Derek Brown

Speaker 20:00

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 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

My castaway this week is an inspector. He and his team carry out their work anonymously. Like McCavity the Mystery Cat, they come and go unannounced. Only later do the subjects of their investigations discover they've been there. Discovery can mean joy or despair, because these inspectors are from the Michelin Guide, and the stars they bestow, or indeed take away, are the most coveted in the world's restaurant trade. This gastronomic legend d'honneur is a uniquely French invention. All the more surprising then to discover that the man who presides over it is an Englishman who trained in hotel management in Bournemouth.

Presenter0:57

His appointment caused uproar in France, where it's commonly understood that the English can't cook. He dismisses such concern with appropriate English aplomb. You don't have to be German to appreciate Beethoven, he says. He is Derek Brown. Um the first thing to say, Mr Brown, is is quite personal but entirely relevant, which is that you don't look like a Michelin man. There's not lots of sort of spare tyres everywhere, which must be difficult if you eat for a living.

Derek Brown1:19

Then we have

Derek Brown1:22

Well, it it is and and one has to be very careful of one's weight and

Derek Brown1:26

To look after one's health, because it's quite a rigorous job. But good cooking doesn't necessarily make you make you fat. Eating the wrong things, I think, makes you fat. Especially.

Presenter1:33

Especially these days, because, I mean, there's less sort of Robert Carrier gallons of cream in everything.

Derek Brown1:37

Isn't that right? I mean, cooking is much more attuned to the way people want to live today, and it's probably the better for it.

Presenter1:45

It's Mediterranean oil.

Derek Brown1:46

Yeah, very much in in in the trend. And the trend of taking ideas from Asia where cooking is has generally been much less based on fat and animal animal fats and and a lot of vegetables and so on. So I think that it's much easier today actually not to put on a lot of weight. And I'm just I think I'm fortunate metabolically that I don't put a great deal of weight on, although it's I'm not so slim as I used to be.

Presenter2:08

But cholesterol speaking, lobster and foie gras, of which you must eat quite a lot, are pretty full of it, aren't they?

Derek Brown2:16

Well, yes, they are. But I mean, we don't eat lobster and and foie gras all that often. It's it's a relatively rarefied end of the restaurant business. Most restaurants across Europe offer quite often regional food, which is relatively simply prepared. We're not only looking for the the high end of the market.

Presenter2:32

No, but foie gras in France is rather more common than it is here, isn't it?

Derek Brown2:36

I think they have less cholesterol problems than we do in the UK, in fact.

Presenter2:39

Do they?

Derek Brown2:39

With with even though the vast quantities of of food that is supposed to be bad for you.

Presenter2:43

Less instance of heart disease in France, I think. Statistics.

Derek Brown2:43

Yeah.

Derek Brown2:45

In France, I think.

Presenter2:47

Is it?

Derek Brown2:48

Well, that's what they say and

Presenter2:49

So you you believe in we should drink red wine?

Derek Brown2:51

Well, I think it's very good for you, and I think if one glass is good, then two glasses have got to be better.

Presenter2:56

But tell me, memoirs of a foie gras eating man, what's the best one you've ever eaten?

Derek Brown3:01

I think it was probably the first time that I had foie gras hot, and it was absolutely delicious. I had never had anything like that before. It was I was very young as an inspector, and foie gras wasn't something that you found in England, or hardly at all, and I'd certainly never eaten it. Crisp on the outside and melting on the inside, and it was just quite extraordinary, and and

Derek Brown3:21

And revelatory, really.

Presenter3:22

And did you know at the time when you ate it all about the the force filling of the geese to swell their l' gavage?

Derek Brown3:27

To swell

Derek Brown3:28

Yes, I knew how I knew how Fogrow was made.

Presenter3:31

Yeah. And you still ate it with relish.

Derek Brown3:33

Yeah, I mean it's so delicious.

Presenter3:35

And still do. Yes. Well, there you are. Because you are now the top Michelin man if you didn't eat foie gras, I suppose.

Derek Brown3:35

Yes.

Derek Brown3:40

I I don't I'd I'd be drummed out, I think.

Presenter3:44

But apparently Figaro, when you were appointed a few years ago, two thousand, wasn't it, moved stories of Serbia off the front page and certainly it was said to be you were said to be a scandalous appoint a catastrophe.

Derek Brown3:53

Catastrophe. And uh well nobody's ever said to my face at any rate that this was a completely the wrong thing for the company to have done.

Presenter4:07

Tell me about your first record.

Derek Brown4:08

Yeah.

Derek Brown4:09

Well, the first piece of music I'd like to to have with me is some Beethoven. I think you can't go anywhere without some Beethoven. I'm going to ask to hear the the second movement of the seventh symphony, purely simply because it's one of the a beautiful lyrical piece of music and it builds up and slows down and builds up again. And I could listen to it forever, and so it'll be something that'll be played an awful lot on my desert island.

Presenter5:32

Part of the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major, played by the Vienna Philharmonica conducted by Carlos Kleiber. Of course, Derek Brown, what really happened after, what, 29 years of working for Michelin? Suddenly you're stripped of your anonymity, which had been a requirement as long as you'd been an inspector, you know, wafting into these restaurants, quietly eating alone up the corner, not making any notes. Suddenly, really, you're in the PR business, aren't you? You've got to be seen to be moving around these places.

Derek Brown6:00

I'm not necessarily recognized everywhere I go. I mean, I was in a restaurant last night in central London and I I'm I'm certain that they didn't know who I was.

Presenter6:07

But in France you're a media personality.

Presenter6:10

Amen.

Derek Brown6:10

For those people that are really that really care to try and spot who we are. But if I go to a little restaurant in Paris or even anywhere else in France, I don't think I'm necessarily recognised every time.

Presenter6:21

That, of course, as I say, is part of the profile of the inspector. What else, how would you define when you I mean, you now have to choose these inspectors, where what are you looking for? What's the definition of a good inspector?

Derek Brown6:34

Apart from the obvious criteria which we look for in that they've got experience in the hotel industry, they've been at hotel school. But they need to have all sorts of other elements. They need to be curious. They need to really enjoy travelling inevitably. To be prepared to be alone quite a lot. So desert islands m will hold less fears, I guess, for people who like me who've worked alone for a lot of our life.

Presenter6:57

Because they they're required to eat alone, are they?

Derek Brown6:59

They are almost exclusive they eat on their own.

Presenter7:01

and not make any notes.

Derek Brown7:03

No.

Derek Brown7:03

No, we don't want to we just want to be like any normal customer. A lot of people eat alone. I mean people traveling on business.

Presenter7:09

So you don't prop your paper back up and use the metaphor.

Derek Brown7:11

No, no, no, no. We try and be a little bit more discreet.

Presenter7:14

But what do you then do? Rush from the restaurant, scribble down your notes, and

Derek Brown7:18

Actually part of the training of the people who've of course naturally got to have an understanding of food, but they've also got to have a strong appreciation and an ability to analyse. So analytical qualities are quite important. And we send inspectors to restaurants and ask them to write a report about it in order that we can understand what they've understood about their experience.

Presenter7:40

I think it sounds like a really nice job. Well, even twice a day is hard work. Is it?

Derek Brown7:42

Well eating twice a day is hard work. It's physically hard work. You need to really that's part of the training, is to train them help them to train themselves to be able to do that. Because you know eating is is something we all do it, but and we do it every day, or most of us do. But to do it on a regular basis with structured meals

Presenter8:02

And to keep your palate fresh so that you can taste all those important things.

Derek Brown8:03

She said that

Derek Brown8:05

I mean, when when they get a bit if w they're away on a on a tour which usually lasts for a week and then they come back at the weekend and go go out again, they will have a break at some point in that week just simply to let the whole thing relax and get their let their palate relax and so on.

Presenter8:15

Yeah.

Presenter8:19

How many are there altogether?

Derek Brown8:21

Well over the whole of Europe we have about a hundred people that make the guide, including the text writing.

Presenter8:26

That's twelve guides, twelve different countries, is that right?

Derek Brown8:28

Well, there's there's there's seven guides physically covering twelve countries. So inspectors work from one country to another where necessary.

Presenter8:35

But just one question on that. I mean, it's possible for one inspector and one restaurant to actually build up some enmity, maybe. I mean, how how many people?

Derek Brown8:43

They only ever go once at a time. I mean, that once

Derek Brown8:46

Inspectors are given a little region of a country.

Derek Brown8:49

And that region changes every year. So they will not go back in.

Presenter8:52

So

Speaker 48:52

Uh

Presenter8:52

Yeah.

Derek Brown8:54

In general terms, they don't go back for about ten years to restaurants they've been to.

Presenter8:58

But if you're thinking of awarding a restaurant, you know, the the the big stars, the one, two, three stars in particular, do you all pile in then and do you go as well?

Derek Brown9:05

Yes, yes. It it's f over a over a period of time, inevitably, because what we're looking for is regularity and consistent effort and and consistent ability shown every time we go, every dish, every meal. If we're talking about a three-star restaurant, we've probably been to it twenty or thirty times before we finally decide on three stars over several years.

Presenter9:26

Record number two.

Derek Brown9:28

Well, this is a piece of music which takes me back to when I was quite young and sang in a big church choir. It's called Zadok the Priest, and it was always a great treat for the choir to be allowed to sing this. And we sang it, I suppose, about once a year. But of course, to sing it well, you have to practise it. So the treat was almost three months long because we practiced it perhaps once a week for quite a long time before we actually sang it. So the whole thing is an absolutely fabulous piece of music, and I couldn't go there without this.

Presenter10:53

Handel Zadok the Priest, sung by the choir of New College, Oxford, with the King's Consort conducted by Robert King, and memories of singing in the church choir, Derrick Brown, in Walton on Thames. We're interested, of course, in the development of your palate. What kinds of meals informed you as a child?

Derek Brown11:11

I can always remember being quite interested to see my mother cook and she as a treat and we're talking about in the late forties and early fifties as a treat I I used to be allowed to make peanut biscuits and they were my first culinary efforts and I was probably I don't know seven or eight or that sort of age

Presenter11:26

So no memories of loitering round the kitchen rather more than your siblings or your mates?

Derek Brown11:30

No, I don't don't think so. In fact, the kitchen was a place to avoid because you might get roped into doing something like, you know, peeling the potatoes or washing up or whatever.

Presenter11:38

So what did you want to become?

Derek Brown11:41

Well, when I was later on when I was at school and doing A levels when the choices had to be made, it was going to be the law. And in fact, part of that decision making was convincing my father that that it would be a good idea.

Presenter11:51

But why? What made you suddenly think you wanted to change?

Derek Brown11:51

But why?

Derek Brown11:54

Well, I worked in a in a in a hotel as a summer job, waiting in the bar and washing up and

Presenter11:54

Well, I've worked in a

Derek Brown12:02

hoovering the restaurant and all all sorts of jobs and you know, well, take this into the restaurant, go and put a a white shirt on and you can wait tonight'cause the waiters haven't all turned up or whatever. So I did lots of I was the dog's body and did lots of lots of little jobs and enjoyed it.

Presenter12:14

So it was hotel management that you were really attracted to.

Derek Brown12:16

Yes, and that's then

Derek Brown12:18

But knowing that in those days certainly that the way into hotel management was was to learn the ropes right the way through, which is I think in in s in many cases still true today. But it was particularly true then. You really needed to have done

Speaker 412:25

Yeah.

Derek Brown12:31

It worked your way through the th through the piece.

Presenter12:33

So when you went to catering school in Bournemouth, having persuaded your father this is what you should do, was the emphasis more on hotel management than on anything gastronomic?

Derek Brown12:42

Well, it was a it was a hotel management course, a four-year course, but the first two years were spent in learning to cook and learning how a restaurant was run, um, with other subjects in between. But we we did everything in the kitchen. We had a whole afternoon in the pastry department and another afternoon in the in the garde department, which is preparing all the food before it goes into the kitchen for the first time.

Presenter13:01

You won a cookery prize, then?

Derek Brown13:03

Well I did actually, I see in the last year I was there I was given the prize for the best student in in cookery.

Presenter13:10

What was your plierse de resistance?

Derek Brown13:10

What was your pleasure?

Derek Brown13:11

I was best at what is called the sauce cooking, which is really the preparation of dishes with meat and sauce or fish and sauce in some cases as well.

Derek Brown13:19

I I in in the days when I learnt to cook, of course, a lot of sources in those days were flour based. That's almost not true anymore today. I doubt there are very many people unless they're cooking really classic Lyonnais type cooking, perhaps where

Speaker 213:24

Yeah.

Derek Brown13:33

Bechamel sauces which are milk and flour and and and butter. Very rich and very heavy. Now that cooking is almost no longer done. There are a few classic restaurants still in France that do it and people love it. I mean the restaurants are always full. So it's not completely died and thank goodness for it because it's the basis of much of the cooking of today. It's just that the the very talented cooks in the in the seventies and eighties started lightening the cooking up for the modern world.

Presenter13:58

But age twenty you could knock up a good bechamel then.

Derek Brown14:01

Yeah, I was quite I was I was reasonably reasonably adept in the kitchen because I enjoyed doing it and I didn't know that I was going to enjoy doing it before I started. I think that was the thing. I there was some people have this great

Presenter14:06

Yeah.

Derek Brown14:14

Great need, and many of the great cooks, you know, knew they wanted to cook from the time they were twelve. That that didn't happen to me, but I learnt suddenly what an enjoyable thing it could be. Don't get the time now, unfortunately.

Presenter14:17

Brad

Presenter14:25

Echo number three.

Derek Brown14:26

Well, this is a piece of I suppose it shows my age. This is very much at the time when I was just leaving school, just going to hotel school after A levels, and it's a piece of The Beatles. It's their first hit. I think Love Me Do.

Speaker 414:40

I'm one to love.

Speaker 414:43

Someone like you

Speaker 414:46

Love, love, me do.

Speaker 414:49

You know I love you.

Speaker 414:52

I've always been true.

Speaker 414:56

So please

Speaker 415:00

Love me too.

Speaker 415:03

Uh

Presenter15:08

The Beatles and Love Me Do. Now, one of your holiday jobs, I gather, Derrick Brown, was cooking for an airline. Which one and what did you cook?

Derek Brown15:16

Well, I worked for an airline catering company who had various contracts, and one of the contracts that I worked on was a breakfast flight for Alitalia. The job was to

Derek Brown15:28

make eighty omelets that had to be delivered to the plane only fifteen minutes before the plane left or whatever the time scale was, but it was a very short time scale. And we had less than half an hour to make all these omelets. And

Presenter15:41

With real eggs?

Derek Brown15:42

It was real eggs, properly made. It was none of the powdered stuff. It was really eggs.

Presenter15:45

It'd still be flat and leathery by the time they got to the

Derek Brown15:47

Well, if you if you cook an omelet carefully it can it can last quite a long time and and leaving them undercooked meant that when they heated them up in the in the old ovens that they use in in plains in those days, um they weren't perhaps too literal, although I doubt they were as good as they could have been to the others.

Presenter15:48

Actually,

Presenter16:02

So then you went off to um Austria, didn't you, to learn German and you were a wine waiter and presumably fell in love with Tafel Spitz and Kaiser Schmarn and all those things and ate all of that.

Derek Brown16:11

Yes, absolutely.

Derek Brown16:13

Ate all of that.

Presenter16:14

Then came back to this country and worked in hotels here. You gonna tell us which ones?

Derek Brown16:18

I started off straight from hotel school as a management trainee for a year.

Derek Brown16:22

In a big hotel at London Airport, the Excelsior Hotel.

Derek Brown16:26

And then I think it was it was of very high order.

Derek Brown16:30

But cooking has moved on so much in that time that we probably wouldn't recognize it today as being the good cooking that is now acceptable today.

Speaker 216:37

So

Derek Brown16:39

And it's very interesting if you look in and I do it from time to time look in a a guide of ten years ago and see the specialities that some of the top restaurants are cooking. They're cooking completely different dishes today from the things that they were cooking ten years ago. Like what? Give me some examples. Well, they've taken influences from from other parts of the world. There's I mean with there's carpaccios of everything available today, aren't there? Some of it shouldn't be done. But which one should?

Presenter16:51

Like what? Give me some examples.

Presenter16:59

Some of the

Presenter17:01

Which one shouldn't be done? Steak and tuna.

Derek Brown17:02

Well steak and tuna. Yeah, that works. But for me, longusteen doesn't work.

Derek Brown17:08

A long gusti needs to be cooked to bring the flavour out of it.

Speaker 417:11

And

Derek Brown17:11

And I've had Capaccio Vlongostine many times hoping one day that one of them's going to taste of something, and it hasn't yet worked, even in the best restaurants.

Presenter17:21

You ran a restaurant yourself near Salisbury once, didn't you?

Derek Brown17:23

Yes, I did. What was it like? Well, I think it was again, it was classic French food at the time. As a management experience, it was an extremely interesting one. And and inevitably I cooked in there as well. And that was so I never really got away from cooking. And when when I finally started working in Michelin, it was still relatively fresh for me.

Presenter17:42

Because you were flicking through a magazine one day. How old were you? You were

Derek Brown17:45

I was twenty seven.

Presenter17:47

Saw this advert for the Michlan job and it was a fit, really, wasn't it?

Derek Brown17:51

You know, you look at some things, you think, That's the job for me and that sounds just the sort of thing I'd like to do and just the sort of it absolutely there's no nothing that jars. And I had the experiences that they were asking for, and I'd worked abroad and I spoke German. And

Derek Brown18:09

I was taken out to a restaurant and I wrote my report without being even given any guidance on how to write it.

Derek Brown18:15

which we still do today. And I obviously what I wrote must have been intelligent enough to be considered. And so it just went on from there. And I I didn't really have any view as to how long I would do this job, because it was for me part of the learning process of one day becoming the director of a large London hotel, which was somewhere in my thinking.

Presenter18:34

Thirty-two years later you're still

Derek Brown18:35

Still there.

Presenter18:37

Tell me about your next record, what is it?

Derek Brown18:39

Well, can't be without a violin concerto, and Brooks is probably the most famous and the most beautiful piece of a violin concerto that I've ever listened to. I've m th I'm sure I've missed some beautiful ones, but this is such a wonderful thing that I couldn't be without this.

Presenter19:55

The opening of the last movement of Bruch's Violin Concerto in G minor, played by Igor Oustrach and the Royal Philharmonic, conducted by David Oustrach. So you became head of the UK Michelange in 1974. Eventually, I think it began to take off, didn't it? So many s restaurants you must have visited then across the UK. What was your strangest experience in one?

Derek Brown20:17

Well, I I mean there were there were numerous strange ones because when we started of course we had to go everywhere to find out the the ones that we could recommend. I remember one one

Presenter20:23

What?

Derek Brown20:28

occasion when we went to a restaurant I went with a colleague it was in the suburbs of London and when we got there the restaurant was closed. So we walked around a little bit and found a side door and and knocked on the door. Finally somebody came and it was quite evidently the lady who was cleaning the place because she had the hoover and all her paraphernalia around.

Derek Brown20:47

And we looked at the menu and it

Derek Brown20:49

Didn't look very interesting, but anyway. She then came back later and said, Um well, I'll take your order because the waiter hasn't come.

Derek Brown20:57

Bless her We said, Well, we'd like this, this, and this and and she came back in a little while. He said, Well, no, you can't have that'cause they haven't got any of that and what you can have is so we had what we could have, which I seem to remember being pate and the roast of the day. Well, I I suppose the best way to describe it it it looked rather like an enormous boot.

Derek Brown21:14

But it'd been

Derek Brown21:16

deep fried, and it turned out to be a piece of beef.

Derek Brown21:20

that he had deep-fried in order to cook it, was running with grease, as you can imagine.

Speaker 421:24

was running

Speaker 221:24

Anyway

Derek Brown21:26

with deep-fried roast potatoes and carrots which were half cooked. So we paid our bill and we said we've come because you asked us to we're from the Michelin Guide. He said Oh

Derek Brown21:39

I'm not open.

Derek Brown21:41

And we said, but we've just had lunch and we just paid you. No, no, no, no, you don't understand. The chef couldn't come in today, so we're not really open. I just did this because we had some bookings.

Derek Brown21:50

So in fact we we we because we're reasonable people we went back again when it was already uh when it was supposed to be running normally in the evening and it was no better. So in fact uh w the the restaurant never got into the guy.

Presenter21:57

And the Eve

Presenter22:00

The the restaurant.

Presenter22:02

But I wonder if it illustrates something. Do you think in this country there's there's something of a naivety about opening restaurants, that people do think it's something they can turn their hand to. Perhaps even sometimes as they're nearing retirement, they think it'd be a nice thing to do and they've always put a good meal on the table.

Derek Brown22:18

Hm. That happened quite a lot in the eighties.

Presenter22:21

Less now.

Derek Brown22:22

Less now, I think, because it's A it's a very expensive thing to do now. Property is so expensive and loans are expensive and finding the good staff is an expensive.

Presenter22:31

But also recognition that people now require better food.

Derek Brown22:34

Yes, people won't accept today the mediocrity that they once accepted and paid for.

Presenter22:39

So we're we're we're getting better, are we? Uh you know, you get what you de society gets the restaurants it demands, you think?

Derek Brown22:45

Absolutely. And and good restaurants can't operate without customers, clearly. The French spend much more and and British people are much more reluctant to spend money on food, and that's why there aren't as many good restaurants, which is why, because there aren't as many, they're more expensive than they probably need to be if they had more customers. I've often thought that it needs somebody to bite the bullet and open a restaurant and serve good food at at really the prices that people can genuinely afford without turnover. I mean, all the great

Speaker 222:54

And he could rest.

Presenter23:10

Go for turnover.

Derek Brown23:14

Retail businesses in the world started off with pile em high and sell em cheap and sell lots of'em.

Presenter23:19

As long as they're good, they'll sell it.

Derek Brown23:21

But providing at the very top level.

Presenter23:26

Next piece of music.

Derek Brown23:28

Well, can't be away without some singers. So an early piece of Bing Crosby when he was singing with the Tommy Dorsey band and I've Got the World on a String is one of many that I've enjoyed.

Speaker 423:40

I've got the world on a string.

Speaker 423:44

Sitting on a rainbow.

Speaker 423:48

Got the string around my finger.

Derek Brown23:49

And

Speaker 423:54

What a world.

Derek Brown23:54

What a world.

Speaker 423:56

What a life I'm in love.

Presenter24:04

I've Got the World on a String sung by Bing Crosby with the Tommy Dorsey band. Um the Michonne Guide, of course, stands accused of being tyrannical, does it not, mister Brown, as far as the high end of the market is concerned, of demanding this kind of

Presenter24:18

Gastronomic, as we say, Academy Française standards. How do you answer that charge that you're demanding?

Presenter24:26

Unnecessary complexity and perfection you're being prescriptive.

Derek Brown24:30

It really doesn't have any basis in fact and and any basis in the way we work. We have never, ever.

Derek Brown24:37

Said to anybody what they've got to do.

Derek Brown24:40

All we are is observers of what people do. We have never ever given them any advice. That's not our job. We are not consultants to the industry.

Presenter24:50

So you said you've never said you've got to serve lots of little amuse bouches before you've got to do some pre-desert, some pre-starters.'Cause you can go to some restaurants and, you know, eat two meals in one go, can't you?

Derek Brown24:57

Cause you can't

Derek Brown25:01

I've been many times, I'm sure you have to restaurants, where by the time the main course comes, you're not hungry anymore.

Derek Brown25:06

And that's misunderstanding how to serve a good meal.

Presenter25:10

But then, you know, you get people like famously Nico Ladonier and Marco Pierwhite giving you back the star, suddenly saying we want to be let off this kind of rigorous treadmill that you set us on to.

Derek Brown25:23

Well, they set themselves on it. I mean nobody has ever been kidnapped into accepting three stars. They choose to work at that level themselves. People who are paying quite a lot of money to go in to to eat that kind of food

Derek Brown25:35

themselves demand a certain level of comfort and degree of ease at the table. And a quality of service, which means you've got to have quite a lot of people, which is expensive, in surroundings which are relatively spacious, so that they're not listening to the conversation or suffering from the cigarette smoke of the people next door, and so on.

Derek Brown25:53

So the restaurateurs themselves, and many of the restaurateurs are the cooks in the restaurant, which has not always been the case, of course, in the past. They themselves have said, Well, we're going to give our customers all this comfort and this beautiful style, and I think I'm going to be better than the chap next door who's got three stars, so I'm going to get the latest designer to come and design my restaurant. So there's a great deal of competition amongst themselves. The other element I think that needs to be taken into account is that these people cooking at that very high level are themselves great artists. So they create for themselves this theatre that they work in.

Presenter26:27

Sure, I see all that. But if then Nico and Marco say, keep your stars, mister Michelin, we don't want them. We want to be free to cook what we want to cook, not to have to live up to your very, very precise standards.

Derek Brown26:41

That then

Presenter26:42

And what's more, we can do it cheaper without you, they say.

Derek Brown26:44

Well, and of course that's I mean, you can't give back what you don't own.

Derek Brown26:49

The stars are given for those people that are doing a certain quality of cooking at a certain time and doing it regularly. It's what's happening on the plate, as we say.

Presenter26:59

But what about the point that if they free from your standards they can

Derek Brown27:00

They're not our standards, they're their standards. They they have they just decided they didn't want to cook like that anymore. They're perfectly at liberty to do that. Nobody has to be in the guide. They're all given the choice of whether they go into the guide or not.

Derek Brown27:16

And none of them have to accept a star.

Presenter27:19

And it's all good publicity for you.

Derek Brown27:21

If it settles a guide or two, why?

Presenter27:23

Record number six.

Derek Brown27:26

Well, we we can't have one without the other. Frank Sinatra, again part of the period that I grew up in, a wonderful performer, a wonderful singer. His interpretation of music is is is unique, I think, and and the way he sings is unique. So Blue Moon by Frank Sinatra.

Speaker 427:44

I heard somebody whisper, Please adore me And when I looked to the moon, it turned to gold, Blue Moon, Now I'm no longer alone

Speaker 428:00

Without a dream in my heart

Speaker 428:03

Without a love of my own

Presenter28:11

Banksonata and Blue Moon. You live in France these days, Mr. Run in Paris?

Derek Brown28:16

Yeah.

Presenter28:17

Near the Tourifelle.

Derek Brown28:18

Yep.

Presenter28:19

Uh you speak fluent French?

Derek Brown28:20

Yes, I have to speak French to do the job, yeah.

Presenter28:22

How many nights a week do you eat out?

Derek Brown28:24

I suppose on average throughout the year it must be

Derek Brown28:27

Three or four, probably four meals a week on average.

Presenter28:30

And your wife doesn't always join you, I read.

Derek Brown28:33

Hardly ever for for when I'm working.

Presenter28:35

Why not?

Derek Brown28:35

Why not?

Presenter28:37

She had enough of all this gastronomic eating.

Derek Brown28:40

That or point, and and she's not as comfortable in highly gastronomic restaurants as all that, because she professes not to know actually she's a very good cook and uh as I keep saying. What does she cook? Oh, all sorts of things, and she uses good product and and and fresh product, and that's you know, readily available very near to where we live, so that's that's very good. Corner

Presenter29:01

There are more shops really in Paris than there are in London.

Derek Brown29:03

Far more, far more. And individual shops, I mean there are still fruiterers and veget you know vegetable shops, there are still lots of little butchers and so

Presenter29:10

Good butchers.

Presenter29:12

But those shops have gone on surviving. They haven't been subsumed by supermarkets. But that's again because the customers are there.

Derek Brown29:18

Absolutely. That's right. And I think that if it's happened in the UK, as it seems to me largely to have done, it's because the customers are prepared to buy what the great supermarket chains are are offering, which of course has improved enormously in itself from years ago.

Presenter29:19

It's the demand.

Derek Brown29:33

In France, f f the the the food is so much more part of and an important part of their life and their culture. It's very much an artisan business in France. Grandfather started the restaurant.

Derek Brown29:45

Son worked in the restaurant, you know, grandson now runs the restaurant, and his son is away training because he's going to take over in n years' time.

Presenter29:53

And they know all the people in the town who also come in, you know, or all the workmen for lunch or whatever.

Derek Brown29:56

They were all at school together and I'm I'm I'm a cook and you're the plumber and he's the baker and and so that that whole tradition is is is is has been going on for m for so long. And it's a rare thing to find in in in in the UK, to find a second generation restaurant. It's very much a middle class function running a restaurant in this country.

Presenter30:19

But it may be about to happen, you never know.

Derek Brown30:21

I I hope it does because the the the more restaurants there are the more choice people have and and and maybe more people will be able to go to restaurants because if there are all restaurants there will be more competition and restaurants will have to be cheaper.

Presenter30:32

I'm all for it, record number seven.

Derek Brown30:34

Well, this is again uh another uh wonderful voice, Andrea Bocelli, who is such a marvellous tenor, singing a piece of a wonderful piece of of of music, not from not one of the great arias, but just simple but but at the same time

Derek Brown30:52

Beautifully, beautifully figured and beautifully sung by Andrea Bocelli.

Derek Brown30:56

Canto de la Terre.

Speaker 430:57

What a dark crystal hell!

Speaker 431:00

Erke range pernoy autorci.

Presenter31:26

Andrea Bocelli and Canto della Terra. So we um prepare to banish you to a desert island, Eric. A condemned man is allowed a last meal, three courses uh in your case, I think. What should it be?

Derek Brown31:38

Well, I'm a great fan of seafood, so I think I would like to start with some longusteen. But not.

Presenter31:45

But not Carpatio.

Derek Brown31:46

Not cupeth shield magic. No, they they'll need to be cooked. So that to start with. And I think as a main course just a plain roasted partridge with gravy and bread sauce and game chips. And for pudding,

Presenter32:03

The juices are running here. I'm getting a little bit of a drink.

Derek Brown32:04

I'll relive that meal, I think, as I'm sitting on the island. I think.

Derek Brown32:10

A rhubarb crumble

Presenter32:12

This is all very English. Well, not not the start of it.

Derek Brown32:15

Well, crumble is terribly, terribly, terribly smart in France these days. Oh yes, crumble's ev served everywhere. And they call it crumble. So uh

Presenter32:18

Is it

Derek Brown32:25

But essentially the same thing. It's essentially exactly the same thing. And rhubarb's a great favourite of mine. And I think I'd have to have with it a really well-made.

Presenter32:25

But essentially the same thing.

Presenter32:29

And I think

Derek Brown32:34

Italian

Derek Brown32:35

Vanilla ice cream.

Presenter32:36

We'll give you one bottle of wine to go with all of that. Which one's going to run through the whole lot?

Derek Brown32:40

Well, now one bottle of wine for a meal like that.

Derek Brown32:43

It'll have to be read. I think a a Pomerole, any one of the good shadows of Pomerole will do, and one of the good years. So I'll I'll leave that to you.

Presenter32:52

Okay, last record.

Derek Brown32:55

Well, this is a this is a sea shanty, and it's a wonderful piece of music, rich and very evocative. And since I'm going to be sitting on with this with the sea, presumably lapping up my feet on my design, and this is a sea shanty, it'll go together with it.

Speaker 433:38

Oh yeah, yeah.

Presenter34:07

That was Stephen Varko with the joyful company of singers and the City of London Sinfonia conducted by Richard Hickox with Percy Granger's Shallow Brown. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Derek, which one would you take?

Derek Brown34:21

Difficult, isn't it? I'd have to take the Beethoven, I think.

Presenter34:25

Symphony number seven.

Derek Brown34:26

Yeah.

Presenter34:27

Okay. And what about your book? You've got the Bible, you've got the complete works of Shakespeare?

Derek Brown34:31

Pickwick Papers.

Presenter34:33

Okay.

Derek Brown34:34

'Cause I've read it and reread it and reread it and every time I read it they read something else in it. So I'd I'd love that.

Presenter34:40

Annual luxury.

Derek Brown34:41

Well, my wife mocks me every time we ever go near a beach when I saying that I make such a fuss about sitting on the sand. So I thought that what I would like to have is a steamer chair.

Derek Brown34:53

So that I didn't have to sit on the sand and I could

Derek Brown34:56

rememb s lie in this chair and remembering all all the meals that I've had and all the meals that I'm going to have when I get off the island eventually, if that ever happens, and I can listen to my music in some sort of comfort.

Presenter35:07

Derek Brown, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Derek Brown35:10

Thank you for asking, it's a great honour.

Speaker 235:19

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