An­drea Perez-Sobers
Se­nior Re­porter
an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

In an econ­o­my where ris­ing costs are squeez­ing mar­gins and con­sumers are spend­ing more care­ful­ly, build­ing a high-end restau­rant is a cal­cu­lat­ed risk.  

For De­owatie Dharam Singh, it is one ground­ed in dis­ci­pline, de­tail, and a clear gap in the mar­ket. In a one-on-one in­ter­view with the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian, the co-own­er of The Ivy Steak­house and Seafood Restau­rant in Mar­aval laid out a strat­e­gy that blends pre­mi­um din­ing with tight fi­nan­cial con­trol and mea­sured growth.

Dharam Singh, co-own­er of The Ivy, did not en­ter the in­dus­try through the tra­di­tion­al route. Af­ter near­ly 30 years in ac­count­ing and fi­nance, she stepped in­to hos­pi­tal­i­ty look­ing for a shift, bring­ing with her a strong com­mand of cost struc­tures, pric­ing and op­er­a­tional over­sight. That back­ground now un­der­pins every de­ci­sion at The Ivy, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the busi­ness nav­i­gates an in­creas­ing­ly com­plex eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

“I need­ed a change, but I didn’t leave the dis­ci­pline be­hind. This busi­ness is very much about get­ting the num­bers right.”
The restau­rant opened its doors in May 2024, but de­lib­er­ate­ly stayed un­der the radar. There was no for­mal launch, no heavy mar­ket­ing push. In­stead, the fo­cus was on build­ing qui­et­ly, test­ing menus, re­fin­ing ser­vice, and sta­bil­is­ing op­er­a­tions through a con­trolled, word-of-mouth ap­proach.

“We want­ed to make sure every­thing was right be­fore putting our­selves out there.”
That strat­e­gy al­lowed the busi­ness to find its foot­ing with­out ex­ter­nal pres­sure. It al­so cre­at­ed a vis­i­bil­i­ty prob­lem that is now front and cen­tre.

A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the mar­ket sim­ply does not know the restau­rant ex­ists, Singh ad­mits, not­ing that even a neigh­bour of the restau­rant, which is lo­cat­ed at Rook­ery Nook in Mar­aval, was un­aware of its ex­is­tence in a space long as­so­ci­at­ed with its for­mer oc­cu­pant, Joseph’s.
Dharam Singh ac­knowl­edges that the ini­tial re­liance on so­cial me­dia did not de­liv­er the reach re­quired. The strat­e­gy has since shift­ed, with in­creased em­pha­sis on ra­dio and tra­di­tion­al me­dia to ex­pand aware­ness and po­si­tion The Ivy more firm­ly with­in the na­tion­al din­ing land­scape.
“A lot of peo­ple still don’t know we’re here, and that’s some­thing we have to fix.”

Qui­et start, vis­i­bil­i­ty push

The lo­ca­tion it­self is not the is­sue. Po­si­tioned near em­bassies, fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, and cor­po­rate of­fices, the restau­rant sits in a com­mer­cial­ly ad­van­ta­geous zone. At the same time, it of­fers a de­gree of sep­a­ra­tion from the sur­round­ing con­ges­tion and an en­vi­ron­ment that sup­ports the kind of ex­pe­ri­ence the brand is try­ing to de­liv­er.
“It’s close to every­thing, but when you’re here, it feels like you’ve stepped away from it.”
The shift now is from re­fine­ment to recog­ni­tion. Af­ter near­ly a year of op­er­at­ing qui­et­ly, the fo­cus has turned to build­ing a stronger pub­lic pres­ence and ex­pand­ing be­yond word-of-mouth growth.

Costs ris­ing, mar­gins tight­en­ing

While the prod­uct and po­si­tion­ing are clear, the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment is be­com­ing more chal­leng­ing.

In­put costs are ris­ing steadi­ly. Sup­pli­ers are in­creas­ing prices, in some cas­es in­cre­men­tal­ly and with­out ad­vance no­tice. An­oth­er round of in­creas­es is an­tic­i­pat­ed, con­tin­u­ing a trend that has been erod­ing mar­gins.

“My mar­gins are be­ing squeezed. It’s not one big in­crease, it’s con­stant.”

Rather than im­me­di­ate­ly pass­ing those costs on to cus­tomers, the re­sponse has been in­ter­nal. Dharam Singh has been fo­cused on tight­en­ing op­er­a­tions, re­view­ing process­es, re­duc­ing waste and en­sur­ing that every as­pect of the busi­ness is op­er­at­ing ef­fi­cient­ly.

This is where her fi­nan­cial back­ground be­comes crit­i­cal. Pric­ing is not ap­proached loose­ly. Over­heads are tracked close­ly. Mar­gins are mon­i­tored con­tin­u­ous­ly. The busi­ness is be­ing run with the kind of scruti­ny more com­mon­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions than restau­rants.

“You have to un­der­stand your num­bers. If you don’t, you won’t last.”

Sup­pli­er strat­e­gy has al­so evolved. The Ivy does not re­ly on a sin­gle source. Mul­ti­ple sup­pli­ers are used to mit­i­gate risk, par­tic­u­lar­ly in an en­vi­ron­ment where for­eign ex­change con­straints can dis­rupt avail­abil­i­ty.

At the same time, there is a de­lib­er­ate ef­fort to in­te­grate lo­cal sourc­ing wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. Fresh fish, pro­duce and cer­tain in­gre­di­ents are ob­tained lo­cal­ly, bal­anc­ing cost con­sid­er­a­tions with qual­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty. Im­port­ed prod­ucts re­main es­sen­tial for pre­mi­um of­fer­ings, par­tic­u­lar­ly high-grade beef and lamb, which are not avail­able do­mes­ti­cal­ly. The restau­rant’s prici­est menu item is its 16-ounce Japan­ese Wagyu rib­eye steak for $2,520. It serves two

Labour pre­sent­ed an­oth­er ear­ly chal­lenge. The ab­sence of a for­mal train­ing pipeline with­in the in­dus­try and high lev­els of staff move­ment made it dif­fi­cult, ini­tial­ly, to build a sta­ble team. The ap­proach has since shift­ed to­ward in­ter­nal de­vel­op­ment, build­ing and re­tain­ing a core group rather than re­ly­ing on an al­ready flu­id labour mar­ket.

The team now stands at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13 to 15 em­ploy­ees, with an em­pha­sis on con­sis­ten­cy and grad­ual growth.

On the de­mand side, the sig­nals are mixed.

There is still an ap­petite for high-qual­i­ty din­ing, but spend­ing pat­terns are shift­ing. One clear in­di­ca­tor has been the slow­down in bar sales, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing in­creas­es in al­co­hol prices. Dis­cre­tionary spend­ing in that area has tight­ened, re­flect­ing broad­er eco­nom­ic pres­sures.

At the same time, cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions re­main high. The fo­cus has been on main­tain­ing con­sis­ten­cy across food, ser­vice and am­biance three pil­lars Dharam Singh iden­ti­fies as crit­i­cal to long-term suc­cess.

Suc­cess, in this con­text, is de­fined prag­mat­i­cal­ly as a steady dai­ly cus­tomer flow and cus­tomers leav­ing sat­is­fied.
“A steady flow of cus­tomers and peo­ple leav­ing hap­py, that’s suc­cess for us.”

The broad­er eco­nom­ic cli­mate is forc­ing a lev­el of pre­ci­sion across the sec­tor. Busi­ness­es are be­ing pushed to op­er­ate more ef­fi­cient­ly, man­age costs more ag­gres­sive­ly, and de­liv­er clear­er val­ue to cus­tomers.

The Ivy is no ex­cep­tion.
The lo­ca­tion of­fers clear ad­van­tages, but aware­ness re­mains the miss­ing link. Bridg­ing that gap is now the pri­ma­ry fo­cus, en­sur­ing that the prod­uct, which has been re­fined over the past year, reach­es a wider au­di­ence.
“I want The Ivy to be a house­hold name,” Dharam Singh said.
There are no im­me­di­ate plans for ex­pan­sion be­yond the cur­rent space. The pri­or­i­ty is op­ti­mi­sa­tion, max­imis­ing util­i­sa­tion, strength­en­ing brand recog­ni­tion, and sta­bil­is­ing mar­gins be­fore con­sid­er­ing any next step.
The strat­e­gy is mea­sured, not ag­gres­sive.
Dharam Singh’s out­look re­flects that bal­ance. The foun­da­tion has been built through a con­trolled start, the prod­uct has been de­fined, and the op­er­a­tional mod­el is in place. The next phase is about vis­i­bil­i­ty and scale, en­sur­ing that the mar­ket recog­nis­es what has al­ready been de­vel­oped.
“We’ve built some­thing strong. Now it’s about mak­ing sure peo­ple know it’s here.”