Simon Rowe, currently interim finance director at Gordon Ramsay Group, has joined the board of The Koh Group, the operator of the Koh Thai Tapas and Koh Noi concepts, M&C Report understands.
Rowe, who has also had stints at Be At One, Hakkasan and Busaba Eathai, joins the company as a non-executive director and will aid its expansion plans.
Koh Group is currently agreeing heads of terms on sites in Lymington and Salisbury and is in negotiations on a further four sites, M&C Report has learnt.
The group, led by Andy Lennox, is planning to open three to four sites each year for the next five years. Lennox said the group is “looking across the country from Cheltenham and all across the south.”
The group will also open more Koh Noi sites, its smaller tapas format, following the successful opening of the second restaurant in Christchurch, Dorset, in the summer.
Lennox said the group has changed its opening strategy away from opening one large, one medium and one small restaurant for every three new openings to focus on a two to one small to large restaurant ratio.
He said the recently opened Koh Noi is performing “fantastically well” and both it and Sandbanks, Poole, are “trading unbelievably well”.
