaurant from the ground up

- Salary plus share of service charge

- Holiday, staff meals, training and progression

- A supportive, ambitious team and an owner-operator culture

This role is ideal for a dedicated professional passionate about delivering outstanding dining experiences while leading a cohesive team. Applicants should possess relevant hospitality or culinary experience alongside strong leadership qualities.

Pay: £30,420.00-£42,000.00 per year

Work Location: In person