Cardiff-based chef Lee Skeet is riding high on the success of his brand new seafood and wine bar Jackson's when we catch up just days after its grand opening and a few weeks before his newly-located Cora is introduced to the world once again.
"It was good," he tells me of Jackson's opening. "We couldn't have had any more customers than we did. Because we've been working on it for a few weeks doing all the building, sometimes we thought 'oh, what if no-one comes'." But he couldn't have been more wrong. He explains how the bar was brimming with people all day and that was simply through personal posts on his social media and word of mouth.
"We didn't invite anyone. Nothing was for free or [we didn't have] PR or anything. It was just customers coming in! It was really busy and no-one had ever worked here before... it went well!"
If you're not familiar with the Cardiff food scene, Devon-born Lee Skeet is renowned in the area for his food and is the owner and founder of Cora, a 12-cover restaurant that had been based in Pontcanna for the last year before relocating to the city centre site, set to open on Thursday, April 27. For more what's on stories, sign up for our newsletter here.
It began as a supper club concept during the Covid-19 lockdown from his own flat in Cardiff Bay - known as Bones Supperclub - although his culinary journey began long ago. He learnt under some of the greatest chefs in the UK like Gordon Ramsay, Marcus Wareing and Tom Aikens and was head chef at Hedone before hosting his first pop up in Cardiff 10 years ago. That was before a hit-and-run accident in 2017 left him traumatised and uninspired to cook for a number of years - read more on Lee's backstory here.
But now, years after rekindling his love for cooking with Bones and Cora, he has opened up a second venture: Jackson's, which he tells me came from a desire to do something the "opposite" of fine dining - ie Cora's forte.
Jackson's and the new Cora are both located in Duke Street Arcade and upon seeing and falling in love with the space, Lee explains he wanted something that could add to Cora, but not be an extension of it. Two separate entities under the same roof and ownership of Lee and his new wife Helen.
"The building [we have now] is up two floors, which is what we had in Pontanna [Cora's first home], but we didn't have a ground floor. It was someone else's. So it was an opportunity to do both floors and hopefully double the business, [and make] double the money hopefully.
"I've had in the back of my mind, I've always been in fine dining and always wanted to be very clear on what I want for Cora - only 10 covers, only a tasting menu and only me cooking. But then I wanted something else as well that was the opposite, basically. That's what we wanted to do. The opposite of upstairs.
"No bookings - it's a bar. We want people to come in and drink and have whatever they want to eat. And if they don't want to, don't. Just enjoy themselves and relax. Doing the opposite thing on two floors in the same building."
As well as this concept, Lee wanted a bar that tapped into one of his first foodie loves: seafood - something he explains he'd seldom seen as a main event in the city centre over the years (aside from The Heathcocks' oyster bar and Nighthawks' oyster plates, of course.)
Telling me where his love of the sea came from, he says: "I'm from Devon. I've always been by the beach and literally the first thing I remember eating in my life is mackerel that I've caught. My parents live on a boat and my granddad was a sailor. I've always just been around the sea. When I moved away to London and when I was training and it was all fine dining and Michelin-starred places, I found that what set me apart was that I had knowledge of seafood from just being on boats.
"I love eating meat, it's not an intentional 'I'm only going to cook seafood'.. we are going to serve meat upstairs and downstairs, but it's just I've gone more towards that [seafood for Jackson's]."
With Jackson's up and running - and successfully so - Lee wasted no time in cracking on with his next project in the speckles of time he had between shifts at the bar: Cora's relocation to the space occupying the upstairs floor of Jackson's and its renovation - most of which Lee has done himself.
"It's going to be the same concept," Lee explains. "The only main change will be a slight reduction in covers to just 10 [from 12]. I'm trying to cook for as few people as I possibly can, as well as I possibly can." He explains that, as a result of this, he will be the only chef of the restaurant, like at the previous location. He adds: "There's never been anything ever served at the restaurant - and never will be - that I didn't cook. I'd rather be criticised for something I cook than praised for something someone else does."
Alongside covers, their opening hours have changed. Rather than Monday to Thursday nights and Friday lunch, Cora will only open Tuesday to Friday lunch with "a couple of evenings here and there".
He continues: "With Cora, I have never worked weekends. It's just me doing it. I spend my weekends with my children. So it's really important to me to set out from the start that we're not opening on weekends. Everyone said it was going to flop but we've been fully booked for the year so it did work! But now I'm trying to push my luck a little bit," he laughs. "We'll see how we go. If I can stay fully booked, I really want to just do four services a week. Whatever services they are. If I can do that, that's all I want to do. I don't want to make more money or serve more people or work more because I'm working at Jackson's [as well]. I don't want to miss stuff."
This 'stuff' is time spent with his young children. He says: "I don't want to be in work on a Saturday and my kids are up home and me miss out on spending time with them because they're five and eight. I'm never gonna be upset that I wasn't working but it'll probably upset me that I won't be able to go to the park with my son."
Both establishments are named after Lee's children, with Jackson's taking his son's name. But how does the original Jackson feel about it?
"My son's been playing it cool. I already knew what I was going to call it, but I was asking them for ideas and my daughter said 'Call it Jackson's' and my son wasn't expecting it. And then we came in while we were doing the building work, me and him - there's a bar next door to us that does video games so we went in there and had a boys' night. I brought him into restaurant and [told him] and he was just well chuffed." He chuckles: "He told my daughter and she was spitting feathers!"
He adds: "They're quite proud" as he recalls the time they were preparing to move from Pontcanna to the city centre and in their home they hosted a New Year's Eve supper party for ten people who had put into a Crowdfunder Lee had set up to help Cora get on its feet in the beginning. He remembers how his two little ones were lending a helping hand, serving up courses with an apron with their name sprawled across it. It's just really nice to see how proud they were because they'd never been into work when I'm working."
Lee explains while his daughter, who is five, also loves to cook - she can make ravioli (with Lee overseeing, of course) - his son has already taken on his role at Jackson's pretty seriously: he deems himself manager and flaunts it with a name badge and all.
"Every time me and my partner are speaking about like the wine or 'we need to do this on the rota' or something, he hears me and he's like 'Oh, what's that? You need to run that past me'."
Soon, it seems Lee will be needing to add a third venture to his roster as earlier in the year he revealed that him and Helen - who he married just days before the re-opening of Cora and who co-owns and helps out with the running of Jackson's and Cora when she's not doing her day job of being a solicitor - are expecting a baby.
"That's our summer project," he laughs with excitement. Announcing the news on social media, he wrote: "Get ready world for another skeet baby in September."
Last year, Lee was at the forefront of a media frenzy after he gave the entire bill - worth £1000 - to a server who was treated "like crap" by a wealthy group of diners. It came after the chef called out of party on social media accusing them of "inappropriate behaviour" in an email he'd sent to the head of the party. Read more on that here.
Speaking of doing this, he tells me: "It was a bit of a tricky situation. I think it's easy for people to ignore stuff like that. But I felt like, I know it's just dumb people being idiots, but Lily, who worked for me at the time, was only young. About 20 or 21 and she told me [what happened], she was upset about it. I didn't know anything about it at all while it was [going on] and after they left, she was crying. And when she told me, I was like 'it's my responsibility'. A lot of people would... it's easy to not take responsibility.
"I have to do the right thing, so I didn't really have any choice. I sat and chatted with Lily for a bit, made sure she was okay, she went home, and I was really p***ed off. I emailed the company straight away. I don't know why, it was stupid, but I shared it on Twitter. It just struck a nerve with people," he adds before saying: "For them to come in and disrespect someone I cared about, who I'm responsible for, I thought someone's got to say something."
Although, the attention it brought, he tells me, had a toll on his and his staff's mental health, with him saying it was "the worst attention". But he adds: "It was worth it because the people got what they think they deserved."
As a boss, valuing his staff is of utmost importance to him. He adds: "I learned a lot of difficult lessons during my first year at Cora that hopefully, now we've opened Jackson's, I can go easier on myself and make it good for the staff. We have really, really good staff here and we just want everyone to feel supported. I want them to feel respected and supported."
He adds: "I just want them to know if a staff member needs back up, they know I'll always be the first one defending them or supporting them. I think it's really important to me that I show that."
When Lee isn't slaving away in the kitchen of Cora whipping up the best food he can or behind the bar at Jackson's, he tells me his "top [foodie] spots" are Curado and New York Deli as well as what his hobby and side hustle is: music promotion and hip hop music.
"I put on a lot of gigs before I started cooking again [in lockdown]. I'm very into my hip hop. I only did two shows last year, but I get into music a bit when I get the chance. I never get on the stage or anything, I just sell the tickets. Hopefully I'll get a few shows on."
But in the meantime, Lee will have his hands full with the reopening of his flagship, Cora, which will no doubt continue in the same success as it's first year. Cora opens on Thursday, April 27 at 3-7 Duke Street Arcade.
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