Chef Judy Joo envisages ‘five to seven’ Seoul Bird sites in London before exploring taking the brand to other cities in the UK.

Joo, who currently operates two Seoul Bird restaurants in London, told The Times, ”We created this concept with the idea to take it and franchise it and with the idea that there is an exit behind it.

“This is not Michelin star cooking; it is £13 a head. It is something that we need to be able to teach other people to do in order to get it to scale, make it a global brand and to then, eventually, sell it.”

Meanwhile, she is in talks with hospitality companies such as Levys and North Delaware, who operate food brands at stadiums and other venues in the US and UK, about adopting the brand at more of their sites.

The brand last year launched licensed sites at the Barclays arena in New York, home to the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, and in the food hall of an MGM hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

“There is a bit of a grey area between licensing and franchising in my mind. We are not selling [product] to these operators.

”I feel you become a full franchise when you sell them the sauces and everything and they are not making too much on site. [In their case] they do their own marketing and are in charge of their own pricing but it is our uniforms, our branding, our signage.

“The arena game also spills into the airport game, so we are looking at airports. Operating in airports is between 30 and 35 per cent more expensive than operating on a high street so you have to bring in an operator who is seasoned there and that has multiple units in the airport already. So if somebody calls in sick they have the infrastructure in place [to cover for gaps].”

Joo said that rising food and energy prices in the UK in the last year and stiff competition for prime sites had slowed Seoul Bird’s expansion.

“When you are a restaurateur you are in the real estate business as your rent is going to determine whether you are going to make money,” Joo said.

“So it is about finding the right landlord who has your interests aligned. I can’t be with a landlord who, when [something like] the energy crisis happens, just hits you and hits you. We are a small independent brand so it is finding the right partnership with a landlord who wants to help us grow.”