Marta
OUR GOODMAN FAMILY
Meet Marta, our bar managers at Goodman restaurants
Marta is a bar manager at all three Goodman restaurants. Later this year, she’ll be celebrating her 13th anniversary with the company (“which is crazy!”), likes her cocktails simple, classic and strong (“an Old Fashioned, a Gibson Martini”) and is a self-confessed geek who owns a Star Trek uniform and admits to sobbing at the final episode of Picard.
Marta has a very good reason why she’s worked at Goodman for nearly 12 years. “It’s just too good,” she says, with a shrug.
“Seriously, unless you want to do something outside of hospitality, you don’t leave Goodman. That’s the reality. The people, the hours, we’re looked after. It’s not rocket science. That’s why many people have been here for years and years.”
Before Goodman, Marta was at Match Bar – “one of the best cocktail places in London” – for around six years. New ownership, however, saw her seeking a change. “A friend told me that there was a job at Goodman, so I applied… and it was a great decision.”
There is one downside of working at Goodman this long for Marta. “After 12 years of looking at big slices of meat being charred, I usually order fish,” she admits. “But I do order steak tartare to start. It’s very popular in Poland, and it’s very good here.”
When not at Goodman (or crying at Star Trek finales), Marta is a huge music fan. “My favourite band in the whole world is Pearl Jam. ‘Ten’ was the first record I bought. It was on tape and I played it so much I wore it out. “I did Latin at school and I spent lessons translating Pearl Jam lyrics from English to Polish! The more I like Pearl Jam the less I cared about Latin lessons…”
Credits
Interview by Neil Davey
Photography by Tom Bowles
