For a man who doesn’t smoke, David Loewi has an inordinate quantity of ashtrays adorning his vast, minimalist office in a converted clove factory in deepest SE1.

“One from each of our 12 restaurants” he says proudly, touching each carefully-crafted oval or oblong reverently, stroking them almost, arranging them in a neat row with a drawing-board precision that would shame any of the designers at Conran Restaurants’ associated companies. Loewi is virulently against the concept of non-smoking restaurants. “The government shouldn’t attempt to restrict the freedom of people to smoke and the freedom for us to allow them to on our premises. We have a state-of-the-art extract system in Mezzo - so why should we be told we can’t allow our customers to smoke.”

Loewi, the engaging 39 year-old skiing, gardening, piano-playing Managing Director of the Conran posh-nosh empire, is a committed hotelier and caterer. His varied career began at the Savoy Hotel at the age of 20 as a concierge, continued through a role as assistant purser on P & O cruise liners, then to Claridges as a receptionist, to Food and Beverage Manager at the Hyatt Carlton Tower in sloaney SW3. In May 1995 he fetched up at the Conran Group to open the 700-cover Mezzo in London’s Wardour Street as general manager.

It took no more than a year or so for his potential to be recognised. Appointed the group’s Development Director in 1996, his next promotion was to Operations Director for Conran Restaurants when Joel Kissin, one of Terence Conran’s original partners, moved to set up the group’s U.S. operation. In August this year, Loewi, by then Deputy MD, was appointed Managing Director.

He talks fondly, in considered soundbites, of his rapidly-expanding dominion: “We’re not a group, definitely not a chain” he says firmly when I innocently use the words, “we’re a collection of individual restaurants run as separate businesses.” A moment later “It may sound arrogant, but it’s a part of London” he says of Quaglino’s, the 400-seat homage to swank and polish, which opened in upmarket St. James’s in 1993. “It brought life back to the King’s Road” he hails Bluebird, the Chelsea gastrodrome.

The quietly active head office houses just 25 people. “In previous jobs I’d just picked up the ‘phone and called on central services like personnel, purchasing, marketing. But when I joined Mezzo, I did it myself. I recruited, I marketed and that is now what I want our general managers to do.” This would appear to give their managers total freedom? “Up to a point” says Loewi; “if a manager wanted to paint a wall mauve, that wouldn’t be allowed - we are very design-led! But the managers will tell you they’re very empowered - we’re decentralising as much as we can.”

Terence Conran, Loewi’s guru and the doyen of modern, cutting-edge catering and design, discovered what Loewi calls his “passion and vision for food” in 1953. His first job, as a plongeur -washer-up - in a Paris restaurant, resulted in a return to London to spend his fairly liquid assets on setting up the Soup Kitchen - a café serving soup, French bread and espresso coffee - “He brought the first espresso machine to London” Loewi says proudly.

Four decades later, Conran, Loewi and Chief Executive Des Gunewardena can gaze out from their headquarters building overlooking Tower Bridge at The Blue Print Cafe, Cantina del Ponte, Butlers Wharf Chop House and Le Pont de la Tour (known to many as “un bras et une jambe”, for reasons Loewi would furiously deny), which are all close by. As well as these and the aforementioned Quaglino’s, Bluebird and Mezzo, there’s the friendly, unpretentious Zinc Bar and Grill off Regent Street; the Coq D’Argent rooftop restaurant for City oiks; the legendary Bibendum in Fulham Road; two frighteningly up-market salles intimes - Orrery in Marylebone and Sartoria in Savile Row; Alcazar in Paris, opened this month, of which more later; and a raft of catering operations in Conran stores as spread as Melbourne, Hamburg and Tokyo. Upcoming projects include a gastrodrome on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and restaurants, bars and cafés in the Great Eastern Hotel in the City of London.

Conran’s culinary ardour, his vision, often means late nights for Loewi, as he and his boss sketch designs for food on tablecloths, discuss presentation with their chefs or scour the latest food magazines for creative inspiration. “Food, service and attention to detail are the three things we take very seriously” Loewi says.

The ability to take the occasional brickbat with the bouquets is a necessary attribute of any boss and Loewi barely even swallows when I mention criticism from some quarters aimed in particular at Mezzo and Quaglino’s. Too noisy, they say - you can’t hear yourself think. Too busy. Too bright, too garish. “Some people love Mezzo, the music, the party atmosphere, the whole ambience” he says; “and others don’t. It’s about what you like. Mezzo’s electric - er, not to take away from the food and the service...” he quickly adds! “And at Quag’s, walking down that staircase, you feel like a million dollars. But I suppose some people wouldn’t like that experience.”

Loewi gives equally short shrift to the findings of a survey in the Time Out Eating and Drinking Guide, published by the respected London entertainment and listings magazine. One in 20 Londoners surveyed thought Conran restaurants overrated, with Mezzo the least likeable of all. The scrap of paper on which I have scribbled this information is snatched from my hand by a grinning Loewi. “Why do people always have to knock success?” he enquires; “You know, we think sometimes that, when the press have a go at the restaurants, they’re actually having a go at Terence. In the guides that we really respect, our restaurants have actually maintained their position or moved up slightly.”

And while we’re on the subject of criticism, I say, what about pricing? Why are your restaurants so damn expensive? “Nonsense” he says. “At the Zinc café, you can have coffee and a baguette. Or you can go to Le Pont de la Tour. And everything in between, in every price-range.“

Loewi is careful to constantly run checks on his competitors’ pricing policies and claims they are never out of kilter with the norm. “We offer exceptional value at lunchtimes, for example. At Zinc, you can get a three-course lunch for £12; we do £10 lunches too. January and August are quiet months so, if Harrods and other stores are allowed to have a sale twice a year, why can’t we?” This interesting spin on the theory of retail brings in, Loewi claims, a raft of new customers, as well as being a way of thanking existing ones. “But we have to be careful - we wouldn’t do it in Le Pont de la Tour, Orrery or Sartoria. Customers there don’t want cheap meals, they want client recognition, a welcome and good service.”

Loewi pinpoints a focus on the customer as his mission over the next twelve months, with the devising of means of thanking existing customers for their loyalty as a priority - keeping regular diners informed of special events and offering priority table-booking facilities are two of his plans. A Sales and Marketing Director joins the group in the new year from L’Oreal, with a brief to make this number one focus, along with looking at the exploitation of the individual restaurant brands.

Group development and growth ranks highly on Loewi’s to-do list. Plans for the Great Eastern Hotel are well advanced with an autumn 1999 opening scheduled for this joint venture with Patriot Hotels. With a general manager from London’s modish Metropolitan Hotel and the Conran Group operating the complex’s seven separate restaurants, the hotel promises to set a new benchmark for urban chic.

The opening of Alcazar in Paris, in the building that previously housed the eponymous transvestite bar, is the group’s first step abroad. The 200-cover restaurant, bar and private dining room, with its three-Michelin-starred French chef and French general manager, is described by Loewi as “a small, intimate Quaglino’s” and will provide a base from which to look further afield in continental Europe and elsewhere for countries suitable to benefit from Conran’s particular brand of culinary magic.

An expansion of the Zinc brand is on the cards for the UK and Loewi cites the group’s opportunistic approach to development and the speed of internal decision-making as paramount. He mentions a hotel company which once took seven years from having identified a site to actual opening. “There’s so much bureaucracy in the hotel business” he says; “it stifles ideas. That’s why so many ex-hotel general managers and food & beverage managers have joined us. But the perception used to be that there was much more opportunity for career development in hotels. You start as a general manager, you could go on to be Vice-President of Europe, but if you join a restaurant as a general manager, where can you go from there? That was true until the restaurant group came along, now there’s real opportunity.”

Our discussion progresses naturally towards Loewi’s other main objective - to develop the group’s staff. “This industry is far more respected than it used to be. I remember when I first joined the business, all my friends were doctors or accountants - I was a receptionist at Claridges!” he recalls with a wry grin. “But I loved it - I was in showbusiness!”

He sees recruiting the right staff, training and developing them as a crucial factor in assuring the group’s future and the group is anxious for staff to move up through the ranks, following his example and that of the general manager of Orrery, a former waiter. Loewi says. “We have to have the right general managers in the company who know our customers, understand their expectations and can exceed them!” Standards are carefully monitored by the group’s UDP - Unannounced Dining Programme - where Conran management and staff who are not known to specific restaurants dine there, pay as a normal customer and then report back.

Loewi is quick to answer a question on who or what he sees as his inspiration - no prizes to readers for predicting the answer! “Terence. I’ve learned an incredible amount from him. It’s his attention to detail, his vision…” When pressed for what inspires him a little further from home, Loewi is quick to mention Rome, where he delights in seeking out back-street trattorias with “wonderful friendly service, wonderful serious food, wonderful wine list, all in unpretentious surroundings”, along with hotels owned by his former employers Hyatt in Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The industry faces a series of challenges, Loewi believes, which must be addressed - the identification and development of the right staff, sustaining profitability in the face of increasing competition and maintaining quality standards as the consumer demands more and more styles and numbers of restaurants. “London is now renowned as the eating-out capital of Europe - probably the world. We have helped to achieve that and it’s quite an accolade, when you realise that, ten years ago, restaurants were ruining good raw material by constantly overcooking vegetables! And the quality of those raw materials is now better than ever.” Conran chefs often devise their menus based on a ‘phone-call telling them the best raw produce available that day - organic knotted carrots being a current favourite.

Survival of the fittest and the demise of the couldn’t-care-less high-street caterer is how Loewi sees the sharp-end industry future, with the natural benefits this will provide for the consumer. “There will still be room for the husband-and-wife country restaurant, but the standard has to be good - more and more people travel, more and more people are now educated in food and service expectations” he says. “We can never rest on our laurels. We are constantly reanalysing ourselves.”

When the hoary question of the perceived recession arises, Loewi firmly believes that, unlike a Bibendum steak, things are going to get tougher out there. “We are hoodwinking ourselves if we think it’s not going to happen. But people like me who worked through the last recession are prepared. The companies that plan for it will survive and there will be fall-out amongst those that are blinkered. In hotels, the upper end will find it easier to trade down, to charge lower rates, to cut costs. The cheaper places often have nowhere to go down to. But in restaurants, it’s different - those that offer value for money, pay attention to detail and keep their cost-base flexible, not fixed, will have an easier ride than the really expensive ones that have enormous overheads. Haut-cuisine restaurants can’t trade down.”

Government attitudes towards the hospitality and leisure industries are an area of interest for Loewi. Citing the working-time directive, he says “We as a company would not want to exploit our staff; we had no trouble implementing it because we were already doing it. And with so much competition out there, if you treat your staff badly they’d go anyway.”

“I also feel there’s a lot of quangoism in building legislation, certificates for this, certificates for that…for example, fire regulations. Obviously, it’s vital to have proper legislation for fire protection, but you’ll often have one fire officer saying one thing and another saying another. Reform is needed in this area.”

As we end, Loewi says “You know, I really enjoy this business. I love the business, absolutely love it, I really enjoy this business with a passion.”

A line used by every interviewee since time began but, with David Loewi, I really truly believe he does.

Ian Freeman is head of public relations at First Leisure Corporation PLC, yet, surprisingly, cannot afford to eat at Le Pont de la Tour.