WHO WE ARE

Laura Montana

Laura has been involved in hospitality for the past twenty-five years. Beginning with running her own café and progressing to opening and running iconic restaurants in London, New York and Los Angeles. Working shoulder to shoulder with some of the industries biggest names including Richard Caring, Graydon Carter, Skye Gyngell and Juan Santa Cruz.

Having opened, run and sold her successful café business in London, Laura decided to move into the top flight of restaurants. Choosing The Ivy, in London’s Soho in 2003, Laura quickly became part of the executive team and steered the business to greater financial heights than had been seen before. In 2008 Laura and Seb moved to New York and worked together to open the Monkey Bar for Graydon Carter. To say it was a hit was an understatement, the restaurant moved into profit within three months. Following this Laura and Seb moved to Los Angeles and opened the restaurants and events spaces in Soho House West Hollywood. The brief was to bring a higher level of service and hospitality than had been seen before in the group.

On their return to London Laura went to work with Richard Caring, who had kept a keen eye on her through the opening in LA and was keen for her to launch his first new restaurant, 34. This quickly became one of London’s landmark restaurants. Laura was involved in every aspect of the business from concept to delivery of the service, food and award-winning bar programme. After two years, and having become Operations Director for New Projects, Richard then asked Laura to help him develop the concept for his next restaurant, Sexy Fish. Laura travelled around the world researching the concept for a month and helped hire the opening chef. Another instant success within a handful of weeks it became one of the highest grossing restaurants in London. She then oversaw 34 and Sexy Fish whilst operationally troubleshooting his other hospitality businesses, including Scott’s and J. Sheekey. In 2017 Laura then partnered with Seb to found Montana Fogg.

Seb Fogg

Seb has over twenty years of hospitality experience working at every level in the industry. He has a huge scope of knowledge and insight from his first role at a neighbourhood family eatery to opening multi-million-pound restaurants in London, New York and Los Angeles for Corbin & King, Caprice Holdings, The Soho House Group, Graydon Carter, Juan Santa Cruz and Mark Hix.

Seb started at The Ivy, in London’s Soho in the 1990’s, forming a strong relationship with the owners Chris Corbin and Jeremy King. He went on to open St. Alban restaurant for them in 2007 and the eventual demise of that restaurant taught him as much as the previous decade had about success and failure.

In 2008 he and Luara moved to New York to develop and open the Monkey Bar for Graydon Carter. It proved an instant hit, frequented by the top echelons of New York society. Seb and Laura were then headhunted by Nick Jones, of Soho House Group, who asked them to open the restaurants in his soon to open, Soho House West Hollywood in Los Angeles. Together with Laura, Seb set the standards, hospitality and service that had been aspired to in the Soho House Group but were lacking previously. This set the club up for the success it is today.

He returned to London to continue working for Nick Jones and Richard Caring at Dean Street Town House and Scott’s. The intention was to open Langan’s Brasserie for Richard, alas the deal fell through. He then reunited with Corbin and King to open the Delaunay on Aldwych, the sister restaurant of the Wolseley. This was followed by working with Mark Hix and Ratnesh Bagdai to help solidify and grow the Hix restaurant group as their Operations Director. This proved to be successful partnership which saw profits grow and produced a successful sale to the conglomerate, WSH Group. In 2017 Seb partnered with Laura to found Montana Fogg.

Tom Fogg

Tom’s hospitality career began as the only doorman at Le Caprice, J. Sheekey and The Ivy concurrently. From there he immersed himself front of house in a number of landmark London restaurant openings including The Wolseley, Scott’s, Hix Oyster and Chop House and Alfred’s private member club.

After a 4-year teaching sabbatical, Tom returned to London to open the hugely successful and critically acclaimed 45 Jermyn Street. In 2015 Tom was asked to manage Kitty Fisher’s in Mayfair and subsequently opened their equally successful second restaurant, Cora Pearl in 2018.

Since joining Montana Fogg, Tom oversaw the opening and led our management contract at Art Yard Bar & Kitchen.

Most recently Tom oversaw the set up and opening of the Hotting Hill Coffee Project which launched midway through the CV19 lockdown.