Ali Solak

Ali Solak has spent over 20 years building, running, and fixing food and beverage businesses — from fast-casual chains to fine-dining concepts, across five countries and more than 250 outlets.

He started in kitchens. Before founding anything, he worked through the ranks of hospitality operations — managing teams, negotiating supplier contracts, controlling food costs, and handling the operational reality that most consultants and software founders have never experienced first-hand.

His career highlights include building 11 London stores for Simit Sarayi (one of Turkey's fastest-growing F&B exports), launching 8 premium dining concepts for one of Saudi Arabia's largest hospitality and retail groups, and founding two of his own brands in London: the Guaca Restaurant Group (3 sites) and 39 Steps Coffee.

In 2024, he founded Epicurean Digital Consultants — a consultancy that bridges the gap between traditional F&B operations expertise and modern digital strategy. The consultancy works with restaurants, cafés, and hospitality groups across the UK and internationally.

In 2025, he began building MenuMargin — restaurant menu audit and profitability software for UK hospitality. It starts with an audit of the menu a venue already has, and adds recipe costing, GP tracking and menu engineering once the operator supplies their own costs and sales.

Ali also created HospitalityCV, an AI-assisted CV platform for hospitality professionals.

Ali writes about menu engineering, food cost management, restaurant technology, and the operational realities of running a food business. His content is grounded in first-hand experience — he has managed the P&L, hired the teams, costed the menus, and survived the Friday night services that most food-tech founders only read about.