5. Starting Off
How did I start in this business? I was fifteen, I was poor, and I wanted a bike!
So I got a job as a chef's donkey in Anglesey, North Wales, which is where my family had moved to from the Wirral. The restaurant was in a three-star hotel.
Scampi, fillet steak, sole meunière – this food was all new, all exciting. It's cringe worthy now, but back then I didn't know what these things were. I'd never eaten out in a restaurant as a kid. It was unheard of. A packet of crisps in the back of the car was the scenario – we never actually went into any of these places.
Things are much better now, and if I had children I would definitely, definitely bring them up dining in restaurants. It opens the palate – and opens the mind to so much more.
Hopefully, they wouldn't have tunnel vision for MacDonalds and eating chips. I'd be gutted if a child of mine turned out like that. I can hear it now: “Oh dad, how can you eat this rubbish? You never take us anywhere nice!”
And I'd growl, "Shut up and eat your foie gras!"
Anyway – back in Anglesey – I got my bike. The work just seemed to click with me, and I was rapidly getting more responsibility in the kitchen. So there I was, plodding along, when a programme came on TV called Take Six Chefs.
It turned my world upside down. I watched it in awe. I was absolutely gobsmacked at what these people did with food!
Suddenly, I realised I wasn't even scratching the surface of what was out there. The world of fine dining was where I wanted to be. So I asked my father to take me to a Michelin-starred restaurant for my eighteenth birthday.
He did, and I was hooked. Once the addiction kicks in, it's a one-way street: the more you experience, the more your palate is opened up, the higher your expectations become, and the higher your standards rise.