Suave and charming, immaculately coiffured and kitted out in a ferociously orange linen jacket, beige jeans and a white collarless shirt, Neville Abraham is no one’s idea of Sir Humphrey Appleby.

So it’s hard to believe that, for some 8 years, the Chairman and Chief Executive of restaurateurs par excellence Groupe Chez Gérard PLC was a career civil servant. His roles included terms as Private Secretary to the Minister of State at the Board of Trade and Senior Principal responsible for corporate, financial and political planning and spells as the strong right arm to such political luminaries as Tony Crosland, Douglas Jay and Lord Heath.

The drab 60s exterior of the company’s central London headquarters is in stark contrast to the cutting-edge sleekness of its restaurants and Abraham himself works in a room in which there would be very little chance of attracting the ire of the RSPCA for cat-swinging.

This Calcutta-born dining-room diva, imbued with a zest that belies his 62 years, is, in his own self-deprecating words, “a bit of a nomad, really. I’ve done a bit of this and a bit of that.” The bits, which others might refer to rather more accurately as a glittering and diverse career, include an honours degree from the London School of Economics, a traineeship at top advertising agency Young and Rubicam, 10 years as a successful management consultant, authoring the seminal tome “Big Business and Government: The New Disorder”, and founding, with marketing doyen Laurence Isaacson, what is today the country’s foremost quality restaurant group.

Abraham is in no doubt that his years pacing the corridors of power stood him in good stead. “In advertising” he reminisces, “it all seemed so very ephemeral. But when I was in government, I got very close to real business decisions, like when we were merging BEA and BOAC or negotiating a world-wide insurance policy for oil-spills. That sort of thing really sparked it all off – after all, I’m still in a service industry. But if you stay too long in the civil service, you become unemployable elsewhere.”

During Abrahams period as a business consultant, he set up a mail-order wine business, Les Amis Du Vin, which grew within 7 years from a hobby into a passion and a livelihood

A while earlier, he had read of a new, young advertising firm, The Creative Business, that was dynamic yet, to date, client-free. A meeting ensued and an enterprising Isaacson offered to market the wine business in exchange for a stakeholding - we all know what 10% of nothing is - but it turned out to be the best investment he ever made Abraham chuckles affectionately of his co-creator of Groupe Chez Gérard.

The wine business provided employment for many, but was not cash-generative. Abraham reminisces One day Laurence said What does a bottle of wine cost our customers? I said £2. How much would it cost in a restaurant? he asked. I said £4. Right he said, lets open a restaurant!

So, a former banana warehouse in Covent Garden (pronounced Cuvvent so correctly by the very proper Abraham) became Le Café Des Amis du Vin. The runaway success of the restaurant, plus the industry respect achieved by the wine company - which still wasnt making any money! Abraham confides - resulted in a sale three years later to the Kennedy Brooks group for a comfy £2.2m and seats around the boardroom dining-table for Abraham and Isaacson.

We were there for 18 months Abraham recalls and the last 9 months were spent trying to find a parachute! If youre telling shareholders you are restaurant operators thats what you should be, not property developers.

Les deux amis du vin left Kennedy Brooks in 1986 to form Groupe Chez Gérard, taking the loss-making Café Fish and Bertorellis with them in a mutually satisfactory deal. The gut-wrenching recession of 1991 aside, the boys never looked back. The group, by then running six restaurants, floated in 1994, as a result of both partners wanting to play on a larger stage.

GCG today has a total of 22 restaurants, employs 900 people, turns over some £27m a year and is, at the time of typing, worth over £52m. The company has three core restaurant brands - the eponymous Chez Gérard steak-frites operation, Livebait up-market fish restaurants and Richoux, the latterly acquired all-day cafés. Add to these a clutch of what Abraham appealingly calls “signature restaurants - Brasserie St. Quentin, Bertorelli’s, Café Fish, Scotts and Soho Soho - and you have the core of a business that Abraham predicts will grow organically to around 100 outlets.

The trouble with staying small is that your best people have nowhere to go Abraham says, but if you give them something to aim for, youre more likely to keep them. And owning the signatures, Abraham believes, gives the group added cachet when employing chefs and managers, enabling staff to adjust their careers to suit their individual skills. Some of the more brand-conscious city analysts had to eat their words when they checked the figures and discovered that these highly profitable outlets are much more than just a frippery.

A pet subject of Abrahams is recruitment and all that goes with it. He quotes Granada boss Charles Allens point that a recently advertised job in the companys media division at a salary of £11,000 attracted 14,000 graduate applicants, whereas a job in Granada hospitality carrying £14,500 a year only appealed to 300 people. We need to get up and shout Theres a future in the hospitality business!. says Abraham. We have to tell people that they can help us take this business there he says, jabbing his index finger towards the ceiling.

To help achieve this level of awareness, Abraham welcomes the minimum wage, disgusted as he is at some of the levels if pay in the industry. The lowest-paid employees at GCG are on £10,000 a year, so whilst not directly affected by the change in legislation, he is a firm fan.

He is also a believer in management and business training for new recruits, as well as teaching them how to carry plates and pour wine. They need to learn, too, how to get up and talk to 25 staff to bring about a change in culture or behaviour.

Interestingly, all GCG restaurants to date are in London, which is where Abraham intends to stay, for at least a year. London is the millennium city, with about £6bn being spent on events Abraham reasons; its a leading part of the economy, ahead in quality restaurants - its the place for a restaurateur to be. Plans are afoot to announce some new London sites in late June, but he is understandably coy on the subject of location. In the medium term, the company intends to take its leading brands, Chez Gérard, Livebait and Richoux, and possibly brand-in-waiting Bertorellis, to key cities outside the capital.

Abraham envisages over 50 Chez Gérards countrywide and slightly fewer Livebaits. I draw his attention to a comment he made in March this year stating that the Richoux chain was to be repositioned. It was an unfortunate choice of words he counters, as the company intends merely to update the chains offer in the same way as was done with the formerly upper-class male-orientated Chez Gérard. Richoux makes a lot of money, but weve seen an opportunity to add value to it. The new menu is much shorter and less fussy and will, he believes, attract a wider customer base.

The legendary competitiveness of his chosen industry is something Abraham sees as a positive. Any restaurant within a quarter of a mile is my competition he says, but I dont think we have any real direct competitors of a similar quality. There are some similar operations in the family market, but thats not where we are - we are for sinkies and dinkies, business people at lunchtime and theatre people in the evening.

To the uninformed, opera buff Abraham and the streetwise, down-to-earth Isaacson might seem, synergistically, aeons apart. But the relationship works because Laurence and I each have a deep respect for the others skills says Abraham. When it comes to image, marketing, PR, décor, design and ambience I may disagree with Laurence, but I will always defer to him - hes right nine-and-a-half times out of ten he says, grinning wryly. Likewise, on matters financial and concerned with people, internal communications, structure, systems, incentives and dealing with the city, Abraham takes the lead. The partners that fall out are the ones that stand on each others toes he says, and neither of us has ever married, so maybe also we put just that little bit more effort into work.

Solidity and dependability, qualities which all who know recognise GCG as having in spades, is, Abraham feels, a good base upon which to build. And with his attention to detail, his worship of the customer (he eschews mystery shoppers, on the basis that to me, everybody is one!) and his focus on the ethic of going out to dinner rather than going out to eat, he is an inspirational captain of the industry and one who has much ambition yet to be realised.

So, was I impressed? Why, yes minister!

Ian Freeman is Head of Public Relations at First Leisure. He first visited Chez Gérard in Charlotte Street in 1968, at the age of 5 and often lies about his age.

Neville Abraham sidebar

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens?

No. These are a few of my favourite things&

Restaurant Chez Bruce; Clarks; Ransom Dock (could someone please check this last one - Ive never heard of it!)

Opera Mozarts Don Giovanni

Play A Winters Tale with Anthony Sher

Musical Guys and Dolls; anything by Rogers and Hammerstein

Airline Was British Airways, but theyve slipped, so probably Singapore Airlines now.

TV show Cricket on Sky in the winter!

Piece of music Schumanns Carnival for Solo Piano

Holiday location France, followed by France, followed by France!