Anton Edelmann

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a chef. Inspired by a dish of pidgin in red wine sauce which he ate at the age of eighteen in a Munich hotel, he embarked on a career which, just over twenty years later, has brought him to the top of his profession. He now presides over one of London's great kitchens. He has a staff of more than a hundred, and taste buds which he says are as highly developed as a musician's ear.

Presenter0:53

Honoured by his peers and applauded by gourmets everywhere, he is the maitre chef des cuisine of the Savoy Hotel, Anton Edelman.

Presenter1:01

So tell me about the pigeon in red wine sauce, Anton, that changed your life. Give me a flavour of it first.

Anton Edelmann1:07

The first thing which I found so astonishing about the pigeon was its tenderness.

Anton Edelmann1:11

It was beautifully cooked. It was just pink, nice and pink. The depth of the red wine, they must have used a very good clarit, I think, to get a sauce like that. Although I always say even to this day, it is not the ideal sauce for pitchin. But then at the age of eighteen I thought it was absolutely great.

Presenter1:26

And can you taste it still?

Anton Edelmann1:28

I can still taste it, you see. I cannot remember faces, but I can always recall a taste something.

Presenter1:32

Now where did you eat it exactly in me?

Anton Edelmann1:34

I had uh the Four Seasons in Munich, which was uh in those days one of the great restaurants in in the country. And my uncle, who was my sort of professional mentor, I suppose, in the early days, he took me there because I just had passed my examination for apprenticeship.

Presenter1:48

Tell me about these taste buds that have such total recall. Uh do you think you're born with good taste buds? Ov obviously they become sophisticated with experience, but do you think you're born with them? Is it a gift?

Anton Edelmann1:59

It is a gift in the first instance, but and then I think I sometimes think it's like with a car, you see, if you only have a Drifner Mini, of course it's very, very hard to imagine what a Royal Royce would feel like. And I think it's the same with taste bads. I think the more you eat or very often the more wine you drink, I mean I I would imagine great wine connoisseurs will have the the same kind of recollection as well. But I mean I haven't got it in wine, I must tell you that I probably don't drink enough of it. But you get to know these things.

Presenter2:25

But is it is it like perfect pitch in a musician? Do you know before you taste something how it ought to taste?

Anton Edelmann2:32

Yes.

Anton Edelmann2:33

I know what I look for and taste.

Presenter2:35

So you'll sit on your desert island and you'll conjure up through these wonderful taste buds of yours all the wonderful meals you've ever had.

Anton Edelmann2:42

I I sometimes do that now, you know.

Presenter2:43

Oh, you know

Presenter2:46

And you play some music. What's the first record you play?

Anton Edelmann2:48

Uh the first one is the Pizzikata Polka from Strauss, and I think it reminds me of home, it reminds me of my upbringing. Uh you heard it on on Bay and Dry, which was a local radio station, and I felt it was just perhaps the right music to start off with.

Presenter4:03

Part of Strauss's Pizzicato polka, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Villy Boskovsky. Your kitchens at the Savoy Anton Edelman serve some two or three hundred lunches a day and even more dinners in the river room and the various banqueting suites. It sounds more like a a military operation than a creative process. I mean i is there a danger that that fine detail is sacrificed to order and efficiency?

Anton Edelmann4:26

I think that danger is always there. I think that danger is probably there in a small restaurant as much as in a larger kitchen. I think it depends very much there on the motivation of staff, how you motivate your staff, what kind of rapport you have got with them.

Presenter4:39

But in a small kitchen, in a small restaurant, I mean, a a top chef who runs a small restaurant can stand in the past, can't he, and and actually see everything that goes by, if not stick his finger in it and taste it. You can't do that.

Anton Edelmann4:49

You've got to

Anton Edelmann4:50

Well, I stick I wouldn't like to say I stick my finger in most uh sources which code, but I've I think I've got my finger in many pies, so to speak. I think it depends very much on on your personal involvement and how deep you are in it.

Presenter5:02

So how involved do you get during the course of a day?

Anton Edelmann5:04

Well, I think I'm nearly drowning most days. Or I'd like to think I'm nearly drowning. You see the the the most amazing thing I have found in my career is that I mean I've trained to be a chef all my life, but I've never trained to be an administrator. So when I then got the job at the Savoy I all of a sudden realized that I had to administrate as well. And obviously administration is quite important. I mean there's money to be made or money to be lost more often than not.

Presenter5:29

You've got to be a good housekeeper, you mean, and you see there's little waste.

Anton Edelmann5:31

Precisely. But I must say to this day I hate the whole of the administration. I think I've got good enough or nice enough managers who have recognized that and they helped me a lot with management and or with administration and they gave me tools for administration and I think I've got some very good people who back me up there.

Presenter5:50

So you can leave other people to write out the shopping lists, as it were, and order the stuff from from the butcher, from the wholesaler. So you and you can go off and taste the sauce perigudine or whatever.

Anton Edelmann5:54

Precisely.

Anton Edelmann5:56

And he'll say that.

Anton Edelmann6:00

Oh, do they c do do the making of this old paragodine?

Presenter6:03

How much cooking do you do?

Anton Edelmann6:04

I cook every day from about half past eleven till to two thirty and every day from seven till about ten at night.

Presenter6:10

But you've got these hundred chefs who are there to do that.

Anton Edelmann6:13

Well, you've got a hundred chefs, you see, but your hundred chefs are only as good as you make them. They're very young, they're very keen, they're very ambitious, but they look for leadership. And you want to encourage the competition amongst them.

Presenter6:24

So, do you say to them right today, I am going to make the source whatever it is? I'll let them know we have a.

Anton Edelmann6:29

I'll let them know. We have a meeting in the morning, which is what, uh, quarter to nine, where we discuss what goes on, because we have obviously have quite a few things going on every day. Uh and a lot of the detail of the food is discussed and also who does what. And then it sort of is shelled out who does what, and obviously there's something left for me.

Presenter6:46

Record number two.

Anton Edelmann6:47

Uh the second one is uh the marriage of Figaro. That goes back to my mother actually who was a great lover of that uh piece of music and and we heard it a lot in our family.

Presenter7:57

Part of the overture to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini.

Presenter8:04

What then are your gastronomic roots, Anton? Did did food play an important part in the family home?

Anton Edelmann8:10

I think food was quite an important part, almost more a ritual part in in in our family. It was uh something like going to church on Sundays. It was every morning you sat down for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was very much a sort of traditional family where my father sat in the head of the table and he had the first helping and then it went sort of to mum and older brothers, sisters. And then you ended up as the youngest one, you ended up to have the what was left over, which was always too much anyway.

Presenter8:33

But what sort of food was a good strong Germanic?

Anton Edelmann8:35

Yes, uh it was bourgeois food, I suppose, really. My mother was a fairly good cook, although I would say her repertoire wasn't wasn't great, but it was a regional repertoire.

Speaker 18:43

No.

Presenter8:45

Such as, I mean, what would it include?

Anton Edelmann8:46

I mean, what would it include? There was a lot of veal, uh a lot of pasta. Where we come from we eat a lot of pasta, a lot of dumplings of course. Uh because we come from near the Austrian border, there was a lot of the Austrian influence there in the desserts, which I must say I always liked, you see. I mean, I don't think there's anything like a Salzburg knuckle. We know you can have it on the menu at the Savoy.

Presenter8:52

Hmm.

Anton Edelmann9:04

Uh

Presenter9:05

A good knerdle.

Presenter9:10

And does that sort of thing influence your repertoire now in some ways? Do you think, or do you dismiss it as being really a bit basic and a bit crude? No.

Anton Edelmann9:18

No, I wouldn't say it's basic or crude. Of course it's it's it's peasant food, it it's very regional food, it it's grown out out in that region, but I think you can't dismiss it, because what was there was the taste.

Anton Edelmann9:29

And you see they cannot go away from that. I mean, what is food all about? Food is not about lobster or caviar or or all these expensive things of foie gras, which of course is is great and and they are good things and we need them, I think, and there's a place for them. But I think good food is what you eat every day at home or or in a little cafe or in a little pistre. I think that's what food is all about.

Presenter9:49

If it's well cooked and it's tasty.

Anton Edelmann9:51

That's right. You see, as I very often think uh we have some of the greatest restaurants in this country, but we haven't got a strong base. Whilst these countries out there like Germany, southern Germany at least, uh Switzerland, Austria, Italy. I mean, when you talk about Italian food nowadays, it is very much in vogue. I mean, it comes all out of the roots, out of the base. It's none of these white truffles from Alba all the time.

Presenter10:12

Why do you think we don't have that base? Why don't we have wonderful pub food and wonderful little cafes that you can suddenly come across and think, My goodness, I've never tasted anything as delicious as that?

Anton Edelmann10:22

Very few families cooked like for instance my mother did at home. They don't have that ritual, they don't have that sort of I mean, my father used to be very small minded about this food. I mean if it wasn't the way he expected it, then uh life wasn't worth uh living in that family. So there was a huge importance attached to it all and and the ritual, and I think it is not existing, it doesn't exist here somehow.

Presenter10:43

But you said earlier on that it was your uncle who was your real mentor.

Anton Edelmann10:47

Uncle was a great man, you see. He he had a little well I suppose it wasn't a hotel, it was a guest house, it was a small restaurant with a few rooms above, and that was it in over Amergaon. And I think the first time I went there when I was about twelve or thereabouts, and I worked I mean I didn't start in the kitchen, I worked everywhere, I did I did everything actually. But I was drawn to the kitchen because of the hectic and hustle and bustle and I think the chef who worked there, whose name was George or Georg, and he was a very nice man, and somehow I suppose that made an impression on me. And I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. And when the time came to say, you know, what what you gonna do? I thought, well, I like what what George did, that was all right with me and I liked the sort of atmosphere of it all.

Presenter11:28

And what did your father say when you said you wanted to be a chef?

Anton Edelmann11:31

Well, dad had always different ideas for his children than than his children had themselves. I mean, he wanted me to go into a bank, and I couldn't see myself in a sort of dry and dusty bank for the rest of my life. Uh I don't think my mother could see me in there either. I think she she seemed to understand me quite well in my arguments and she supported me. And the kids were obviously all on my side. I mean that we all were against my father most of the time anyway, so that came quite natural.

Presenter11:57

And what do your parents think of you now, now you're a top international chef?

Anton Edelmann12:01

I think the one who is most pleased about is my father, probably.

Presenter12:04

Quite proud.

Anton Edelmann12:05

I think probably that's what it is, yeah.

Presenter12:07

All music.

Anton Edelmann12:09

The third one is uh there's a German song which is called Allegutter Dingensen Drei and it's sung by Reinhardt Mai, who is probably one of the funnier uh songwriters, if there is one in Germany, funnier songwriters in Germany. And it's about uh his three children he has got and he had two before and this third one somehow just tipped the balance. And Sue, my wife and I, very often feel like that as well because we've got three.

Speaker 212:31

And heinous codes and tale vonnie, the family of the world, and the family of the world.

Speaker 212:54

De Greinen is den Mundforder by the way.

Presenter13:02

Allagutta dingers in Drei, sung by Reinhardt Mai. There's a a touch of fairy tale, really, to the story of your rise to the top of the profession, because you began at the very bottom in the kitchens that you now rule. You you came over, I think, to this country in nineteen seventy?

Anton Edelmann13:19

Seventy-one yet.

Presenter13:19

seventy one and became a comie chef at the Savoy.

Anton Edelmann13:23

That's right.

Presenter13:23

That's twenty-one years ago.

Anton Edelmann13:25

Absolutely.

Presenter13:25

What does a commie chef do? Is that the lowest of the level?

Anton Edelmann13:27

What do you do

Presenter13:30

What do you do, wash up?

Anton Edelmann13:31

Uh, no it's not quite as bad as that, but you do a lot of uh turning of potatoes, turning of vegetables, peeling things and running out basically after other people. If somebody tells you to do something, off you hop and you do it as quickly as possible.

Presenter13:43

And then you became a commi socier.

Anton Edelmann13:45

That's correct. That was probably the first promotion I experienced in my little life. You see, I started on the on the roast where you did all these little menial things. And uh somehow Tom Petto must have thought the boy has talent or whatever, although I mean you wouldn't have guessed by his attitude. I mean, he didn't let his feelings come through at all.

Presenter14:03

This was the great trumpeto at this point.

Anton Edelmann14:04

Indeed, yes. Uh and move me on to this host, which I enjoyed tremendously.

Presenter14:08

That that was quite a promotion to go on to sauces. I mean, you can make or break the meal.

Anton Edelmann14:12

That's right, yes.

Presenter14:14

But it's th this hierarchy of the of the kitchen. I mean, you were then a a garde manger, what's that?

Anton Edelmann14:20

You run the cold kitchen, anything to do with cold or d cold hors d'oeuvres, cold salads, anything like that, and there's obviously also the preparation of fish and meat.

Presenter14:27

But does that take as much talent as being the head of source?

Anton Edelmann14:31

Yes, I think it does actually. I mean, uh a a good uh patio of goose liver I think takes a lot of care and a lot of expertise and uh a lot of love almost, you know, to get that right.

Presenter14:41

And it's not until much later on that you become the you you said you deal with cold fish there, but to become the Poissonier Chaux, the hotfish merchant. That's right.

Anton Edelmann14:49

Well I think I I think I always had a love for fish, probably because I was was born in a sort of a country or place where where there was hardly any apart from freshwater fish of course. And I can remember when I came to England the first time around in'7, I was amazed by the fish here and the quality of the fish. I mean of course I had seen a turbo, but usually uh it was either frozen or it was a bit old. You see and of course I had seen uh sea bass, but it was exactly like the turbo. And here I mean there was still the freshness it was unique and I think it's still unique. I mean that's what makes England a good place to cook fish in I think.

Presenter15:18

Yeah.

Presenter15:26

Tell me about then the the the master chef trumpeter at the Savoy. What what was he like to work for? Very difficult?

Anton Edelmann15:31

Any chef in those days by the virtue of his job had to be a difficult man.

Anton Edelmann15:37

even if he wasn't at home or or in private. And I think uh Trompetzo was precisely that. He was a king in his castle and and there was nobody and nobody there either to say and and and do anything which he didn't approve of or didn't like.

Presenter15:52

How did you get into trouble with him?

Anton Edelmann15:54

Oh God, very little uh was needed to get into trouble with Mr. Rompeto. I remember one time I forgot to put the potatoes onto a tornado and it was a very, very busy lunchtime. I can remember it to this day. It was hugely busy and everybody was running around and everybody was going like mad. And he just picked on me because of that and and he lectured me for an hour. And it was all during lunchtime. I mean the the mistake happened b when lunch started and and he stopped when lunch was over.

Anton Edelmann16:22

But I never had it stuck in my mind all the time. And of course he had a great quality, I I must say that, which I always envied him for and I hope I somehow learned it. He had a good eye for detail and he remembered what he said last week in in the months before. And I think that showed a lot of sharpness on his part because he wasn't a young man then anymore either.

Presenter16:43

Next record.

Anton Edelmann16:44

Uh the number four record I've chosen is The Charleston played by the Savoy Havana band and the Savoy Orphans. And uh I always remember that because at the end of the evening when the caparet started we used to go round the door and to look at the stars up on the stage. And when the caparet was over they usually

Anton Edelmann17:02

I used to start playing these songs, and the children always stuck in my mind.

Presenter18:07

The Savoy Orpheans and the Savoy Havana Band playing the Charleston and Memories of Cabarets every night at the Savoy of the Seventies.

Presenter18:15

After that first year there, when you were about twenty, you went to work in Switzerland under the chef Emile Perrin. How did that experience differ from that first year under Trompetto?

Anton Edelmann18:25

Monsieur Perrault was a completely different man. I mean he was a man who I would imagine did very little with a cool head. He did everything with with emotion and and and feeling. I mean he was everything a chef I thought then should be. He was warm, he was very human, he was terribly enthusiastic at seventy two about his business. Um he was a great cook and chef. I mean he wasn't just a chef, and he was a cook, you see, and I think that's about the greatest compliment you can pay a man.

Presenter18:46

Yeah.

Presenter18:53

But you've said since then um that if you still had to cook at that age, at the age of seventy two, and I quote something would be wrong. What do you mean by that?

Anton Edelmann19:02

Well, you see, if you still have to you see, Monsieur Perron did it out of choice. And his wife used to ring every morning at ten o'clock and say, Is he all right? and then you said, Yeah, yes, he's doing very well, thank you very much, you see. Um I think it would be wrong, that something perhaps been quite wrong in my life, that if if I still had to do it, because it is a ter it's a terribly, terribly hard job. You see, cooking is made up of three things, I think. First of all, draining. Secondly, it is creativity. Um and obviously they're they're

Anton Edelmann19:33

Some people who are hugely creative and others who are not and some people like myself who are sometimes creative and then for weeks they don't get anything like that. So it's a bit like, you know, f finding a truffle by a pig or something like that. And the third and the third thing about cooking, and I think that must not be underestimated, and I think that's probably fifty percent of it, is determination, application and and ambition.

Presenter19:54

Hmm.

Anton Edelmann19:54

And I think that mustn't be forgotten. It's probably in every other job like that as well.

Presenter19:58

And you're in your kitchen. I mean, you must have determination and application, because you're in your kitchen six days a week, from eight in the morning until eleven at night. Sunday's your day off.

Anton Edelmann20:07

Mm.

Presenter20:07

Do you cook at home on a Sunday?

Anton Edelmann20:09

I always cook sandy lunch, yes.

Presenter20:10

Do you?

Anton Edelmann20:11

Well, Sue, I don't think Sue wants to cook for her children anymore. She she's been cooking for her children for six days and I think she's looking forward to the off and I quite like it because I think it's very relaxing. You have a glass of wine, there's some friends round, you usually have somebody round for lunch.

Presenter20:24

Are you teaching your daughters to cook?

Anton Edelmann20:25

Well, um our older one, I mean the other two are still too young. Uh our older one, she's very good at at helping so far. And what I like about her understanding was you see we've taken them to restaurants from the word go even when they were little babies. And she now at the age of twelve she can choose a very well balanced menu.

Presenter20:41

Let's have some more music.

Anton Edelmann20:43

Here we have Don Williams, which uh I think is a song which I enjoyed very much with my wife together, who actually bought me uh the piece and it reminds me of her sometimes.

Speaker 220:53

What are you missing?

Anton Edelmann20:55

Dreaming of kissing you.

Anton Edelmann20:58

Then wake it up.

Anton Edelmann21:02

I've been spending my nights

Anton Edelmann21:05

Counting the days till I'll be holding you time.

Anton Edelmann21:11

And we're getting back together tonight.

Anton Edelmann21:16

Yeah, we're getting back together tonight.

Presenter21:21

Don Williams and Getting Back Together Tonight.

Presenter21:24

You came back to this country, Anton Edelman, in nineteen seventy six to work under Anton Mosserman at the Dorchester. There was quite a revolution going on in cooking by then, wasn't there, in nouvelle cuisine and everything that came with it.

Anton Edelmann21:35

Yeah.

Anton Edelmann21:37

These were very exciting days, I think. There seemed to be no sort of limits either way, up, down or sideways. It was very exciting, it was all very new. And I think it it uh brought in the days where a chef could stamp his personality on onto a restaurant or onto a place.

Presenter21:55

But what was the essence of that revolution?

Anton Edelmann21:57

The essence, I think the underlying essence was that uh a chef was given could give his imagination free rein. And I think that was the first time it was accepted by the sort of management of restaurants and hotels, uh by customers. Before that it was all very sort of um set in their ways, you know, like I mean like Mr. Rompetofins cooked his classical cuisine and his predecessor cooked like that. And of course he could little make little changes and then bring new things in. But it was all very limited.

Presenter22:24

And it was fairly heavy, wasn't it? I mean, it was sort of brandy and cream and thermidor and

Anton Edelmann22:27

Cream thermal

Anton Edelmann22:29

And all of a sudden the chef could do really do what he wanted and the sauces changed and the dishes changed and the fact that things didn't arrive on a big silver anymore, they came on plates, you see, and that then cancelled out these heavy sauces'cause these sauces then they didn't only taste uh not right anymore, they they did they didn't look right any more either. So the whole thing uh developed from there.

Presenter22:47

The presentation became enormously important all of a sudden in

Anton Edelmann22:50

Yes, it did. I think when you look back now and you you think about it, of course there there was a lot wrong with Noval Cuisine as well, but I would I would still say to this day that it it it gave cooking the sort of kick up the bottom it needed after so many hundreds of years.

Presenter23:06

So you worked under Mozzermann for four years at the Dorchester, and then you were offered your first top job as head chef just up the road at the Grosvenor House. What was the first menu you prepared? Can you remember?

Anton Edelmann23:18

Oh, the first one I I can remember an awful lot from those. I mean I remember one of my favourite dishes on w was monk fish, which was studded with uh peppers in a saffron sauce. Uh one of the starters which I I still like to this day was uh frog's legs and uh rising sauce in and puff pastry, which was gorgeous, I thought. And one of the other starters was a softly boiled quail egg rubbed in foie gras pate and and then in spinach leaves. Terribly, terribly complicated, beautiful presentation and and a lovely taste to it actually. And it was a lovely, a lovely restaurant which I enjoyed very much, the eighteen months I worked there.

Presenter23:52

And then the call came.

Anton Edelmann23:54

That's right, and then

Presenter23:55

You were only twenty-nine and you were invited to take on your present job as head chef, Maitre des Cuisine at the Savoy.

Anton Edelmann23:56

Mm.

Presenter24:02

When you got there, was it still in the traditional rut that you'd left it in all those years earlier?

Anton Edelmann24:08

The fascinating thing I think when I came back was when I walked around the place, it was just eleven years older. It was quite staggering that anything had survived like that. And when I looked at it it it was incredible, you know, my memories came flooding back. You know, I walked into a fridge and and I remember the the shelves and it was exactly the same shelf, in exactly the same place. And the pots were still and they were the same pots, I should imagine.

Presenter24:32

But were they cooking the same food?

Anton Edelmann24:33

They were, yes. And it b this was probably the oddest things of all, because I couldn't believe what they were cooking anymore. You see, they were still cooking this sort of Canito Monmorensi, which had gone out with Nobel cuisine.

Anton Edelmann24:46

Sort of seven, eight years before

Presenter24:46

What's that duck smothered in?

Anton Edelmann24:48

in in a sort of cherry sauce, you see, with l with like you said before, lots of alcohol in it and very heavy and quite greasy. And and and there were many, many things like that. And the vegetables, I mean, the vegetables it was terrible just to see it. I mean, there were fresh vegetables, but there was

Presenter24:50

Seemed looking.

Presenter24:52

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:54

Mm.

Anton Edelmann25:03

They were hanged into water and then pulled out and

Presenter25:05

Soggy.

Anton Edelmann25:06

That's right, and then they hit the table.

Presenter25:08

How do you turn that around? How do you turn round a kitchen of a hundred chefs w without creating confusion, panic and all the things that you shouldn't have and do?

Anton Edelmann25:17

That's exactly what happened. I think I tried to change everything the first two weeks and and then after those two weeks I couldn't even remember what I wanted to change and then I remember sitting down somewhere in my office and I said to myself, We can't go on like this, what we have to do. We have to change one thing a day and that must then sit and it must be in there and they mustn't forget about it. And that's what we did after that.

Presenter25:39

Next piece of music.

Anton Edelmann25:40

Next uh piece of music is James Galway, which always reminds me of when I came back to the country the second time around the hot summer in 1976.

Speaker 225:48

A wayward wind is a restless wind.

Speaker 125:56

A restless wheel that yearns to wonder and Yeah.

Speaker 126:07

And the next time.

Speaker 126:11

The next all here

Presenter26:15

The way you were

Presenter26:18

James Galway with Sylvia and the Wayward Wind

Presenter26:22

What, um, Anton, when you escape from your desert island, what would be the first meal that you would like to eat? What would your taste buds be craving?

Anton Edelmann26:30

I think I would I would fancy um one of my mother's noodle soups, may I say that? That sounds funny, doesn't it? But I still think that you see, my mother always made her own pasta and then one of the things we used to have and sanded was a noodle soup.

Presenter26:46

And a main course?

Anton Edelmann26:48

That probably would be some sort of a nice chunky piece of turbo grilled with some asparagus.

Presenter26:53

Yeah.

Speaker 126:53

Hmm.

Anton Edelmann26:54

I think something quite sort of filling and solid and and reassuring, you know, after the escape I think you need need lots of warmth and comfort.

Presenter27:01

And would you like some pudding?

Anton Edelmann27:03

Or pudding I would go for a sample pudding or bread and butter pudding.

Presenter27:06

It is solid for the money.

Anton Edelmann27:06

That's right, I know, I know, but I'm I'm still I'm hungry now and I

Presenter27:11

Do you ever get bored with food? I mean, if if if not with think with eating it, but with thinking about it and planning it and

Anton Edelmann27:16

I think that's one sad aspect of my job. You get sort of blinkered and one drug-minded, which I'm quite worried about sometimes in in quiet moments and like when you're on holiday, you know, and all of a sudden you realize you actually read two books in a row in in in in four days and you wonder why you don't do it and because you enjoy it so much and you wonder why don't you don't do it more often at home, you see? And then you get home and then of the this sort of straight jacket of life takes over and you get pushed into it. And really, I mean, if you read two pages a night before you go to bed and then all of a sudden you you know, you wake up, the light is still on.

Presenter27:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter27:47

And do you ever dream, as so many uh top chefs in in big establishments like yours do, of opening your own restaurant?

Anton Edelmann27:56

Of course, of course I dream about that. And I think um you can't help but dream about these things.

Presenter28:02

Do you think you'll do that one day?

Anton Edelmann28:03

I will certainly try, yes. I mean, I always imagine um a sort of restaurant with rooms, like a restaurant?

Presenter28:10

Like your uncle's guest house.

Anton Edelmann28:11

In a way almost, yes. I mean the setting wouldn't be the same, of course, because out there, I mean, the setting was gorgeous, I must say. The gastros weren't necessarily the best, but the setting was gorgeous. No, I think uh um restaurant with rooms would be a delight to have and a delight to run.

Presenter28:25

Record number seven.

Anton Edelmann28:26

Record number seven is the Glarinette Concerto in A by Mozart.

Presenter28:32

Why do you want that?

Anton Edelmann28:33

I like it. I I came across that um I think about twelve years ago or something like that and uh it became part of my little collection and I listened to it quite often.

Anton Edelmann29:05

Uh

Presenter29:43

Jack Brimer playing part of Mozart's clarinet concerto in A, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham.

Presenter29:50

You've been voted recently Anton Chef of the Year by your fellow chefs. You've won gold medals all over the world, an Egon Rone, Star, a Black Clover Award in the Ackermann Guide, but no recognition from Michelin. Does that annoy you?

Anton Edelmann30:02

That annoy you. Yes and no. I mean, obviously um the Michela has got the rule that they don't give um stars or any sort of recognition uh to any kitchen which does banqueting. However, I think that's slightly unfair and I think Michelin could look more into hotels than perhaps they do. I think there's a slightly sort of anti hotel and anti

Presenter30:18

Hmm.

Anton Edelmann30:22

Perhaps I just perceive it like that, but I think our food is worth it.

Presenter30:25

Do you think you deserve one, then?

Anton Edelmann30:26

Of course I do.

Presenter30:30

What do you ask for then in your professional life? I mean, you seem to have achieved an awful lot of your dreams. What more do you want, or are you content?

Anton Edelmann30:40

Well, I suppose one is never fully content and I think it it would be a terrible day when you got up in the morning and say, Oh no, I'm content, I I suppose there's nothing left to do, might as well go back to bed and not get up.

Anton Edelmann30:50

Um no, I think there's always more. I mean, in in a place like ours, I always said when I started that if I ever should go get bored at the subway or I feel I can't contribute anything towards it anymore, then I should go. And I and I still think that's that's exactly what I will do. The moment I feel bored with it, or the moment I feel it's too much, um I think you have to go because the place is too demanding.

Presenter31:10

Can you see that day looming on the horizon?

Anton Edelmann31:12

At the moment, no. I must say I I'm I'm I'm finding it quite exciting. I enjoy myself tremendously there. I must say it's it's not just the job you always wanted, it's when you then got there and and you had the job you realized that you liked it and you enjoyed it and I think that's uh

Presenter31:25

You turned it around and you did the trick. So you're content in your professional life, you're content obviously in in your personal life, your wife and three daughters. But the most annoying thing about you of all Is that despite this life of truffles, foie gran, chocolate meal fou, you're also slim.

Anton Edelmann31:43

Well, I think that's got nothing to do with the amount of food I eat. I think it's just uh the way my body works. Um I think I'm a very lucky man there. If I told you what I've eaten this morning and then I I'll usually sit down and have lunch as well. I think most people probably don't have that kind of intake in two or three days either.

Presenter32:00

Go on, then, what have you eaten this morning?

Anton Edelmann32:01

Well, this morning I I came in and we had a problem with the croissants yesterday, so I had a croissant because the Danish looked very nice, I had one as well, and discussed it with our pastry shop, and we both found that they're very good. And then it carries on, and then we we cooked a lovely dope de beuf. And I was quite worried because we we we changed the the meat round there recently and I thought I better go and check if this is still all right. And it was terribly tender and lovely, so I thought one piece was not quite enough and the sauce was very good too, tasted lovely of red wine.

Speaker 132:19

Yeah.

Anton Edelmann32:32

I love it and enjoy eating and and and I think that's just the greatest privilege which comes with the job. It's a perk of the job, you see.

Presenter32:39

Last record.

Anton Edelmann32:40

The last segment is Hallelujah Chorus from Handis Messiah.

Anton Edelmann33:06

Lord of people praised us. For the Lord God who praised us.

Presenter33:43

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir George Schulte and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah.

Presenter33:50

So, Anton, if you could only take one of those records.

Anton Edelmann33:54

Well, I think it would have to be a Mozart, because at home my little collection exists almost entirely only in the classical sense only of Mozart. So I think I would take the clarinet concerto in A, because I think I could listen to that for a long time.

Presenter34:05

Yeah.

Presenter34:07

And your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare.

Anton Edelmann34:09

Uh the the book actually is a is a one I've read only about six months ago, and it's the The Pattern Book of the Living and Dying. It's about Buddhism and and the approach to death, which sounds terribly sad and and and but it is not. It's actually a very cheerful book.

Presenter34:23

And your luxury.

Anton Edelmann34:24

My luxury I thought would be a wok, which I'd like to take along, because you can do anything in a book. You can poach, you can steam, you can fry, uh you can do almost anything in it and I thought uh obviously it would be the tool to to give me the feeling of luxury.

Presenter34:37

But what are you going to cook in it?

Anton Edelmann34:39

Everything available, fish, seaweed, anything like that, the few vegetables or fruit there owned.

Presenter34:44

So some wok cookery as you listen to the clarinet concerto.

Anton Edelmann34:47

That's right, with a little book of uh the living and dying.

Presenter34:53

And so Nedelman, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Anton Edelmann34:57

Thank you very much.

Speaker 135:05

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.